The dominance of Honda’s Eli Evans continues after winning Heat 1 of Rally Victoria – the final round of the East Coast Bullbars Australian Rally Championship.

Despite extremely slippery conditions due to torrential rain in the South Gippsland region the Honda driver was able to hold off a hard-charging Brendan Reeves to win the day by 3.2s.

Evans also won the morning’s Pedders Power Stage which caught out the Mazda of Reeves who collided with a pole during the opening, mud-clad test.

Renault Sport Rally Team’s Tom Wilde took out third for the Heat as he continues his strong podium form in the ARC.

Rally Victoria was yet another unfortunate affair for Renault front runner Scott Pedder who left the road seven kilometres into the opening Ada River stage.

Pedder suffered from a steering failure which saw his Clio R3 become beached on the side of the wet and muddy stage fringe.

Also lucky to escape without damage was veteran rally driver Neal Bates aboard his Toyota Celica RA40 who left the road on the very first corner of the event and careered into a section of small trees.

Remarkably the historic Celica held its own and Bates was able to power on, albeit some 5m11.1s behind the classic category leader Ben Barker and his BMW 320is.

Tomorrow’s second and final ARC Heat for the year will see a hotly contested 143.2km of competitive stage action through the Baw Baw forest region.

Heat 1 Result