After a dominant display in Heat 1 where the pair won every stage in their Skoda Fabia R5, they continued that run in Heat 2 until a puncture allowed Harry Bates and Coral Taylor to take the lead.

The Toyota GR Yaris Rally 2 crew won the last three stages which included the Power Stage, and top Heat 2 by 14.7s. Second for Pedder and Macneall was sufficient to win Round 3 overall.

“It’s a lot of relief, to be honest and ten years in the making,” Pedder said.

“We knew we had the pace; we’ve just been unlucky for the first two event. But it came together over the last two days thanks to some luck we had with other competitors bombing out, but it feels fantastic.

“I started the year saying if you finished every heat and you’re relatively conservative you can win the Championship. With the points system the way it is, you can’t afford to drop heats, and that’s the plan moving forward. You’ve just got to finish.”

Second for the round were Eddie Maguire and Zak Brakey who were third in Heat 2, while teammates Steve Maguire and Ben Searcy made it an all-Skoda podium after they finished the day fifth.

Production Cup honours and fourth overall went to Clayton Hoy and Andrew Bennett (Mitsubishi Evo 6) who were sixth on Sunday. They finished with Jamie Luff and Brad Luff after the brothers had consistent sixths in both heats.

“Today didn’t go perfectly either, but we’ve still salvaged a reasonable result out of it,” said Bates after he crashed out of Heat 1 and won Heat2.

“It’s really tight now between Scott and I, so it’s exciting at the halfway point in the season, and I knew that it was going to come down to some pretty tight battles between he and I.

“I think today was probably the first day where we both actually had a reasonable enough run to be able to fight it out. I think we’re going to have plenty of them as the season progresses.”

Sharing seventh for the weekend were Peter Rullo and James Marquet (Hyundai i20) with Ryan Williams and Brad Jones (Subaru Impreza WRX STi) who were second in Production Cup after contenders Molly Taylor and Andy Sarandis (WRX) retired with a broken driveshaft.

Peter Dimmock and Paul Bennett took the 2WD Classic Cup victory, while Justin Northage and Scott Muhling won 2WD Cup and Mitch Garrad and Taylah Murphy topped Junior Cup.

The Australia Rally Championship’s next round will be in Victoria, with The Middle of Everywhere Gippsland Rally on August 9-11.