The 2013 Rally Victoria was organised by the Cerberus Car Club and was conducted on Friday and Saturday November 15 and 16. It was the fourth edition of Rally Victoria organised by the club.
Australian Rally Championship Round 6
Victorian Rally Championship Round 4
Conducted over the Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, Rally Victoria was a pace noted event held around the forests of Powelltown with the base and service park at Lardner Park south of Drouin where the final super special stage was located. Only Saturday’s competition constituted the VRC round.
The ARC Round was won by Eli Evans and Glen Weston in a Honda Jazz, winning both heats. This secured the national title for them. It was the twelfth consecutive ARC round win for Evans.
Brendan Reeves, in the rallyschool.com.au Mazda2, pressured Evans all weekend. Reeves was within striking distance heading into this afternoon’s closing forest stages but struck a rear puncture with eight kilometres to run on Limberlost stage.
Third place for the day went down to the absolute wire with Glen Raymond holding the smallest of leads heading into the final 2.3km Lardner Park stage over Renault’s Tom Wilde. While Raymond started the stage with a 0.6 second lead he would be out gunned by the front-wheel drive Renault of Wilde who leapt ahead and finished the Heat in third 4.8 seconds up. The result this weekend pushes Wilde ahead of his Renault team mate Scott Pedder to claim second outright in the Championship behind Evans.
Massive disappointment for both Pedder brothers, with Mark Pedder stopping his Honda with a broken throttle cable, while for the second day running Scott Pedder found himself stranded on the roadside with a broken control arm after clipping a rock.
In the 4WD National series John Mitchell continued his fine form to claim the day ahead of a hard-charging Ritchie Dalton, the Irishman securing enough points against his primary challengers Mike Bailey and Mick Harding to take second in the points.
The Classics produced some of the best action of the weekend with ARC returnee Ben Barker providing plenty of spectacular sideways action in his BMW 320is, until his gearbox expired, allowing Neal Bates to comfortably lead home the field.
The VRC Round was won by Tristan Penhall and Jolie Middleton in a Subaru Impreza WRX STi, taking out both heats.
