2017 Victorian Club Rally Championship

The 2017 Victorian Club Rally Championship was won by Cary Seabrook and Rhiannon Philpot-Hale who also won the 2WD and Class D championships. Matt Lee and Annie Dougherty were second. Third were Aidan O’Halloran and Leonie Clark, who weren’t part of the same crew. The Champion Club award was won by HRA on 2,295 points, only 35 points ahead of NCCA in second on 2,260. CCRMIT were third on 1,517.

Other awards were:

Novice and Class E: Driver – Stephen Lane, Navigator – Steph Vella

See below for Senior and Junior Cup and Class awards.

To see what else happened during 2017 in Victorian rallying, go to the 2017 year page.

To see other years of the Victorian Club Rally Championship, go to the VCRS page.

Series Regulations

These were specified in the VCRS Regulations, which were substantially the same as previous years except that points would now be allocated for the first 20 places rather than just the first 10.

The VCRS was made up exclusively of Special Stage events with competitive distances ideally between 100 and 160 km. Some rounds were “stand alone” events and others piggy-backed on a Victorian Rally Championship round. Where run in conjunction with a VRC event, the VCRS course was always shorter, typically by excluding the last special stage of the VRC event.

Pace noting was not permitted. For “stand alone” rounds, A-B timing was used and some night time running was encouraged. Using driver state seedings to determine the start order was introduced this year.

Eligible vehicles were PRC, Group N, Historic Rally Cars, Classic Rally Cars, Club Rally Cars and Cross Country Cars.  There were also five classes based on engine capacity.

To be eligible for points, both crew members had to be a member of one of the clubs participating in the series although that list includes most car club active in rallying in Victoria . The clubs were BLCC, CCRMIT, CerbCC, FFCC, HRA, KCC, MUCC, MMSC, NECC, NCCA, PAC and WDDC. Awards were made for outright champions, 2WD, Junior Cup, Senior Cup, Novice and for each class. In addition, an overall “Champion Club” award was made to the most successful club in the series.

For the individual awards, points allocated were 30-25-22-20-18-16-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for first to tenth.  Crews were automatically registered for points from the first event they competed in that year but could “opt out”.  However, new registrations weren’t accepted after 50% of the year’s events had been run. With six rounds for the year, one event was dropped in determining series results.

For the Champion Club award, 1st outright was allocated 70 points, 2nd 69 points, 3rd 68 points, etc down to one point for 70th if there were sufficient finishers. Each club then scored the points allocated to the top 3 drivers and top 3 navigators who were members of and had nominated that club.

Events

There were 6 VCRS events in 2017. Click on the event for more details.

  1. Cooper Memorial Rally (WDCC)
  2. Daryl Tunbridge Trial (BLCC)
  3. Nissan Nightmoves (NCCA)
  4. Spring 200 (sub-event of Marysville Stages) (FFCC)
  5. South-West Stages (SEAC)
  6. Autumn Midnight Rally (CCRMIT)

Points Tables

Class and Other Awards

Junior Cup: Driver – Stephen Eccles and Matt Jones equal, Navigator – Steph Vella

Senior Cup: Driver – Colin Sichlau, Navigator – Jenny Pollock

Class A: Driver – Michael Trucano, Navigator – Heli Thaw (Datsun Sunny)

Class B: Driver – Brian Newton, Navigator – Tim Watson (Honda Civic)

Class C: Driver – Tim Clark, Navigator – Leonie Clark (VW Golf)

Class E: Driver – Aiden O’Halloran, Navigator – Annie Dougherty