The Boisdale Rallysprint, organised by the Historic Rally Association and directed by Graham Wallis, was held on 20 January 2024 at the Maffra Car Club hillclimb facility, near Boisdale.
Competitors gathered on a cloudy but warm day. The event comprised 2 courses. Each started using the hillclimb track, then used tracks on the adjacent bush and finished with a course through the parking area west of the hillclimb track. The first course was 2.18 km and the second 1.91 km. The hillclimb track was a hard gravel surface with plenty of loose pebbles whereas the forest tracks were more sandy but included a few places with water and mud. It was intended that 3 runs be held on each stage but delays early in the day meant there were only 2 runs of stage 1, so five runs in total.
The three 4wd cars were almost unbeatable by 2wd vehicles and filled the first three places, with Tom Johannesen and Peter Johannesen 1st in a Subaru WRX. Equal 4th and first 2wd were a father and son, Marc Challis and Archie Challis, competing in the same car, a Nissan Pulsar. It was quite remarkable that each driver had the same total time after 5 stages.
Among other crews, Michael Bansagi set good times on the first 2 runs in his “new” (ex Graeme Pate) Datsun 180B but broke a half shaft on the third run. Derek McLaughlin and his son Dean competed in Derek’s new and significant purchase, the ex George Fury Datsun 120Y.
