The Australian Rally Championship was inaugurated in 1968 and comprised events from each state. Victoria has hosted one, and sometimes two or three rounds of the ARC in most years. In the early years many events had considerable navigational content, often favouring local crews. By the mid 1970s navigation had largely disappeared and by 1980 all rounds were special stage events timed to the second. A growing number of events started to allow pace noting. From 1993 to 1996 the series used a coefficient system and included state championship events and Rally Australia. In 1997 the series moved to a mostly dual heat format and all events were pace noted. From 2003 timing was to the tenth of a second as events became shorter and more intense.

The ARC was originally limited to vehicles complying with CAMS Group C Touring Car regulations but in 1977 this was relaxed to include the more heavily modified Group G cars. In 1982 FIA Group A was introduced and from 1983 Group A, together with PRC (the Australian equivalent) ran in parallel with Group G for four years, with some interesting outcomes! From 1987 the ARC had fully adopted FIA Group A and CAMS PRC, with Group N being added in 1990.  Four wheel drive cars came to dominate the series. Towards the end of the decade, two WRC cars dominated the series in the hands of Possum Bourne and Neal Bates. But from 2002 the series basically adopted Group N and later S2000. With manufacturer support waning, the ARC adopted a 2WD formula from 2012 to 2015 (mostly based in CAMS Group G2), before reverting to a wider range of classes including Australian PRC, G2/4, Classic and later AP4, and FIA Groups N, S2000 and R5/Rally2. 

The original ARC scoring was 9-6-4-3-2-1 for the first six (eligible) placing in each round. The scoring was changed to 20-15-12-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 in 1981, but still for each complete round. For several years when Group G was running in parallel with PRC/Group A, points were awarded to both vehicle categories with bonus points for the top four outright placegetters. In the 1990s there were several years where crews could also gain half points for placings in a limited number of state championship events. A more complex scoring system was introduced some years later, awarding points from 40 down to 1 for the top 20 places in each heat of a round, with various loadings, bonuses and power stage points.

Tom Snooks has written a detailed history of the ARC from 1968 to 1988 inclusive. You can read it here. We have provided links to Tom’s coverage from our pages.