The Western District Car Club conducted its first Cooper Memorial Trial on November 16, 1957. It had previously been known as the Grampians Trial. Several early editions also ran up into the Grampians.
The event was named after John Cooper, an early member of the club who died when his Jaguar XK120 rolled at the club’s Nash Park racetrack.
Unlike it’s sibling, the Otway Trial, the Cooper Memorial Trial ranged over different areas although it was predominantly conducted to the west of the club’s Geelong base, often in the areas to the south and west of Ballarat. It ran as an open event until its inclusion in the Victorian Trials Championship in 1965. It was a round of the state championship until 1972, an event that attracted undue attention from authorities due to its competitive use of the Great Ocean Road!
It was dropped from the VRC but after a couple of years as an open event it was included in the Victorian Clubman Series and briefly, in 1976, as a round of the VRC, although called the Eclipse Motors Rally.
After being part of the Western Regions Series in the early 1980s, it fell off the calendar for six years, but returned to that series in 1992 then became part of the VCRS in 1996, and the VRC for just one year in 2000. After another break of nine years it returned to the VCRS in 2010. Having moved predominantly to the Wombat Forest, it suffered a number of cancellations due to wet weather. In 2017 the event moved to the Powelltown region, and subsequently was effectively renamed the Ada River Rally.
Our records of the Cooper Memorial summarised below are incomplete. If you can fill any gaps or have any corrections, please let us know.
