Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin have claimed victory at the Adelaide Hills Rally after two days of action across the South Australian hills, adding a haul of points to their 2024 Bosch Motorsport Australia Rally Championship (ARC) tally.
The Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia pair snagged their first heat and round victory of the year, beating out Harry Bates and Coral Taylor to make it a third consecutive win in South Australia.
View the day’s results at the Subaru Results Hub.
Pedders Suspension & Brakes’ Scott Pedder and Glenn Macneall started their day in the same fashion as they did on Saturday, making a confident start on Stage Nine to take the first stage win of the day ahead of Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin.
Pedder’s progress was thwarted on SS10, with an impact on the Meadows stage leaving the team with a bent right rear wheel to contend as they willed their Skoda across the line. Despite finishing the stage, Pedder and Macneall retired early to Service before rejoining ahead of Stage 12.
Pedder’s misfortune was to Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia’s advantage, with the Bates brothers trading places across the morning’s stages to lock up first and second position at the midday break.
Harry Bates and Coral Taylor initially looked to have the measure of their teammates, winning Stages 10 and 11 – however, the tables turned as Lewis went on to take the subsequent three stages before a service break.
“Super stoked with this whole weekend to be honest with you. Anthony and I felt at one with the car the whole weekend and we’ve had some pretty good pace,” Bates said.
“I think that’s something that both Anthony and I can be really proud of, I think we managed our pace really well and pushed when we had to – I think overall we had the pace on the weekend.
“Well done to Harry and Coral, they had a tough weekend, but awesome weekend for the team.”
There were plenty of spills across the field, with Tony Sullens and Kaylie Newell forced to retire their Peugeot 208 AP4 after veering off in SS10 and the pair were unable to repair the damage from the impact.
Notably in the ARC Junior Cup stakes, Molly Spalding and Matthew Dillion were also forced to retire after sustaining mechanical damage from an impact on SS13.
Jaidyn and Lucy Gluskie were able to nab the Junior Cup win from Mitch Garrad and Taylah Murphy, the pair recording a consistent Sunday to finish on top of the podium.
Bodie Reading and Mark Young took out the MainFix Production Cup, getting the better of Josh Wiedman and Nick Reid across the day’s ten stages.
Rounding out the cups was Peter Dimmock and Paul Bennett, who claimed the Trenching Systems Australia 2WD Classic Cup – while Timothy Hiles and Morgan Ward took out the second round of the Subaru WRX Challenge.
Crews now turn their attention to the season final Buckby Motors Rally Tasmania in Burnie, Tasmania on 11-24 November.