In the final round of the 2024 Bosch Motorsport Australia Rally Championship (ARC), Harry Bates and Coral Taylor found themselves in the lead for day one of the Buckby Motors Rally Tasmania, storming to take five stage victories in Burnie, Tasmania.

The Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia team capitalised on the retirement of Scott Pedder and Glenn Macneall late in SS7 due to radiator damage, propelling Bates and Taylor to inherit outright first and edging them closer to the Possum Bourne Memorial Trophy.

View the day’s standings at the Subaru Results Hub.

The Buckby Motors Rally Tasmania attracted a stellar lineup with 50 entries, making it one of the most competitive events of the 2024 season. Four teams entered the weekend with a chance to secure the 2024 ARC Championship, separated only by 108 points leading into the last round of the season.

Scott Pedder and Glenn Macneall opened the weekend on a strong note, taking victory in the first two opening stages and sliding themselves into outright first place. Behind them, Harry Bates and Coral Taylor were right on their heels collecting SS3 and SS4 wins.

After the morning stages, the top five were locked in close battle, only separated by 17 seconds into SS5. Pedder came out on top, followed by the Bates brothers, Alex Rullo and Eddie Maguire, making the championship battle all that more close.

Harry Bates and Pedder jostled and traded stage wins throughout the day but in SS7, the tables turned as Harry Bates and Taylor overtook into outright first with Pedder falling nearly 15 seconds behind. The Pedders Suspension and Brakes team dropped to seventh place after suffering damage to the radiator, and despite the crews’ efforts to stop the leaking, the #2 Skoda Fabia was retired at the bottom of SS7.

This allowed Harry Bates and co-driver Taylor to sail into the outright lead, coming home by nearly 25 seconds, ahead of closest competitors Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin.

In the final two PWS Super Special Stages, Bates and Taylor dominantly finished ahead in the Tasmanian opener to put the Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia team in good stead ahead of tomorrow’s final six stages for 2024.

“Very solid, great afternoon. The stages were pretty much what we expected, reasonably well swept and even though there’s been a bit of rain around there really wasn’t much rain on the surface so yeah it was all very nice and to be leaders at the end of day one is nice,” Bates said.

“Today we pretty much stuck to our plan and I mean it was really nice. We just focused on ourselves, made sure we were always in a nice rhythm, didn’t push beyond our limits and its landed us with a nice little lead, so yeah very happy.”

Clayton Hoy and Erin Kelly dominated the MainFix Production Cup on Saturday, leading every stage with minutes to spare except SS8, where they briefly faltered after suspecting a puncture in their Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 6. The team finished in seventh outright and secured themselves valuable points for the Cup fight.

In the ARC Junior Cup, Molly Spalding and Matthew Dillon led SS1 to SS3 but bowed to Mitch Garrad Motorsport team Mitch Garrad and Taylah Murphy who took out the rest of the stages and put themselves in top contention for the year’s Junior Cup battle, except for SS6 where Jaidyn and Lucy Gluskie finished ahead of the field.

Jack Monkhouse and Neill Woolley finished fastest in the Trenching Systems Australia 2WD Classic Cup, beating out Tom Clarke and Ryan Preston after the White Wolf Racing team’s retirement due to a collision with a tree in SS3.

In the ARC 4WD Classic Cup, the sole entry of Josh Redhead and Ray Winwood-Smith retired after SS4 due to a mechanical issue with their Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 3. However, the pair rejoined the rally from the PWS Super Special Stages albeit with added time penalties.

Also flying solo in the Subaru WRX Challenge were Cup leaders Glenn Brinkman and Scott Beckwith, who also encountered mechanical issues early in the rally and also rejoined later in the afternoon.

The action will continue through to Sunday in the forests of Burnie, Tasmania with another six stages to go in the Buckby Motors Rally Tasmania. The first stage of the 2024 Bosch Motorsport Australia Rally Championship finale will begin just after 8am, with teams looking for all-important points towards their championship tallies.

Full results are available on the Subaru Results Hub.