Autumn Glory Tour of North East Victoria

Posted on by SteveH

Round 1 of the 2023 HRA Touring Championship

Autumn Glory Tour logo

The inaugural Autumn Glory Tour is 3 day non-speed, non-timed Touring & Navigation Assembly. It runs Friday 5th to Sunday 7th May when the glorious autumn leaf colour of the region will be on full display for the event. Entry is open to anyone who would like to participate, in any registered car.

The event tours along open public roads with loops each day from event HQ in Albury. Friday’s route takes in the famous autumn colours of Bright, Mt Beauty and Beechworth, while Saturday sees you enjoy the panoramic scenery of the Upper Murray including a foray into NSW and the town of Tumbarumba. The Tour’s showpiece day is the Sunday when you’ll tour the length of the Great River Road along the Murray River as far as possible on bitumen – it’s a driving experience not to be missed through some incredible country.

Continue reading Autumn Glory Tour of North East Victoria

HRA Western Tour, 27 & 28 May 2023

Posted on by SteveH

The Western Tour will be held at the end of May and based in Mount Gambier.

It will be a Touring Road Event with Navigational Touring plus timed Closed Road Sections, and other timed events. Autocross and Khanacross.

Starting in Mt Gambier on the Saturday morning the event will proceed into Victoria with a lunch break at Digby, with Closed Road Sections in the forests along the way. More navigation will take us back to Mt Gambier.

A Night Trial, organised by SEAC to their usual format will get underway from the Mount Gambier Speedway that evening and the days’ activities will end with a run around the Speedway track.

Next day sees timed runs at SEAC Park, Autocross Track with crossover bridge and tunnel, followed by some more navigation, taking us to the SA Khanacross Round being run just out of Mt Gambier. Lunch will be available there and we expect to finish up by early afternoon so people can get home at a reasonable hour.

Supp Regs are available below. As always we are in need of helpers, particularly in the Heywood area on Saturday.

Please contact Graham Wallis on 0429 939 619 or ewal7731@bigpond.net.au if you have any queries or are able to offer your services to help get the event up and running.

HRA Rally Championship R4
HRA Touring Championship R2
Pro Rally Fabrications Standard Car Class Rally Championship R4

Documents

Supplementary Regulations (pdf)

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Jamie Pohlner competing in the 2022 SEAC Khanacross Championship at SEAC Park. Pic by Darren Archibald, Turn8photography.

Welcome to the 2023 HRA Club Championship

Posted on by SteveH
A picture of HRA's annual trophies on a table.

Well after a few years of stop start rally events it seems like this year is going to be full on with plenty to be excited about.

The Club Championship is back with a selection of events to choose from. The HRA Calendar is on the website and you must be very hard to please if there isn’t an event you simply have to be involved with.

With 10 events nominated your best 6 scores will count towards the Chmpionship.

This year’s Championship has been expanded with the introduction of a class for 4wd vehicles. Yep those early Mazda, Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi cars are now eligible for their own class so if you have an older version hiding in your shed you can drag it out for another run in the R25 4wd class for PRC cars older than 25 years.

This includes forced induction models as well as normally aspirated (think Mazda 323 Familia, Nissan Pulsar GTi-R, Subaru Liberty/Legacy and even early WRX and Mitsubishi Galant VR-4).

With permission from Ro Nixon, the winner of this class will be presented with the Steve Ashton Memorial Trophy as he was one of the early competitors in 4wd cars.

This year’s calendar also sees the return of the Touring Championship with 5 events proposed so all you navigators can dust off the map boards (or grab a new HRA one from Rob Cranston) and dig out those trusty compasses and map lights to find your way around the bush.

With so many events on this year, the club will need plenty of assistance so look out for calls for help or officials.

Let’s get back into the sport we love.

Please remember the calendar is subject to change, so regular checking will keep you informed.

More information:

Final 2022 Championship Scores now available

Posted on by SteveH

Final scores in the HRA Rally and Touring Championships are now available on the 2022 HRA Championship Scores page.

The Club Scorer has provided these notes in relation to the scores…

There will not be awards for the 2022 Touring Championship as there were insufficient events run. The only way to improve this situation is to run more touring events, maybe publishing scores will encourage people to run suitable events or to suggest events run by other clubs that could be included.

The Masters scores include people I guess to be over 55 (at the start of 2022) – apologies if I’ve over- or under-estimated your age. Let me know and I’ll make the necessary changes.

Similarly, the car class allocation contains a certain amount of assumption on my part. I placed cars in what I felt were appropriate classes, but I’m no expert, so please let me know if your car is too old/young or too highly/insufficiently modified for the class I’ve placed it in.

We need this all sorted in time to engrave trophies for the annual presentations.

There’s a class going begging, bring out your H81 vehicle next year and you are almost certain to win the category! Also next year, the R25 category will be split in two—2WD and 4WD—check out the definitions for all categories on the Club Championship Rules page. I’m no expert on anything non-Peugeot, so let me know which category your car fits. Email me, Nick Wright, at clubscorer@hra.org.au.

One final point, looking at the crews at and close to the top of the P81 and R25 category scores, I wonder if we should do away with the Masters category and introduce a Non-Historic (Pre-Historic?) Crew category for the under-55s! Or we could keep the Masters and set the age for Non/Pre-Historic Crew at 40 to encourage younger crews—who we need to keep the HRA going for another 30 years.

Your thoughts please…

Regards
Nick Wright
clubscorer@hra.org.au

Victoria Cross Rally needs officials, 5 November.

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The Victoria Cross Rally which is on next Saturday urgently needs some officials as some previously registered have pulled out.

Can you help? If so please contact Richard Elphick on 0414752473

For event documents, see the Victoria Cross Rally page

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Help run the Victoria Cross this Saturday. B Team Rally Media

Victoria Cross Rally on schedule to run on 5 November

Posted on by SteveH

Forest Fire Management Victoria has today advised that a permit will be issued for the Victoria Cross Rally, albeit with substantial reductions in the available roads due to damage from recent rain events. So rather than cancel, we’ll do the best we can to reorganise the event at short notice.

The Victoria Cross will now comprise three special stages, each run twice, for a total competitive distance of 52.7km. Total event distance will be 159.4km. The start, service location and finish remain at the State Motorcycle Complex, Broadford with the first car starting at 7.45pm. Spectators can view the action at No 1 Camp from 10.50pm.

Entries close next Monday, 31 October at 20:00hrs and can be made via the Motorsport Australia entry portal.

In addition to being rounds of the Victorian Club Rally Series, the HRA Rally Championship and, for the Regularity component, the HRA Standard Car Class Series, the event is open to grade A and other competitors who may wish to compete prior to the Alpine Rally, subject to the field not being fully subscribed by crews qualifying for these championships.

For event documents, see the Victoria Cross Rally page

David McKenzie
Clerk of Course

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David and Kate Officer in the 2021 Victoria Cross Rally. Pic by John Doutch

Supp Regs available for the 2022 Victoria Cross Rally

Posted on by SteveH

LDV GEELONG VCRS 7 – VICTORIA CROSS RALLY

Date: 5 November 2022
Time: 5pm- 3am
Venue: State Motorcycle Complex, Broadford and Mt Disappointment State Forest
Organiser: Historic Rally Association Inc.

The Victoria Cross Rally will comprise two events to be held on the evening of Saturday 5 November.

A Special Stage rally will be the 7th and final round of the 2022 VCRS and a Regularity Rally will be a round of the HRA Standard Car Class series.

The start, service break and finish will be at the State Motorcycle Complex, Broadford. The course will comprise a total of 117km of competition over 5 special stages, each run twice, and 154km liaison. The event will be fully route charted and all competition will be at night – the high rate of public use of the forest makes daylight running impractical. The first car will leave the start at 7:45 pm and finish at around 1:00 am.

While we have used the best available roads in the forest, not all are “rally highways”. Of the five stages, three will predominantly be excellent roads. The other two stages will use lesser roads, including unmade tracks with an uneven surface.

If the field limit isn’t filled by VCRS and Regularity competitors, the Special Stage Rally will also be open to Grade A competitors – an opportunity for a run before the Alpine. Grade A competitors won’t be eligible for any event awards or VCRS placings or points.

The Regularity is not restricted to HRA Standard Car Class competitors and is an excellent opportunity for beginners to try a rally style event, as rollover protection and a HANS style device aren’t compulsory.

Being so close to Melbourne is a bonus. So put the Victoria Cross Rally in your diary now.

Any questions should be directed to the Clerk of Course, David McKenzie, at david@jandmck.com

Supplementary Regulations and more information is available on the Victoria Cross 2022 page.

Competition Report – May 2022

Posted on by SteveH
Luke Sytema and Tracey Dewhurst standing next to their car

If you left the car in the shed, here’s what you missed

The Marysville Stages on 7 May was the biggest rally since the last report with VRC, VCRS and the Camcrusher Regularity Rally all starting from Gallipoli Park on another cold, wet day.

Whilst the VRC probably had the worst of the weather, they did it all in daylight whereas the VCRS and Camcrusher had night running in some pretty thick fog. The fog led to the cancellation of one stage which unfortunately reduced the competitive distance of both events by 11km and the Camcrusher from an originally advised 90km to just 63.4km.

Continue reading Competition Report – May 2022