NSSCC Whiteline Tarmac Rallysprint 2020/2021
Sydney Dragway, Eastern Creek
Round 4 February 11, 2021
February 11, 2021, saw the running of Round 4 of the 2020/2021 Whiteline Tarmac Rally Series, organised by Brett Middleton and his team at North Shore Sporting Car Club. The event ran over a 1.3 kilometre course within the competitor parking areas at Sydney Dragway.
You can see the Supplementary Regulations here
I had a few minutes to spare before the action started so I had a walk around the car park. The cars at this event were quite different to the ones you see at a gravel rally, and in fact there wasn't any car there that I had seen at any other event. This was not unexpected, as a tarmac rally (and the cars and their setups) is a very different thing to driving on loose dirt roads. I don't ever expect to see a Lotus Elise throwing up dust in a pine forest.
Because of construction activity taking place (the replacement for the Granville speedway is being built and there will be a large common car park for the drag strip and speedway) the length of track available was much less than for previous events. The compromise track was 1.3 kilometres long, which is less than the length of the shortest motor racing track anywhere, and gave the rallysprint the flavour of a hillclimb (without the climb) or a tarmac motorkhana (without the reversing and the garages). To put it into perspective, the drag strip next door is 1.07 kilometres from the start line to the sandtrap and the point where competitors turn off to return to the pits. This means that one start-to-pits run at the drags covers a much larger distance than a turn at the rallysprint.
The course actually ran in the opposite direction on the day for some logistical reason.
Here's a couple of laps from inside the editorial Commodore, observing the 60km/h speed limit. This was actually recorded at Round 5 on March 11, when the weather conditions made the light less than optimal.
You can see my standard disclaimer about speed here.
There were 38 entries. You can see the list by clicking on the image below.
Let's let the pictures tell the story.
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| Ooops! It looked so good coming out of the previous corner. | |
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| Very little damage to the car. I can't say the same about the fence. | |
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This was my first time at this sort of event (for a very long time, at least) and at this venue. Next time I'll have a better idea of where to go to get the best photos.
| Results | |||
| First | Phil Heafey/Josh Williams | Mitsubishi Lancer EVO6 | |
| Second | Josh Redhead/Matt Redhead | Mitsubishi Lancer EVO5 | |
| Third | Stephen Marlin/Alex Marlin | Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9 | |
| Fourth | Robert Kolimackovski/Sascha Kolimackovski | Honda Integra | |
| Fifth | Stephen Muller/Kris Muller | VW Golf R | |
| You can see the full results here. | |||
