Nabiac Rallysprint
June 19, 2022
The Central North Coast Sporting Car Club conducted a rallysprint on Sunday, June 19, 2022. This S1 event was the third round of the 2022 NSW Rallysprint Series and was held at the CNCSCC grounds at Nabiac.
You can see the Supplementary Regulations here
The weekend of June 18 and 19 was a big one for motor sport at Nabiac. The Central North Coast Sporting Car Club ran an Autocross event on the Saturday and a Rallysprint on Sunday. Both events were held at the Nabiac Motorsport Park.
T
he TC Hydraulics Multi-Club S1 Rallysprint was run on the club's 4.5 kilometre rally circuit which provided a good variety of road conditions (some wet parts were left over from the overnight rain) with a combination of twisty corners and top gear straights. There was nothing rough enough to cause any car damage and the only withdrawals were due to mechanical failure and one brush with a tree (only eight cars out of 52 were not classified as finishers). There has been a lack of rallies over the last couple of years due to floods, fires and COVID so events like this are an excellent way to find out what might break before going in a 150 kilometre rally a long way from home.
The event was Round 3 of the NSW S1 Rally Sprint Championship 
series. The "S1" in the name indicates that it is an entry-level event where fireproof clothing, full roll cages and frontal head restraints are not mandatory.
These events are a perfect way for beginners to enter motor sport, as they don't require expensive machinery (although fully prepared and equipped rally cars can compete) and the length is much shorter than a conventional rally. Being able to run a normal road car with its legal safety equipment (seat belts) and with the only expense being for a fire extinguisher and helmet allows people to come and try.
With 52 starters doing six runs each it was a busy day. Because of where Nabiac is, the majority of competitors came from the local area around Taree, Forster, Bulahdelah and Gloucester, but a few cars and trailers came from outside the region. The top three placings were Andrew Maurer/Brett Kerr, Steven Murray/Tim Pickard and Jason Parrott/Michael Fraser.
Event director Rob O'Toole should be congratulated for running an excellent event and CNCSCC for the standard of the facilities. With more places like this to compete and learn there would be far more opportunities for people to learn to love rallying.
Click to see the action in the pits (or "Service Park" as we rally people would put it).
I managed to come home with a lot of pictures.
Click here to start seeing them.
A report on the rally appeared in the Manning River Times
Apology for getting the photos out a month after the event
Normally I'd have the photos from the event up here a few days after the day. Nabiac is about 500 kilometres from my place and I was starting a new job the next day so I had a late night. It's a journalist with my local paper and as well as learning all the company's systems and procedures I wrote four articles for the local paper plus a report on the rallysprint for the paper covering the Nabiac area during the week. (My employer owns lots of publications and was attracted to my rally reports.) Luckily my job is only part time. Things will settle down soon and I'll be able to get back to my hobby, which is this site.
