Husaberg take 2nd & 3rd at the 2010 ARC Forest Rally RallyMOTO
Date: 21-Apr-2010
The Quit Forest Rally is the annual WA round of the ARC (Australian Rally Championship - WRC style car rally championship). It is held in the state forest around the town of Nannup south of Perth each year with some special stages in and around Busselton as well. It’s the biggest event on the WA car rally calendar.
This year for the first time ever in Australia off-road motorcycles & quads took part in the race as part of a RallyMOTO event. Basically the RallyMOTO is on the same gravel rally roads as the rally cars. The rally cars typically do all special stages twice and the bikes & quads ran in the time gap between the first run and the second run of the rally cars. As fitting with a national championship level motorsport event all the gravel special stages were professionally set up and timed to Australian Rally Championship standards. Navigation is also required on the transport sections that linked the special stages. This RallyMoto event concept has been running in the USA the last few years and has been a great success.
The first RallyMoto event in Australia went down to the wire on the last stage, Mick Heuchan Husaberg FE570 took out 2nd overall only 4.5 secs behind the winner Sean Williamson Yamaha WR450 with Andrew Coaker Husaberg FE570 in 3rd.
Williamson took the lead from Michael Heuchan on SS8 of Day 1 and went on to claim the Day 1 by 22.2 seconds. In Day 2, Heuchan had the lead from the opening stage until a charging Williamson overtook him on SS20, the final stage of the event, taking the outright win. Mick said “I gave it everything I had and even cooked up 3 rear tyres over the 2 days”.
A seasoned campaigner in national series and Safari events, Mick Heuchan praised the event organisers and said “All the riders were blown away by the support they received from the car rally fraternity and fans. This is easily the best supported event I’ve ever done as far as spectators go. It’s been phenomenal. When we did the parade lap in Busselton there was 3000 people cheering us on, we’ve never seen anything like it. To have the place live with spectators cheering, even the drivers were giving us a wave, was just awesome, it was the best event ever for that.”
Quit Forest Rally Moto was the talking point of the weekend, from spectators, officials, ARC competitors and the riders themselves and if the support they received is anything to go by bikes could become a more permanent fixture on the ARC calendar.
When asked if he thought the riders would be interested in joining up with more ARC rounds in the future Heuchan’s position was clear.
“It’s not an if, they just have to...it’s too good a thing to not do. If we’re invited back we’ll certainly be back.”
Andrew Coaker (Husaberg 570) rounded out the podium and continued to praise the initiative of Quit Forest Rally Moto event organisers. “It was a bit of a buzz. With such short stages you get all fired up and then you go to another one. Compared to the longer rallies like the Safari, they are totally different, they’re all about endurance and trying not to make mistakes where as this you just go flat out just for a short time, it’s just been a wonderful weekend and all credit must go to the organisers for putting on such a fantastic event.” Coaker said.
Heath Young KTM 525XC took out the Quad class and Ramon Horton Yamaha WR250 the 250cc E1 class.
All the riders loved it and had a ball, some great lessons learnt for the future. A unique new race format for Australia that has been a great success with both Moto and ARC competitors raving about it.
So look for more RallyMoto in the future !!
