Pedder and Macneall claim first ARC victory since 2024

Scott Pedder and Glenn Macneall overcame late drama in the ARC Plant Hire Forest Rally to claim their first EROAD Australian Rally Championship victory since the 2024 Accent Benchtops Rally Queensland.

Pedder and Macneall, driving for the Pedders Rally Team protected by Famous Insurance, claimed the overall victory after finishing Sunday’s action in third place to Heat 2 winners Harry and Coral Taylor and Power Stage winners Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin – both of whom made up the overall event podium.

View Saturday release 

Having won yesterday’s Heat despite not claiming any stages, Pedder and Macneall raced out to a 10-second lead on Sunday. The pair won three of the day’s opening four stages, while Harry and Taylor were the only other crew to enjoy a victory.

Just like Saturday, the event once again turned on its head in the afternoon loop as a spectacular puncture to Pedder and Macneall’s Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 threatened to derail the leaders’ progress.

Fortunately, they only lost one and a half minutes and dropped to fourth in the Heat standings, which eventually became third when Swedish international duo Tom Kristensson and Andreas Johansson had more dramas on the final stage and lost five minutes.

Harry and Taylor benefited from Pedder’s mechanical drama, comfortably winning the fifth stage and finishing second on the final stage to secure a 17-second Heat win over their Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia teammates Lewis and McLoughlin, who capped off the weekend with their third Power Stage win of the year.

While Lewis and McLoughlin finished second for the Heat, replicating their Heat 1 finishing position, it wasn’t enough for them to win the event as a whole as Pedder and Macneall’s third place allowed them to accumulate enough points to seal the win.

Toby Price and Ben Searcy finished fourth for the day and fourth overall in their Maximum Motorsport Subaru WRX Challenge Car – the former claiming a career-best result since making his ARC debut in Western Australia last year.

View Subaru Results Hub.

Price and Searcy’s impressive weekend saw them claim a clean sweep of Heat wins in both the WOLF Sports Cup and the Subaru WRX Challenge Cups, with their closest rival, fellow Subaru WRX Challenge competitor Riley Walters and Andrew Crowley finishing the day in outright fifth place and second in both Cups.

Walters’ maiden Heat top five finish also earned him an overall career-best ARC finish of sixth place for the weekend, a position he shared with MRF’s Tony Sullens and co-driver Julia Barkley in their Peugeot 208.

Craig Rando and Scott Beckwith led the way for the West Australian crews, guidomh their Rando Constructions Toyota GR Yaris AP4 to sixth in the Heat, which earned them an outright top five finish for the weekend as a whole.

Kristensson and Johansson managed to salvage some points after finishing the Heat in seventh place ahead of Sullens and Barkley, while Tom Loughton and Michael Lloyd recovered on Sunday following a massive crash yesterday to finish Heat 2 in ninth overall and third in the WOLF Sports Cup.

Rounding out the day’s outright top 10 was the Subaru WRX of Keith Hamilton and David Humphreys. The result earned them an overall weekend finish of ninth place – splitting another WA local entry of Alex Rullo and James Marquet in the ntellispatial, Fleetcare Hyundai i20 N Rally2 and the Pedders Rally Team protected by Famous Insurance Skoda Fabia R5 of Jackson and Damien Long.

In the Cups, Walters enjoyed the ARC Junior Cup win and Shane and Sylvie Garner took out Heat 2 Classic Cup honours, however following their DNF yesterday, the overall cup victory went to Ronan Sharkey and John Harkin.

In the 2WD Cup, David Smith and Rodger Pederson won the event despite failing to finish Sunday’s stages.

The EROAD Australian Rally Championship will now head east for the third round of the 2026 season with the newly introduced Narooma Forest Rally at the end of June.