Canberra siblings Harry and Lewis Bates dominated the opening round of the Australian rally championship over the weekend to finish one-two for the Toyota Gazoo Australia team, with their new Yaris rally cars performing almost faultlessly over the 14 special stages in the ACT forests.
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Their father, team owner and four-times national champion Neal Bates said he "couldn't be prouder" of his two sons and his team's enormous effort to get the two cars built and to the start line for the season opener.
"We've been working on these cars day and night for four months, seven days a week, and for the cars to run so strongly with both drivers really pushing hard right through the event, it's just incredible really," Neal Bates said.
Harry Bates and his Queensland co-driver John McCarthy, the reigning national champions after a COVID-interrupted season in 2020, finished 43.6 seconds ahead of Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin in an identical all-wheel drive, turbocharged Yaris AP4.
Harry Bates had a gearshift issue on the second-last run through the Caves special stage and dropped over a minute on the road but rectified the issue and had enough of a time buffer to finish strongly and claim his first win of the new season.
Taking the final place on the podium was Nathan Quinn, from NSW, in a Mitsubishi Evo. Quinn and co-driver Ray Winwood-Smith had been hard on the tail of Lewis Bates for much of the final day and bettered the young Canberra driver on a few of the Sunday stages, finally finishing 1 minute and 44.4 seconds back in third spot.
Dry, dusty conditions but moderate temperatures prevailed over the weekend, with rival teams aware of the potential for the untested new Toyotas to suffer mechanical problems.
"You're always nervous with new cars because there's always that nagging feeling that something might break, or there will be a mistake," Neal Bates said.
"But all the hard work and long hours, everyone stressed out and tired, really paid off for us today; the boys got the job done."
Jindabyne carpenter Alex Hendriks will need more than a hammer to knock the dents out of his Subaru WRX STi after a spectacular crash on the Hyles Block stage early on Sunday morning.
Hendriks, 34, was competing in only his second dirt rally when he and co-driver Oswald Seldon ran wide on a fast section about one kilometre from the Hyles start line, catapulted off the road and rolled eight times, shedding various pieces of bodywork before the car came to rest upside down between two trees.
Hendriks has enjoyed some success on tarmac events before and had purchased the car from fellow Jindabyne local Andrew Penny.
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Uninjured, the pair crawled out of the upturned car and were forced to become spectators for the rest of the rally.
"I don't think Andrew [Penny] is going to be too pleased when he sees this," Hendriks said as he surveyed the damaged car.
"It's a shame to go off because we were upping the pace and the car felt really good."
Top-ranked competitor Ritchie Dalton, in the Toyota Yaris which Harry Bates drove to national title win in 2019, had been running strongly in the top four until he rolled his car on the Tidbinbilla long stage on Sunday morning.
