Great Tarmac Rally

About the Great Tarmac Rally

The Great Tarmac Rally is a three-day tarmac rally held 23-25 October 2026, launching from Marysville in Victoria's High Country. Run by Australian Tarmac Rally Pty Limited (ATR) as the final round of the four-round 2026 Australian Tarmac Rally Championship, the event unites three of Victoria's most storied rally roads — Lake Mountain Road on Friday, the Eildon-Jamieson Road on Saturday, and the Reefton Spur as Sunday's finale — across 25 special stages and more than 450 kilometres of closed-road competition. First held in 2012 with roughly 240 competitive kilometres, it has run every year since from its Marysville base, and 2026 is the first time it has stretched to three days. ATR markets it as the "crown jewel" of Australian tarmac rallying, and on the published schedule it is now comfortably the longest event on the calendar.

Championship

Australian Tarmac Rally Championship — Round 4 of 4 and the title decider

Organiser

Australian Tarmac Rally Pty Limited (ATR)

Base

Marysville

Surface

Tarmac

The route & format

• Format: 25 special stages across three days, roughly 450 competitive kilometres, out of rally headquarters at the Marysville Community Centre, 15 Falls Road. Friday is nine stages on Lake Mountain Road for about 133 km; Saturday eight stages on the Eildon-Jamieson Road for about 160 km; Sunday eight stages over the Reefton Spur for about 158 km. Each day has a morning and a lunch service break. Stage distances on the schedule are given in whole kilometres, so treat the daily totals as close rather than exact.
• Terrain: Tarmac — closed public roads through alpine forest and mountain terrain. Lake Mountain Road is an alpine ascent where wide sweepers tighten into technical corners, with fog, sleet and sunshine all possible inside one stage; the Reefton Spur runs roughly 95% corner ratio through forest above the Upper Yarra catchment.

Great Tarmac Rally 2026 results

• 2026 result: Dean Lillie and Samantha Stevens (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI) won in 3:55:02.8, 1m41.3s clear of Jonathan Moir and Brad Jones (Ford Mk 2 Escort), with Xavier Franklin and Jaidyn Gluskie (Porsche Cayman GT4) third and Jason and Fiona Wright (Nissan R35) 16.0s further back in fourth. Championship leader Michael Harding retired at TC9 on Friday with a mechanical problem. Liam and Larry Howarth (Nissan Skyline GT-R) won Early Modern AWD in 5th outright. 36 crews started and 24 finished.
• Shakewell Racing 2026 result: Car 672, the Subaru WRX STI, with Brett Williams co-driving. We ran between 14th and 17th overall all through Friday and were 14th of 35 after SS12, 4th of the five Early Modern AWD crews, with our best stage times 14th fastest on SS6 and SS11. The gearbox broke on SS13, Saturday's fourth stage, and ended our rally after eleven timed stages and 1:19:55.6.

Where spectators watched

Free — the rally runs on closed public roads and ATR sells no spectator tickets for any of its events. Re-checked 19 October 2026: no official spectator points, access maps or arrive-before times have been published, and the Great Tarmac Rally is still listed on ATR's regulations page under Supplementary Regulations with no download link behind it. What is published is the stage order and the road closures, so you can work out which road is live when. The thing to plan around: every stage road — Lake Mountain Road, the Eildon-Jamieson Road, the Reefton Spur — is fully closed to all traffic while it's live, so if you drive in you stay in until the road reopens. Moving between stages mid-day isn't realistic, and on Saturday the competition is an hour's drive from town.

How 2026 ran

1. Thursday 22 October — documentation and briefings

   All at the Marysville Community Centre, 15 Falls Road. Documentation and scrutineering 10:00-15:00, compulsory event briefing 16:30, first-timers' briefing 17:00, Tour briefing 17:30, officials' briefing 19:30.

2. Friday 23 October — Lake Mountain Road, 9 stages

   SS1 Marysville to Tommys Bend 8 km, SS2 Ticket Booth to Summit 9 km, SS3 Summit to Cumberland 17 km, SS4 Cumberland to Marysville 16 km, then morning tea and service. SS5 Marysville to Cumberland 16 km, SS6 Cumberland to Summit 17 km, SS7 Summit to Marysville 16 km, then lunch and service. SS8 Marysville to Summit 18 km, SS9 Summit to Marysville 16 km. The ATR dinner follows at 18:30 at the Community Centre — open to everyone, tickets through WOLF.

3. Saturday 24 October — Eildon-Jamieson Road, 8 stages

   SS10 Eildon to 15 Mile 17 km, SS11 15 Mile to Big River 9 km, SS12 Big River to 15 Mile 9 km, SS13 15 Mile to Eildon 17 km, then lunch and service. SS14 to SS17 run Eildon to Big River and back twice over, 27 km each. This is about an hour's drive north-east of Marysville via Alexandra and Eildon — a separate trip from town, not a walk.

4. Sunday 25 October — the Reefton Spur, 8 stages

   SS18 Lake Mountain T-junction to Cumberland 6 km, SS19 Cumberland to Reefton 19 km, SS20 Reefton to Cumberland 18 km, SS21 Cumberland to Lake Mountain T-junction 7 km, then lunch and service. SS22 to SS25 run the T-junction to Reefton and back twice over, 27 km each — the longest stages of the weekend, run last.

5. Road closures

   Published by ATR: each day's stage roads are closed 07:00-17:30, with no public access while they are closed, though emergency access is available if required. Friday, Lady Talbot Drive to Cumberland Junction, with no access to Lake Mountain Resort. Saturday, Mallet Track to Jim Bullock Campground. Sunday, Lake Mountain T-junction to Upper Yarra Dam Road at Reefton, with no access to the Reefton Spur.

6. As timed

   The event ran in the published stage order. ChrisSport's timing gives the exact distances, which differ from the schedule's whole-kilometre figures: SS1, the 7.96 km Friday shakedown, was untimed, and the 24 timed stages totalled 439.6 km — 117.1 km on Friday, 161.7 km on Saturday and 160.9 km on Sunday.

Access, timings and prices checked 30 August 2026. Organisers move spectator points and road closures at short notice — confirm on the official event page before you travel.

Getting there & staying

• Getting there: Marysville is about 90 minutes north-east of Melbourne, out through Healesville and over the Black Spur on the Maroondah Highway — all sealed, but tight and slow. Lake Mountain is a further 25 minutes up Lake Mountain Road, and the Eildon-Jamieson Road stages are around an hour on again via Alexandra and Eildon. Coverage is patchy: the regional tourism authority warns that phone signal can be unreliable, with Telstra the best network but coverage limited and not guaranteed — download maps before you leave the highway.
• Where to stay: Marysville is small and the rally takes over the town, so book early — and note the Marysville Stages gravel rally fills the same town six days earlier. Peppers Marysville on Murchison Street is the obvious base and markets itself to spectators and car clubs, though it publishes no rally package or rate. For camping and cabins, Marysville Holiday Park on the Buxton-Marysville Road has powered sites, riverside cabins and glamping tents. Other options are garden cottages and apartments in town, the Black Spur Inn and Saladin Lodge at Narbethong, and BIG4 Taggerty Holiday Park 15 minutes north.
• While you’re there: Steavenson Falls is five minutes from town — an 84 m drop reached by an easy gravelled path. Keppel Falls, Keppel Lookout and the Tree Fern Gully trails all start close by, and the Cambarville Circuit Walk sits right at the top of the Woods Point Road near the Reefton Spur. Further out, Cathedral Range State Park at Taggerty has the Jawbone Peak and Wells Cave scrambles, Lake Mountain Alpine Resort runs summit walks and mountain-bike shuttles out of snow season, and the Black Spur drive itself is a Victorian icon on the way in or out.

Entering

Entries have closed, and ATR's published entry list has 55 crews. Nothing was auto-accepted — every application is vetted by ATR and the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance on vehicle suitability, competition history and experience, and newcomers who can't show tarmac experience are made to run the speed-limited Rally Challenge category first. Standard fees were $5,890 for Full Competition and Rally Sport and $4,990 for Rally Challenge (early bird was $5,590 and $4,590 until 5 June 2026), plus $2,250 for the three-day Tour or $1,750 for the two-day version. Entries opened 1 May, through the WOLF portal. You need an AASA National Race Licence for the competitive categories or an AASA General Speed Licence for Tour, plus an AASA vehicle passport — Motorsport Australia licences and passports are explicitly not accepted. RallySafe hire is included in the entry fee. Reconnaissance is permitted but only in plain road-registered cars with no rally signage, on open public roads at posted speed limits; a traffic offence during recce means exclusion.

History & form

• History: Debuted 2012 (~240 competitive km); has run annually from Marysville since. Recent winners: 2022/2025 Jason & Fiona Wright (Nissan R35 GT-R, 2025 season champions); 2023/2024 Matt Close & Cameron Reeves (Audi TT RS); 2025 event itself won by Dean Lillie & Chris Exner (Mazda RX7).

Worth knowing

• The championship comes down to this: Going into the finale (standings after Snowy River, Round 3): Michael Harding leads the drivers on 270 points from Justin Waterhouse on 165, Jonathan Moir 152, Mark Griffith 116, Allan Hines 112, Barrie Smith 109 and Jason Wright 106. James Thornburn leads the co-drivers on 270 from Darragh Lynch 185 and Adrian Bryant 165. A crew must have started at least three of the four rounds for their points to count, and a points tie is broken by the higher finish here.
• Notable: Marysville was devastated by the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 and has since rebuilt as a High Country tourism town — also the gateway to Lake Mountain alpine resort and the Great Forest National Park. Base hotel: Peppers Marysville.

How the result happened

Our running position after every stage — all 11 stages, 151.47 km. Positions are calculated from the full field's published stage times, so they show the order on stage time rather than the official classification, which can also carry road penalties.

The line stops at SS12 — that is where our rally ended.