Imbil Rally

About the Imbil Rally

The SR Automotive Imbil Rallysprint Doubleheader is two separate one-day rallysprints run back to back over the Queensland October long weekend, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October 2026, both based at the Imbil Showgrounds in the Mary Valley about 160 km north of Brisbane. Each day is its own rally under its own Motorsport Australia permit, with its own start order, its own results and its own presentation — you can enter one, the other or both. Competitive stages run on gravel forestry roads in the Imbil and Amamoor State Forests. Saturday is the longer day at 81 km of competition inside a 203 km route; Sunday runs 76 km inside 177 km. Organised by the Brisbane Sporting Car Club, Motorsport Australia affiliated since 1954, and titled for Stewart Reid's SR Automotive. Clerk of the Course Tony Kabel has brought back two stages that have not been used for 11 and 15 years and added a pair of night stages after the response to Manumbar, and moved the base to the Imbil Showgrounds following a date clash with the Deer Park event. Ian Menzies and Robert McGowan won both days in a Toyota Yaris; Shakewell Racing finished 7th outright on the Saturday and 24th on the Sunday.

Championship

Both days carry the Motorsport Australia Queensland Rally Championship, Queensland 2WD Rally Championship, Queensland Junior Rally Championship, the Acworth Recruitment Queensland Rally Clubman Series, the Woolgoolga Service Centre Queensland Novice Series and the Queensland Rally Regularity Series. BSCC bills the weekend "QRC 5 & QRC 1"; the state calendar lists it simply as the October long weekend QRC Double Header.

Organiser

Brisbane Sporting Car Club (BSCC)

Base

Imbil

Surface

Gravel

The route & format

• Format: Two separate rallysprints, not one two-day rally. Saturday: 203 km total, 81 km competitive, 122 km liaison, one heat, first car away 11:10 and car one back about 19:00. Sunday: 177 km total, 76 km competitive, 100 km liaison, first car 09:00 and car one back about 16:00. Both run out of the Imbil Showgrounds, 16 Edward Street, as rally headquarters, start, finish and the single service park. Blind and fully route charted — a road book with tulips, no reconnaissance and pace notes expressly prohibited, with the regulations warning in the strongest terms that the tulips are not to be used to build notes. RallySafe timing, hire included in the entry.
• Terrain: Gravel forestry roads in the Imbil and Amamoor State Forests, on HQ Plantations land in the Mary River valley. Two stages return after 11 and 15 years out of use, and the weekend includes two night stages.

Imbil Rally 2026 results

• 2026 result: Ian Menzies/Robert McGowan (2013 Toyota Yaris, AP4) won both days: Saturday by 1:36.0 from Andrew Carrigan/Liam Hinschen (1999 Mitsubishi Magna), Sunday by 6.2s from Josh Weidman/Ryan Preston (2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9). Provisional classifications on RallyTrack.
• Shakewell Racing 2026 result: Car 22 both days in the 1995 Subaru Impreza WRX, class P5, with Nigel Waters co-driving. Saturday: 7th outright of 33 starters and 3rd in P5, 56:19.1, our best stage 5th fastest on SS4 (Breakneck II). Sunday: classified 24th of 24 finishers after 33:21.5 on the 5.94 km opening stage (Pullen I) and a 2:30 penalty at the next control, then 9th to 13th fastest on each of the other seven stages.

Where spectators watched

Free, and BSCC has published a 15-page spectator pack with a signposted viewing point for each day, driving directions from the service park and first-car times. The Imbil Showgrounds is the other place to be: headquarters, start, finish and the only service park, open to walk through both days. Catering runs at the showgrounds across the weekend and there is more in the Imbil township. The rules are the usual BSCC set — stay behind the bunting and inside the marked area, obey the spectator marshals, park facing the way out, take your litter home, and no fires anywhere in the camping areas or the HQ Plantations forest. Dogs are allowed but must be on a leash at all times and you clean up after them. Food and drink may or may not be sold at a view point, so carry your own.

Spectator points

• Saturday — Borumba

  Seven odometer steps from the service park. Turn right out of the service park onto Diggings Road; at 0.53 km turn left at the T-junction onto Yabba Road; 0.69 km over the railway crossing; 4.05 km continue straight, watching for rally traffic joining from the right; 7.03 km turn left onto Derrier Road, 40 km/h limit; 7.90 km over the causeway; 8.76 km park on the side of the road and walk in on the side track. First car through Borumba about 11:23, and again on Borumba Reverse about 13:23.

• Sunday — Araucaria, two points

  Same run out as Saturday as far as the 7.90 km causeway, then at 8.98 km continue straight at the conti; at 9.70 km bear left for Point A, park and walk about 100 m, or carry straight on for Point B, park and walk about 150 m. First car through Araucaria about 09:43, and on Araucaria Reverse about 13:34. The pack heads the page "Aracaria" and captions it "Araucaria" — same point, and Araucaria is the tree.

• Imbil Showgrounds — rally HQ and service park

  16 Edward Street, Imbil, in the village itself. Free to walk through, and the one place you see every car start, come in between loops and finish. Cars are on the move roughly 11:00 to 19:00 on the Saturday and 09:00 to 16:00 on the Sunday.

How 2026 ran

1. Before the weekend

   Entries closed 23:55 on Monday 21 September and the seeded entry lists went up at 17:00 on Thursday 24 September. Pre-event scrutiny for any crew member living within 50 km of the Brisbane GPO ran 08:00-12:00 on Sunday 27 September at SR Automotive, 51 Beach Street, Kippa-Ring; everyone else scrutineers regionally, and nothing is scrutineered at the event without prior written arrangement through the Queensland Rally Advisory Panel.

2. Friday 2 October

   Service park opens to crews at 16:00. Documentation, road books, door numbers and RallySafe units 18:00-20:00 at rally HQ.

3. Saturday 3 October

   Scrutiny re-presents 08:00-08:30. Documentation 09:00-10:00. Novice and Rally Regularity briefing 09:45. Start order posted and drivers' briefing both at 10:00. Technical zone 11:00, first car away from TC0 at 11:10, Rally Regularity starting about 12:10. Car one back about 19:00, with the presentation about 22:00 — the long gap is the two night stages.

4. Sunday 4 October

   Scrutiny re-presents 08:00-08:30, documentation 08:00-09:00, start order posted 08:15, drivers' briefing 08:30, technical zone 08:50, first car away 09:00, Rally Regularity about 11:00. Car one back about 16:00. The event program gives the presentation as about 19:00, while the article on trophies inside the same regulations says 18:00 — take the earlier time if you want to be sure of seeing it.

5. Afterwards

   Provisional results go up on the Sportity app, and rally headquarters closes 30 minutes after they are published. Sportity is the official noticeboard for both days — bulletins, further regulations and start orders go there and nowhere else.

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: Imbil sits in the Mary Valley about 160 km and just over two hours north of Brisbane — Bruce Highway north, exit at Cooroy and inland through Kandanga. Sunshine Coast Airport is closer at about 72 km and an hour away, and Gympie is 35 km and about 30 minutes north. Roads into Imbil are sealed, but every stage is gravel plantation road inside the Imbil and Amamoor State Forests, so drive to spectator points on formed roads only and expect patchy reception once you are in the trees. The nearest fuel is the Liberty at Imbil, which does carry 98 — but it is a single station in a village, so fill up properly at Gympie, Cooroy or Kenilworth if you can.
• Where to stay: Imbil is a village, not a town, and this is a Queensland long weekend, so book well ahead. Camping at the Imbil Showgrounds is open to everyone for this event — competitors, crews, officials and spectators alike — which is the simplest option if you want to be on site. In and beside the village there is the Imbil Motel, Imbil Caravan Park, Imbil Camping Retreat on Imbil Island Road (12 acres of shaded parkland on Yabba Creek, powered and unpowered sites plus cabins, dogs welcome) and a B&B on York Street. Ten minutes west toward the lake is Borumba Deer Park, with camping from about $22 per adult and cabins from around $210 a night, a kiosk and camp kitchen. If Imbil is full, Gympie holds most of the district's motel stock. Note that pumped-hydro early works nearby have their own workforce accommodation camps, which adds pressure to local beds.
• While you’re there: The Mary Valley Rattler is the standout — a restored C17 steam locomotive running from historic Gympie Station through Dagun to Amamoor, where it turns on a restored turntable. It operates Wednesdays and Saturdays, so it clashes with rally day one, and bookings are by phone. Closer to base, Lake Borumba and Yabba Creek are good for kayaking, fishing and dawn or dusk platypus spotting, and the Amama Platypus Walk is a 2.5 km circuit past waterfalls to Diamondfield Lookout. On the Saturday, Dagun Growers Market runs from 3pm at the historic station, and the Kandanga Farm Store and nearby produce growers make a decent food loop. Rainbow Beach and the gateway to K'gari are about two hours east.

Entering

Closed. Entries opened with the regulations on 19 August and closed at 23:55 on Monday 21 September, through the WOLF system, with the fee payable at entry. On-time fees were $695 for the Queensland Rally Championship, 2WD and Junior fields, the Clubman and Novice series and the 4WD invitational class, and $445 for Rally Regularity — $835 and $565 respectively for anyone paid after the close — with a $50 discount where both crew members are financial BSCC members, and the $160 RallySafe hire included. Each day was capped at 40 rallysprint entries plus 10 regularity, accepted in order of receipt. Both crew members need a current Motorsport Australia Rally licence and a civil licence; Rally Regularity drops the logbook requirement and asks only for a Speed licence, which makes it the genuine entry point here. The entry fee covers one service vehicle and up to six service personnel. Withdrawals before the seeded list was published kept their fee less a $100 administration charge; after it, up to 30% back. Refuelling is in a designated zone at the service park with no fuel stored in the service area, and the longest gap between service and refuel is 51 km on the Saturday and 43 km on the Sunday.

History & form

• History: BSCC has run an Imbil round most years since 2018 under rotating naming sponsors ("Globe Roamer", "Lakes Hyundai Imbil Forest Rally"); SR Automotive has the naming rights for 2026. The two-day format is a repeat of 2025, which drew 33 starters on the Saturday and 34 on the Sunday. 2022: won by Ronnie Bustard/Larisa Biggar by 4 seconds from a 51-car field.

Worth knowing

• The field: 43 crews on the Saturday — 35 in the rallysprint plus 8 in Rally Regularity — and 38 on the Sunday, 32 plus 6. Subarus and Evos lead the seeding, but the entry is genuinely mixed: Datsun 1600s and 200Bs, a Ford Escort RS1800, a VW Beetle, Hyundai Excels, a Daihatsu Charade and a Mitsubishi Starion. On the day 33 crews started the Saturday rallysprint and 22 finished; 26 started on Sunday and 24 finished.
• Notable: Imbil (pop. ~1,071) sits on the route of the Mary Valley Rattler heritage railway, a restored 1914 line running tourist journeys from Gympie — a genuine visitor drawcard alongside the rally.

How Saturday went

Our running position after every stage — all 7 stages, 73.48 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.

How Sunday went

Our running position after every stage — all 8 stages, 77.36 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.