Marysville Stages

About the Marysville Stages

The Marysville Stages is a one-day gravel rally held on Saturday 17 October 2026, with headquarters at Gallipoli Park in Marysville and stages on forest roads through the Yarra Ranges around the town. Organised by the Ford Four Car Club and titled the Lucas Automotive Marysville Stages for 2026, it runs alongside a second event on the same day, the Lucas Automotive Spring 200, and the day carries Round 3 of the Victorian Rally Championship and Round 4 of the Victorian Club Rally Series between them. The Marysville Stages is the feature event at 171 km of competitive distance, with the Spring 200 — the rally the Marysville Stages originally grew out of — at 143 km. First run under the Marysville Stages name in 2010, 2026 marks its return after a three-year gap and its first Victorian Rally Championship round since 2022.

Championship

Round 3 of the 2026 DRC 4x4 Victorian Rally Championship and Round 4 of the Pro Rally Victorian Club Rally Series, with the organisers presenting the Spring 200 as the VCRS event of the two. The Historic Rally Association also lists the day as a round of its own club championship.

Organiser

Ford Four Car Club (FFCC)

Base

Marysville

Surface

Gravel

The route & format

• Format: One day out of Gallipoli Park in the centre of Marysville, which serves as headquarters, start and finish. Two events run side by side: the Marysville Stages, the feature, with 171 km of competitive distance and the first car away at 09:30, and the Spring 200 with 143 km and a first car at 11:00. Both complete every competitive stage in daylight. The stage-by-stage route had not been released as of 10 September 2026. The 2023 running was fully route-charted — written route instructions, no pace notes — with RallySafe as the official timing.
• Terrain: Gravel forest roads in the Yarra Ranges surrounding Marysville, about 90 minutes north-east of Melbourne at the foot of Lake Mountain. The roads through the state forest around the town are what the event is known for.

Watching it

The organisers have a Spectators page up and say the spectator guide will be published closer to the event; as of 10 September 2026 there were no named viewing areas or road-closure times on it. No admission charge appears anywhere in what they have published, and Victorian club and state-championship rallies on public forest roads don't sell spectator tickets. Gallipoli Park in the middle of town is the reliable spot: it is headquarters, start and finish, with the first car away at 09:30 and everything run in daylight, so cars and crews come through it all day. Out on the stages, the roads are closed public forest roads — once one closes you are in until it reopens, so pick one point and stay. The 2023 running asked every crew to nominate someone for control, road-closure or spectator marshalling duty, which is a fair signal of how tightly the road network is managed.

Running order

1. Saturday 17 October 2026

   A single day from Gallipoli Park. First car away at 09:30 for the Marysville Stages and 11:00 for the Spring 200, with all competitive stages completed in daylight. Documentation, scrutineering, briefing and finish times will only appear in the supplementary regulations, unpublished as of 10 September 2026.

2. How the 2023 running was shaped — a guide only

   Headquarters at Gallipoli Park opened 07:00, with a ceremonial start there at 09:25 and the first car due back at the finish at 16:49 — close to the 09:30 start now confirmed for 2026. Road books were available from 17:00 the evening before, and service park space was capped at two vehicles per team with roughly 150 km between service breaks.

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 — sealed the whole way, but tight and slow, and a genuinely good drive in its own right. The town has fuel and a small shopping strip; fill up there, because the stage roads are gravel forest roads and phone coverage in the ranges is patchy at best, with Telstra the most likely to hold a signal. Download maps before you leave the highway.
• Where to stay: Marysville is small and October is its busy month — the Great Tarmac Rally takes over the same town six days later — so book early or stay out of town. In Marysville itself there's Peppers Marysville on Murchison Street, garden cottages and apartments through the town, and Marysville Holiday Park on the Buxton-Marysville Road with powered sites, riverside cabins and glamping tents. Nearby: the Black Spur Inn and Saladin Lodge at Narbethong on the way in, and BIG4 Taggerty Holiday Park about 15 minutes north. Mid-October in the ranges is still cold at night.
• While you’re there: Steavenson Falls is five minutes from town, an 84 m drop at the end of an easy gravelled path. Keppel Falls, Keppel Lookout and the Tree Fern Gully trails all start close by, and Lake Mountain Alpine Resort — 25 minutes up the hill — runs summit walks and mountain-bike trails out of snow season. Cathedral Range State Park at Taggerty has the Jawbone Peak and Wells Cave scrambles for anyone wanting a proper climb, and the Black Spur drive itself is worth timing for early morning on the way in.

Entering

Not open yet, but close. The organisers posted on 7 September 2026 that the supplementary regulations and entries "through the Wolf Entry System will be available soon" — a change from 2023, when the club took entries on a JotForm — and the site's Downloads page is still empty. No 2026 entry fee, close date or field cap has been published. For scale, 2023 charged $500 for the Marysville Stages, covering road books, RallySafe hire and service vehicle registrations, with the combined event capped at 100 cars and a ballot if oversubscribed. VCRS classes are set on engine capacity: A up to 1400cc, B to 1600cc, C to 2000cc, D over 2000cc two-wheel drive, E over 2000cc four-wheel drive, with capacity multiplied by 1.7 for forced induction and 1.8 for rotaries, plus separate two-wheel drive, Novice, Junior Cup and Senior Cup awards. Watch marysvillestages.com and WOLF for the regulations; the club's contact is secretary@marysvillestages.com.

On this page: the route and format, the running order, travel and accommodation, entry fees and deadlines. Entries and official documents are handled by the organisers on the official event page.

History & form

• History: Grew out of the Ford Four Car Club's Spring 200 and first ran as the Marysville Stages in 2010 under event director John Roberts, taking joint VRC/VCRS status from 2014. Winners include Justin Dowel (2014), Darren Windus (2015 and 2021), Warren Lee (2017), Arron Windus (2019) and Adrian Stratford (2022). In 2023 it left the VRC and ran as a sub-event of the Southern Classic Rally, won by Brendan Reeves and Aiden O'Halloran in a Datsun 1600, then did not appear on the Victorian calendar in 2024 or 2025.

Worth knowing

• The date is 17 October: Worth stating plainly, because one source still disagrees. The event's own site and VicRally, the championship's calendar, both give Saturday 17 October 2026. The Historic Rally Association's club calendar still lists it on 3 October as "VCRS 6" — that entry is out of date, so don't plan around it.
• Licensing: A Motorsport Australia permitted event, run under the National Rally Standing Regulations and the Victorian Club Rally Series rules. Both crew members must hold the appropriate Motorsport Australia licence and be members of an affiliated car club — an AASA licence, which covers the tarmac events run out of the same town, is not the one you need here.
• Not the same as the Great Tarmac Rally: Two rallies run out of Marysville within a week of each other in 2026. This one is gravel, one day, 17 October, run by the Ford Four Car Club under a Motorsport Australia permit. The Great Tarmac Rally is closed-road tarmac across three days, 23-25 October, run by Australian Tarmac Rally under AASA.