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 in the Blue Range Forest 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 approximately 10 special stages and 171 km of competitive distance inside a 338 km route, scored as two separately-pointed heats; the Spring 200 — the rally the Marysville Stages originally grew out of — runs 8 stages and 143 km inside 261 km. A crew may enter one or the other, never both. 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

The supplementary regulations list the Marysville Stages as Round 3 of five Victorian titles at once: the Victorian Rally Championship (VRC), the Victorian 2WD Rally Championship (VRC-2WD), the VRC Clubman Award, the VRC Novice Award and the Victorian 2WD Under 2L Rally Championship (VRC-2WDU2L). The Spring 200 alongside it is Round 4 of the Victorian Club Rally Series. The series are sponsor-titled DRC 4x4 (VRC) and ProRally Motorsport Fabrications (VCRS). The Historic Rally Association also lists the day as a round of its own club championship.

Organiser

Ford Four Car Club Inc. (FFCC)

Base

Marysville

Surface

Gravel

The route & format

• Format: One day out of Gallipoli Park in the centre of Marysville, which is headquarters, start, finish and the single service area. Two events run side by side. The Marysville Stages is the feature: about 10 special stages, 171 km competitive and 132 km liaison inside a 338 km route, split into two heats scored separately for championship points, first car away 09:30. The Spring 200 runs 8 stages, 143 km competitive and 118 km liaison inside 261 km, first car 11:15 — the event's home page rounds that to 11:00, so take the regulations' time. Last car of both is due back by 18:00 and everything runs in daylight. Both are blind and fully route charted — intermediate distances and advisory tulip diagrams for every stage and liaison section, no pace notes — with RallySafe timing. Parc fermé applies to the Marysville Stages at the finish; there is none for the Spring 200.
• 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.

Marysville Stages 2026 results

• 2026 result: Danny Traverso/Anthony Carr (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9) won both heats and the event by 1:43 from Russell Hocking/Jayden Hocking (Evo IX), with Rowan Quill/Michelle Canning (Nissan 180SX) third. 20 crews started and 12 finished. Times as the scorer published them on the night; provisional results are due 21 October and final results 24 October.
• Shakewell Racing 2026 result: Car 14, the 1995 Subaru Impreza WRX, with Heather Brumby co-driving: the entry had gone in with the co-driver to be confirmed. 7th outright in 2:09:47, 7th in Heat 1 and 8th in Heat 2, our best stage 6th fastest on SS2. Among the crews who finished, we held 6th from the first stage to the ninth, lost it to Anthony and Samantha Morrow on the final stage, and kept 7th from Brian Semmens/Dan Parry by one second.

Where spectators watched

The organisers have a Spectators page up and say the spectator guide will be published closer to the event; as of 27 September 2026, three weeks out, there were still no named viewing areas or road-closure times on it, and the Downloads and Competitors pages were both empty placeholders. 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.

How 2026 ran

1. Wednesday 14 October — scrutineering

   17:30 to 20:30, and not in Marysville: scrutiny is at Lucas Automotive, 94 Levenswell Road, Moorabbin, on the other side of Melbourne. Worth planning around if you are travelling in from out of state.

2. Friday 16 October — documentation

   Book-in and documentation at Gallipoli Park from 17:00, closing 19:00. Objections to the provisional start order close 21:30 the night before, on the Wednesday.

3. Saturday 17 October — rally day

   Rally HQ opens 07:00 at Gallipoli Park with documentation, book-in and RallySafe units continuing. VRC book-in closes 08:30 and the start order is posted, less the top three balloted positions. Crew briefing and that ballot at 08:45. VCRS book-in closes 09:15. First car of the Marysville Stages away 09:30, first Spring 200 car 11:15, competition finishes 18:00, presentation to provisional winners about 18:30 and HQ closes 19:30. Times marked in the regulations as approximate will be confirmed in Furthers.

4. After the event

   Provisional results are emailed to crews and posted to results.vicrally.com.au on Wednesday 21 October, and become final at 19:00 on Saturday 24 October if no protest is received.

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

Entries for 2026 have closed. They opened with the supplementary regulations and closed Wednesday 7 October 2026 at 18:00 by the regulations (the WOLF portal's own schedule said 20:00). Entry was through the WOLF portal at app.wolfacility.com/event/marysvillestages-rally, payment with the entry, card or EFT. The fee is $950 for the Marysville Stages (VRC) and $750 for the Spring 200 (VCRS), covering application fees and levies, the trophy and publicity funds, Motorsport Australia personal accident insurance for both crew and RallySafe hire, plus two service crew nominations — extra service crews are $15 each. The field is capped at 60 cars, accepted in order of receipt with the overflow going to a reserve list and a ballot if a single day's entries push it over. You may enter the Marysville Stages or the Spring 200, not both. Changing car or crew after entries close costs $50 and a fresh scrutiny booking if it is the car. Further regulations, bulletins and the start order went out through the Sportity app, on channel Marysville2026, with results also posted to results.vicrally.com.au.

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: Motorsport Australia permit 326/1710/01, run under the National Rally Standing Regulations, the VRC Standing Regulations and, for the Spring 200, the VCRS Series Rules. Both crew members need a current Motorsport Australia Rally licence or better and membership 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. The Marysville Stages is open to all crew grades; the Spring 200 is Grade B and below. One requirement catches people out: both crew members must have officiated at least one event on the Victorian Rally Calendar in the previous or current year, with newcomers to rallying exempt.
• Servicing and fuel: One service area only, at Gallipoli Park — no intercept servicing anywhere on the route. There is no pump fuel at service: crews refuel from their own supplies in the designated areas or at a commercial station, with two refuelling opportunities at Gallipoli Park and one optional remote refuel visited twice.
• 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.

How the result happened

Our running position after every stage. 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.