Oberon Rally

About the Oberon Rally

The Oberon Rally is a one-day gravel rally held on Saturday 31 October 2026 (08:30-19:00), running as Round 5 of the 2026 AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series (sponsor-titled the Pipe King Southern Cross Rally Series). It is based at Black Springs, near Oberon, NSW, with competitive stages run on forest roads in the Vulcan and Essington State Forests. The event is organised by AMSAG (the Australian Motor Sport Action Group), a non-profit association that runs rallies throughout country New South Wales, with entries through the WOLF Event Platform. Oberon sits at 1,113 m elevation, so late-October mornings can still be cold — pack layers.

Championship

AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series (2026, Round 5); currently sponsor-titled the Pipe King Southern Cross Rally Series

Organiser

AMSAG - the Australian Motor Sport Action Group

Base

Black Springs, near Oberon, NSW 2787

Surface

Gravel

The route & format

• Format: Historically 6-10 stage runs (5 stages run twice in 2023) for ~108-110 competitive km — 2026's plan not yet published as of late July.
• Terrain: Gravel forest-road rally through the Vulcan and Essington State Forests near Oberon — fast open shire roads through to tighter pine-forest sections.

Watching it

Free — AMSAG rallies are open to the public with no admission charge, and the club publishes downloadable spectator instructions (maps, turn-by-turn directions and first-car times) for each viewing point about a week out. The hub for the day is Avoca Pioneer Park on the corner of Abercrombie and Dog Rocks Roads, Black Springs, which doubles as start, service park and finish, with food and drink sold in the community hall opposite. The rules are strict: stay inside the marked area behind the bunting, never stand on the road or a possible escape route, obey the spectator marshals, 50 km/h on the forest gravel, no fires in the forest at any time, and drones only with prior organiser approval.

Spectator points

• 2026 points — not yet published

  Re-checked 30 August 2026: AMSAG has still not released the 2026 spectator instructions, stage plan or running schedule, and entries have not yet opened — the event page lists everything as "will be uploaded here when available", with entries to run through WOLF. The rally base is the corner of Dog Rocks Road and Abercrombie Road, Black Springs. Check amsag.com.au in the fortnight before 31 October, and print or screenshot the PDF before you leave town — there's no reliable reception in the forest.

• Avoca Pioneer Park service park

  Corner of Abercrombie and Dog Rocks Roads, Black Springs. Free to wander, and you see every car start, come in for its service breaks and finish. The Black Springs Community Hall opposite sells food all day.

• Roberts and Beemerang — the 2022 pattern

  For a sense of what usually gets used: in 2022 the two points were Roberts, reached via Sewells Creek Road and Greywacke Road about 27 km from the service park, and Beemerang, the close one at 9.7 km via Campbells Creek Road. Both were used twice in the day. AMSAG changes its stage mix year to year, so treat this as the shape of the event rather than a 2026 plan.

Running order

1. Saturday 31 October 2026 — what's published

   AMSAG and Visit Oberon list the event as running 08:30 to 19:00 at Black Springs. The detailed running schedule, service times and stage plan had not been published as of 30 July 2026.

2. How the day usually runs

   Based on the 2022 running, as a guide only: rally check-in Friday evening and from 07:00 Saturday, competitors' briefing 09:00, first car away 09:30, three service breaks through the day, first car finishing about 17:34 and the last of a 60-car field around 19:30, with presentations at the after-event function.

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: Black Springs is 24 km south-west of Oberon on Abercrombie Road, fully sealed since 2008, so the service park is reachable in a normal car. Oberon is 193 km and about 2 hours 40 from Sydney via either the Bells Line of Road or the Great Western Highway, 47 km from Bathurst and 244 km from Canberra via Goulburn and Taralga; nearest airports are Bathurst (about 40 minutes) and Orange (about 90). Fill up in Oberon — Black Springs is a tiny forestry village with a hall and a recreation ground and no fuel — and expect gravel forest roads with a 50 km/h limit once you leave the seal.
• Where to stay: Oberon town, 24 km away, is where the beds are: several motor inns and motels, the Royal Hotel, Jenolan Holiday Park with cabins and sites in the centre of town, and camping at the Oberon Showground. Closer to the stages there are farmstays and self-contained cottages around Black Springs, plus basic bush camping with water, toilets and fireplaces at Avoca Pioneer Park and the Black Springs rest area. It's a small town on a Saturday night in a popular spring month, so book well ahead — and pack for 1,113 m of altitude, because frosts run into spring and October mornings average around 8°C, which will make an 08:30 start genuinely cold.
• While you’re there: Mayfield Garden at Oberon is the standout — 65 hectares of cool-climate garden with a giant box hedge maze, water garden and cafe, open daily 09:00-16:30. Kanangra Walls in Kanangra-Boyd National Park is about 25 minutes from Oberon plus an unsealed but 2WD-friendly run to the car park, for one of the best escarpment lookouts in the state, and Lake Oberon and the Campbells River are trout water. Two caveats worth checking before you commit: Jenolan Caves is closed for road repairs with reopening planned for early 2027, and Abercrombie Caves has been closed for flood repairs.

Entering

Entries go through the WOLF Event Platform linked from the AMSAG event page, and as of 30 July 2026 they had not opened — AMSAG tends to open a round only weeks out. Both crew need AMSAG membership ($60 annual competitive or $20 single-event) and, from 1 January 2026, an AASA gravel rally licence ($198, discounted to $99 for the first year for former Motorsport Australia licence holders) — Motorsport Australia licences are no longer accepted. Fields are capped at 60 entries plus five reserves for a one-day round. The 2026 entry fee is not yet published; for scale, Oberon was $600 in 2022 and AMSAG's 2026 one-day Bago round was $895. It's a blind, fully route-charted roadbook event — tulips plus written instructions, no recce and no pace notes — with pre-event regional scrutineering up to three weeks out and none at the event, a RallySafe fitting kit required in the car, and no-wheel-spin starts as a condition of the Forestry Corporation permit.

On this page: the route and format, 3 spectator points, 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

• 2023 result: Dean Ridge/Muireann Hayes (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo) won by just 10 seconds over Andrew Maurer/Brett Kerr, also an Evo — Evos filled the top four in both 2022 and 2023. Field: 43 starters, 34 finishers.

Worth knowing

• Notable: Brings roughly 300 visitors into the Oberon area each year. Oberon town offers B&Bs, caravan parks, farmstays and motels for visiting crews and spectators.