Here’s just a small sample of the photos taken at the 2023 Shannons Adelaide Rally run on closed roads within the Adelaide Hills over 3 days.  The large field of more than 300 cars consists of tour groups, to Spirit and Challenge categories with cars able to do a maximum of 120kph and the Competition category with a 200kph limit.  The categories are further split into Classic and Modern sub categories.  The tour groups can see cars bunched up as the drivers are able to enjoy the Adelaide Hills roads, using all of the road while they are closed to the public.  The latter 3 categories sees cars released at 30sec intervals.  The rally visits several of the hills towns giving the public a chance to see the cars and drivers up close.

This year saw an unusual result.  After 3 days of 29 timed stages the top 2 cars in the overall classification finished on equal time, with Matt Selley/Hamish McKendrick and Oscar Matthews/Naomi Tillett (in a 2003 Mitsubishi Evo 8RS and 1999 Mitsubshi Lancer Evolution respectively) having to share the cup.  Early leaders Mark Laucke/Aaron Steer (2004 Porsche GT3 CS in the iconic pink “pig” livery) were unable to complete Day 1, when Selley/McKendrick took over and led the field by 22secs.  The crew of Matthews/Tillett was in 3rd place.

Day 2 saw Matthews/Tillett gradually chip away at Selley/McKendrick’s lead and eventually be ahead at the penultimate stage (after winning 8 of the day’s 11 stages) in a dominating display.  Jack Monkhouse/Niall Woolley (1973 Datsun 180B SSS) and Lauke/Steer were the other stage winners.

Day 3 and Selley would strike back, winning the first 3 stages and then taking the lead back.  This spurred on Matthews/Tillett who would draw level with Selley/McKendrick at the end of the penultimate stage.  Now there was only the short Windy Point stage to run.  Both teams would post exactly the same time to record a historic draw for outright honours as well as Comeptition Modern subcategory.  Rounding out the top 3 would be Monkhouse/Woolley, 48secs behind the joint winners.  They beat the next best Classic subcategory crew of Nick and Jacob Streckeisen (1985 Porsche 944 Turbo Cup) by nearly 5mins.  Third place in Competition Modern and 4th overall was Cameron and Tania Wearing in their 2007 BMW E92 M3 almost 2mins behind Monkhouse/Woolley.  Nigel Joyce/Justin Perkins (2006 Subaru WRX) won the Challenge victory over Jordan Badcock/Brody Mincham (2001 Mitsubishi Evo 7) by a minute and a half.

Contact me for photos through the website or myself (Frank Kutsche) through Facebook.  Remember these are just a small sample of all the photos.  Please note photos were taken of all cars that completed the 4 stages covered here.

SS4 Cherryville Plus1

SS7 Cherryville Plus2

SS14 Corkscrew Plus

SS22 Windy Point