“WE HAVE done it.”

That was the cheery cry from Bob Carle, the Chair of Coffs Coast Festival of Motor Sport and Coffs City Rotary Club executive, on the last day of the month-long event.

“What a month, for what was originally going to be a small event for one weekend that built to a month of all codes of Motor Sport to help promote the Asia Pacific Rally round, and final rounds of all the other Australian and NSW Rally Championship finals and try and bring some motorsport fans back to Coffs Harbour,” Bob told News Of The Area.

“The Rally was run totally by Motorsport Australia and although we promoted it and advertised heavily for it, thank goodness we didn’t have to run that as well, that event is a massive task and requires a lot of time and money to put on.

“We consider we did our job really well for the Rally and can certainly attest to the rest of the events the clubs of our area put on.

“Some clubs did better than others but we owe them all a huge thanks for believing in what we proposed and ran extra events for the Festival which made it what we got.”

Bob has already had preliminary talks with a lot of the clubs and some sponsors and they are keen for next year, especially now they can see what the Coffs Coast Festival of Motor Sport can be.

Bob thanked the members of all participating clubs, and the Committee and members of the Coffs City Rotary Club for backing this inaugural event.

“Next year will be bigger and better with new enquiries already wanting to be involved,” Bob said.
The Festival’s last event was the Hessions Auto Parts Season Opener at Grafton Speedway.

“What a roll up of speedway fans.

“I would like to thank the Corbit family for the work and effort they put into getting such a list of entries from Sydney to central Queensland for their great night,” said Bob.

Results can be found at www.speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/2076743.

The Asia Pacific Rally was won by Haydon Padden from New Zealand with Lewis Bates from Canberra second and Sydney-based Richie Dalton third.

“We had some amazing local efforts in the Rally, the most outstanding was Nathan Quinn who at one stage was leading the Rally.

“He has won the NSW Championship Round, first in the ARC final round, but didn’t enter the Asia Pacific round.”

Sam Hill from Woolgoolga ran in a few different classes.

He finished seventh in the Production Cup Final, fourteenth in the ARC final and tenth in the NSW Round.

“A great effort for Sam and his team.

“Mal Keough in his trusty Audi Quattro finished fifth in the NSW Championship back with his old co-driver Pip Bennett, who has been out injured for some time.

“Mark Beard from Woolgoolga dusted his Subaru off as well and ran sixteenth in the NSW Series.”

Another local, Steve Arthur, had a long-awaited run again in the NSW Series round and finished 31st.

“A great effort from Steve as he hasn’t run an event for some time,” said Bob.

The Summersell family is grassroots motorsport at its best.

Peter Summersell and wife Catherine ran their Nissan Pulsar and finished 25th outright in the NSW Series Round, rounding off a great weekend for the family.

“Peter started his boys off in our local club’s Khanacross events and has now bought a better car for them to run in rallies.

“He had a two-car team entered.

“The boys had a mishap on Saturday which put them out of the rally.

“Unfortunately, Harvey and Jonah only hurt their pride, and the car,” said Bob.

Special thanks go to Mike Camilleri, CCFMS Committee Official, who was event MC and photographer.

The Coffs Coast Festival of Motor Sport will run again next year.

“We will do a few things differently, and if Motorsport Australia doesn’t bring an event next year we will run our own rally.

“What would a Festival of Motor Sport at Coffs Harbour be without a rally?”

With the month-long festival successfully completed, the organisers are all keen to make 2023 bigger and better with other codes of motor sport wanting to be involved.

Anyone who is interested in being involved, please do not hesitate to call Bob Carle on 0411727255.

By Andrea FERRARI