The organising committee of The Middle of Everywhere Gippsland Rally has been planning additional stages to the 2025 event.
As reported on rally.com.au, this year’s The Middle of Everywhere Gippsland Rally will welcome an exciting new change for competitors and spectators with the introduction of night stages.
Taking place within the Gippsland region in August, the fourth round of the EROAD Australian Rally Championship (ARC) season will see crews tackle more than 200 competitive kilometres across 14 stages in an endurance format.
As part of the new-look rally, crews will be completing two passes of four stages on the Saturday, with event organisers opting to push back the day’s itinerary to start in the afternoon and finish under the night sky – offering a fresh challenge to crews.
Featuring in Saturday’s evening action will be last year’s driver-voted ARC Stage of the Year, Deep Creek, as well as a special illuminated spectator stage where fans will experience a mini festival-like atmosphere.
With night stages absent from the ARC for more than a decade, event organiser Andrew Roseman was excited about what the new addition will bring for both the championship and the event.
“We have been running this event for four years now, and we were thinking about ways to freshen it up and make it an exciting challenge,” Roseman said.
“There was also some feedback from people wanting to see something different at events, so that’s when the idea to introduce night stages was formed. It adds an extra element and layer of difficulty to the event, which excites us.
“From a competition point of view, I think it will really level the playing field. Having the same pace notes for four years gives some people an advantage, but everything is different at night. It changes the characteristics of the stages and adds to the complexity of it all.
“Then from an officials and spectators’ perspective – any sporting event at night is always a spectacle, and that’s no different in motorsport. One minute, it’s complete darkness and silence, and then the next, you hear the roar of the cars coming towards you before watching them fly past you under lights. It’s nothing short of spectacular.
“We’ve missed night rallying in the ARC for a long time. It’s been a feature at club and state events, but not at the national level, so we’re truly excited to bring it back and see the best drivers in the country running in the forests at night.”
The Middle of Everywhere Gippsland Rally takes place in and around the forests of the Gippsland region on 22-24 August.