George Woods Rally

43rd Anniversary 2023 George Woods Rally Supplementary Regulations

This is the 43rd anniversary of the George Woods Rally. It was established in 1980 following
George’s untimely death in 1979. Apart from two or three years where conditions conspired
against the organisers, it has run every year since.

The George Woods has always been designed to give an opportunity for club members to try
rallying using either their road car or the car they use in other types of motorsport. In recent
years, the Historic Rally Association introduced a category/class for Standard Cars. The PRO
Rally Motorsport Fabrications Standard Car Class uses the George Woods and similar events.
Many of these cars are showroom standard, using standard seats and seatbelts and without a
roll cage. Others have changed or added these items so they can compete in a greater range of
events.

2020 saw a significant change to the rules governing low level, introductory types of motorsport.
This has meant a lot of behind the scenes work by both volunteer officials and Motorsport
Australia staff to see events like the George Woods continue into the 2020s and beyond.
Understandably, Motorsport Australia (formerly CAMS) seeks to ensure the safety of all involved
in the sport and have thus mandated the use of Frontal Head Restraint (FHR) devices for most
events from 2020 on. This makes it difficult to allow potential new competitors a toe-in-the-water
entry into an introductory event like the George Woods. Standard, unmodified, road cars would
need considerable modification before FHR could be safely used.

After much discussion about how to mitigate the risks of allowing essentially unmodified road
cars to participate in rallies, consensus has been reached. This requires the event to be
designed to ensure that maximum speeds achieved by crews are actively controlled. Our event
will be a Special Stage Rally Regularity. For this type of event (introduced for 2020), times
allowed on competitive sections are limited to a maximum average of 70Km/h and crews must
not exceed 110Km/h at any time. This minimises the risk, allowing a crew to experience a real
rally without going to the expense of roll-cage, special seats, harnesses and FHR.

While careful selection of roads ensures a fun, competitive event can be run within these speed
requirements, all competitors will be required to keep their speed below 110Km/h. The Rally
Regularity regulations set severe penalties for exceeding the speed limit. Speeds will be
monitored, and the relevant penalties applied.

The George Woods was the first Special Stage Rally Regularity event to be run; Motorsport
Australia monitored it to ensure the new rules worked as intended. These Regularity events are
now a well-established step on the rally ladder.

The 2023 event will follow a similar format to the 2020, 2021 and 2022 George Woods Rallies