Grandpa Spec Rallying

Sh*tbox Rally Spring 2024 Wrapped.

Some absolute bangers this year....

Thank you for your support along this amazing adventure

Day 7: Belyando Crossing to Townsville

The final day.

A beautiful stretch of unsealed roads through the rolling hills up to Burdekin Falls Dam gave the Corolla its final taste of dirt roads, before enjoying smooth tarmac all the way to the finish line at Townsville Showgrounds.

All 7 cars survived the entire journey out of Buddy Group 17 - a proud achievement spanning across 3,500 kilometres. An amazing crew of people to spend the week with, riding the ups, downs, and the upside-downs.

Finally got our side-by-side flick with our fellow Castrol livery Sh*tbox as well

The post-rally celebrations were set in with beautiful Magnetic Island in the background, and the sun shining on our backs. An obligatory photo with and their Spirit of the Rally trophies, after wearing their suits for the entire time.

We were two blokes making silly videos and raising money for a good cause - and we have been humbled by the support from our friends and family.
Raising over $10,000 for Cancer Council was an unbelievable achievement, and crossing the line was an amazing feeling - thank you to each and everyone of you, this journey was not possible without your help.

We got to see the beautiful landscape this country has to offer, and made some memories for life.

The next step was to get back to Melbourne. Should’ve been easy, right?

Day 6: Isisford to Belyando Crossing

What started as a seemingly straight-forward day, slowly became a gnarly, muddy, lightning-filled adventure.

A straight forward drive up to The Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine provided Nebin with zero knowledge of how not to crack one of our rims in 5 separate places and send our tyre to the afterlife when driving through the mud.

Just before the thunderstorm rolled in, we got the Corolla bogged - and subsequently pulled out by a Pulsar.

Then a pit stop to fix a dodgy alternator on the little Excel saw the awning and the tarp come into their own, protecting Jason and Liam whilst they fixed the issue, and the rest of us as we drank beer.

The rest of the drive into Belyando involved a few more stops to play musical chairs with our batteries to get the Excel home, and witnessing a bushfire started by the lightning.

Luckily the rain hadn’t hit the campground, so it was nice and dry to sleep on for our last night before the finish.

Day 6 was definitely a highlight - cruising through that thunderstorm and seeing the lightning completely light up the night sky was surreal

Day 5: Betoota to Isisford

The ol’ angry ball of heat in the sky decided to fight the Corolla.
Somewhere between pummelling rocky roads and sending it over cattle grids, the radiator decided to lose all its coolant and overheat the car. Nothing a bottle of stop-leak didn’t fix. That was after we had spent about an hour in 40 degree heat with the heater running full blast to keep temps down.

Removed the foggies (for now) and grille to help increase the air flow.

But as she kept doing, the Corolla pulled through and got us home…running on fumes.

More sunsets - more dust - more evening repairs for the team (broken fuel hoses off the pump) and this time, a big serpent on a hill.

Day 4: Innamincka to Betoota

Yep, turns out, Betoota is a real place.

The awning made its debut - shading us from the sun during some roadside repairs.
Couple tyre changes, couple overheating cars, but overall, another successful day of dirt roads that the Corolls Royce ate up.
The petrol rationing continued as we rolled into Betoota and joined a 3 hour long queue for some liquid gold - plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful stars, and even some shooting stars.

Day 3: Milparinka to Innamincka

Despite the massive detour which added about 300km to our route, we were blessed with some stunning views, driving through a dried out lake (with a coffee cart in it….), an oil field, and plenty of dust.

A quick stop off at Cameron’s Corner, the intersection point of borders for SA, NSW, and QLD - before embarking on our journey that never ended and got us into camp running on fumes.

We count ourselves lucky, as none of the cars in our team had major issues, and we got into camp at about 8:30pm. Some teams rolled it at 2:30am.

At least the foggies turned out to be useful.

Day 2: Pooncarie to Milparinka

[redacted]

Due to events classified under Australian Law Section 28.1.9.0 - Grandpa Spec Rallying was temporarily reloacted to the rear seats of The BonMajer's "2WD" Scooby-Doo-Subaru.

Don't worry - the car and it's occupants would fight another day. It'd buff out.
High-tailing it into Broken Hill for rally-car-repair-supplies before the shops closed was a highlight

The Dress-up theme was "Anything But Clothes", so please, marvel out our out-of-this-world race suits. (Motorsport Australia approval pending)

More gorgeous scenery, and another beautiful sunset.

We had our first taste of dirt roads, and we were keen for more.

Day 1: Bendigo to Pooncarie

Felt the love from those who came to see us leave from Bendigo - Thank you!

An easy day of sealed roads up to Pooncarie gave us absolutely zero taste of things to come. Wasted no time leaving Victoria to ensure HWP didn’t go searching under our hood.

The poor Getz decided to throw its engine mount bolts to hell and evict its CV joint. Nothing the boys didn’t fix that evening.

Big thank you to Paul for letting us crash before the rally in Bendigo

🚨🚨 NEW SPONSOR ALERT 🚨🚨

(A belated but much appreciated) Thank you to Direct Discount Tyres Thomastown for sponsoring Grandpa Spec!

Bringing together automotive experts across various fields, each with more than a decade of experience in their areas of specialty, their primary interest is in bringing affordable, high-quality tyres to the northern suburbs.

Direct Discount Tyres Thomastown understands the need for a strong community - and were our go-to choice when mounting our brand new All-Terrains, and dialling in the alignment before our journey.

Get in touch with Wai and the team at

https://www.directdiscounttyres.com/

DDT's Sponsorship helped us reach our final fundraising total of $10,610!