Life before State Rally
January 1, 2026
Stormhill Sprint: four night stages, one washout, fifth outright
July 5, 2026
Saturday, 30 May 2026 at Bakers Beach, Tasmania
Baker’s Beach Blast was never going to be the comfortable one, and that was rather the point.
Every simulator hour Jay has banked has been run on the 1-6 pace note system, and the Baker’s Beach rally ran 1-10. That is not a small adjustment, it is a different language for the same road, twice the resolution and half the familiarity, and it has to be decoded at whatever speed the car happens to be doing at the time. He picked it up over the weekend, which is about as much as anyone can ask of a first attempt.
Calling those notes was Steve Glenney, who has been doing this rather longer than Jay has been alive to watch it. A calm, accurate delivery is worth more to a young driver than any amount of encouragement, and it showed.
The other first was the dark. The event ran across daylight and night, and rallying at full noise after sunset is a separate discipline to rallying in daylight, not a harder version of the same one. The road shrinks to wherever the lights are pointed and the notes stop being a guide and start being the only information you have.
The weekend ended seventh outright. Better than that, the car came home needing almost nothing before the next round. Finishing is a skill. Finishing with everything still bolted where it started is a rarer one, and it is the cheaper one too.
Thanks to Page Hire for the tow vehicle and trailer, and to Simschool, Ravage Raceworks and Mackpack Storage for the continued support. None of this happens without you. On to the next one.
