Harry Bates has surprised his more experienced rivals by taking Heat One honours at the Quit Forest Rally and coming second overall after a countback at round one of the 2016 Kumho Tyre Australian Rally Championship (ARC), in Busselton, Western Australia.

Driving a Neal Bates Motorsport Toyota Corolla S2000, Bates and co-driver John McCarthy held off multiple ARC champion, Simon Evans, to win Heat One by just 1.1 seconds.

Both Bates and Evans finished the overall event with the same points based on their positions in both Heat One and Heat Two, however, the bonus point given to Evans for recording the most stage wins during the event was enough to hand them the event victory.

“Simon and I will leave here on a similar amount of points, which for me is obviously still beyond what I expected coming into the weekend, so I think although I’m disappointed I’m not a bit closer to him today and that we couldn’t get that top spot but we still need to be happy with the weekend,” Bates said.

Bates admitted he was surprised with the Heat One win and feared he’d given it away when he braked too late on a corner in SS7, running wide off the. Fortunately for him, he was able to continue and managed to hold off the hard-charging Evans.

Keeping event honours in the family, Harry Bates’ father, Neal, co-driven by Coral Taylor, won the Australian Classic Challenge by over 5 minutes on both days of the rally.

The next round of the ARC is on home ground for Harry and Neal – round two is the National Capital Rally, to be held in Canberra 27-29 May 2016.