Thank you to all our rallitives

After a two-year hiatus due to COVID it was a great relief to arrive in Cairns in August for the start of the 2022 Kidney Kar Marathon Rally.

Joining us in Cairns was the Big Red Kidney Bus providing free health checks to local communities.  The bus met up with the rally at Townsville and the Gold Coast as well as at the finish in Dubbo.

Our Rally Ambassadors this year included 2021 Bathurst 1000 winner Lee Holdsworth and Australian Rally Champion Harry Bates. Harry drove the Biante Model Cars entry along with Kath Downie on Day 1 from Cairns to Townsville.

Harry then re-joined the rally on the Gold Coast for our Kidney Kids E-scapers event which was held at Sea World. Kidney kids and their families got to experience a day exploring Sea World and then welcomed the rally participants as they all arrived on the Gold Coast.

This years’ Kidney Kar Rally experienced fantastic media support along the way including National media stories on the Sunrise show on 7, 9News, 7News & 10News as well as daily Radio interviews with participants along the way.

Thirty-seven teams started the Marathon event from Cairns with another three teams joining in the fun from the Gold Coast.

The forty teams raised a staggering $500,000 with XPlant’s John Clout and his son Mitch taking out the Jodie Lanyon Memorial Trophy as top fundraisers followed by Mike and Barbara Kluver (The Artline Team) with Peter and Graham Ward along with Richie Farrar (Bathurst Surf Lifesavers) third.

Samantha Orchard & Harry Clark (Shortfuse) were the Highest Fundraising “Virgins”. Well done to all teams for your efforts!

 In addition to the fundraising side of the event the Rally also gives rally crews a chance to shine with Michael Van Den Acker and David Welch taking out the Arthur and Kim Davis Perpetual Trophy as Outright winners with the least amount of penalty points lost.

The Melbourne crew bought home their Nissan Bluebird ahead of the more powerful V8’s of the Bathurst Surf Lifesavers and the Artline Team.