10 Tasmanian teams raised more than $142,000 for cancer research in last month’s Shitbox Rally, driving battered cars worth less than $1,500 from Adelaide to Darwin.
One of them, Team Barry the Brave from Sandford, was named the top fundraising team of the entire spring rally, raising $67,393 to beat all 243 teams in the country.
The rally raises money for Cancer Council Australia. The spring event alone brought in almost $2.5 million.
Barry the Brave is a Ford Econovan painted as a bright pink and purple Tasmanian tiger.
Hobart woman Emma Dooley made it over after her aunt, Pauline Damen, died of lung cancer.
Every tiger stripe on the van stands for someone whose life has been touched by cancer.
One of the team’s drivers, Bianca Paine, said Tasmania had thrown its weight behind the crews.
“I think just the way that Tassie got behind us and also the Tassie teams, it takes a lot,” she said.
“There’s a lot more people than just the ones who end up on the rally who get behind it, whether it’s contributing things to be raffled off or whether it’s buying a raffle ticket, getting behind the community fundraisers.”
“There’s a lot of strength in our little state.”
The teams covered 3,741 kilometres on some of Australia’s roughest outback roads, more than 1,500 kilometres of it unsealed.
Paine said organisers closed the Oodnadatta Track behind the convoy as the mud got worse.
“It was already only open to four-wheel drive, so they had to get a special permit to allow all the two-wheel drives in the Shitbox Rally to go through,” she said.
A record 35 cars did not make it to the finish.
Other strong Tasmanian fundraisers included the Daredevils from Bridport, who raised $16,259 and Two Heads from Wynyard, with $11,170.
The Barry the Brave team has already put its hand up for next year’s rally, from Albury-Wodonga to Mackay.
