Making its debut in the Eastern Canadian Rally Championship (ECRC), Rallye Beauce-Appalaches was held this weekend for its third edition but was contested for the first time as a round of the North American, Canadian and ECRC championships. Staged in the beautiful St-Victor-de-Beauce region, the event represented an entirely new challenge, with roads ranging from fast to highly technical and unfamiliar to most competitors.

Summer sunshine, blue skies and the spectacular scenery of the Beauce region greeted fans and crews at the start of the opening leg on Friday. Then came the numerous timed stages — 27 in total, including 16 counting toward the ECRC classification. The stages proved to be extremely fast, often interrupted by chicanes set up on well-maintained gravel or asphalt roads. Engine power was a decisive factor for those hoping to win, but avoiding any driving or co-driving mistakes was an equally demanding challenge. Sébastien Clark and Pat Lévesque executed that task perfectly. Driving their Ford Fiesta R5, they dominated the event to claim victory by 23 seconds over Vincent Trudel and his American co-driver, Michelle Miller (Subaru WRX STI), the ECRC winners at the Rallye International Baie-des-Chaleurs earlier this summer.

A 23-second gap at the finish represents less than 1.5 second per stage on average, highlighting the intensity of the battle at the front between Clark/Lévesque and Trudel/Miller. The margin was even smaller between second and third place, occupied by Yohan Tessier and Marie-France Desmarais-Trépanier. The 2025 edition winners finished ahead of Ontario’s Michael Dimkovski and his Quebec co-driver, Simon Levac, also in a Subaru. Having won the Black Bear Rally in August, they were looking to claim another podium at Rallye Beauce-Appalaches. They finished fourth, however, less than a minute behind the winners, with the top four crews separated by just 56.1 seconds at the finish.

Behind these four crews, the dominance of Frenchmen Maxime Galpin and Théo Mallet (Peugeot 208 Rally4) was more pronounced in the two-wheel-drive class. The duo led throughout the entire rally. Galpin/Mallet finished ahead of Gaspesians Dave St-Pierre and Éric Dubé in their Ford Fiesta Rally2. Highly spectacular on the short, fast and often dusty timed stages, the two competitors were joined on the class podium by Ontario’s Mark Toufanov and David Bell (Toyota GT86). Three different manufacturers occupied the top three positions in the 2WD class. It was also the first time in the history of the Eastern Canadian Rally Championship that two cars built to WRC (World Rally Championship) regulations won the 4WD class (Clark/Lévesque) and 2WD class (Galpin/Mallet) at the same event.

While Toufanov/Bell also finished ninth overall in the ECRC classification, the global performances of the two crews from Nova Scotia also deserve mention. Both driving Subaru Imprezas, Cal Vandaalen and Meg Grandmaison finished seventh overall, ahead of Blu Vandaalen and Heidi Fennel. Karim Fodil-Lemelin and Jonathan Downing (Subaru) completed the ECRC overall Top 10.

The 2026 edition of Rallye Beauce-Appalaches brought together 33 crews, 24 of them entered in the Eastern Canadian Rally Championship. Sixteen crews completed the event.

The Eastern Canadian Rally Championship (ECRC) features eight events this season, divided between Quebec (four), Ontario (three) and Nova Scotia (one). The next round will be the championship’s only annual visit to the Maritimes, with the Trout Lake Rally taking place September 26-27 in Nova Scotia.

For more information, please visit www.ecrc-crec.ca

Photo credit: © Clément Tavernier / poleposition.ca

2026 ECRC Calendar