How climate change in outback Australia is affecting Shitbox Rally

Usually, in autumn, James Freeman finds himself surrounded by dirt, dust and diesel fumes as he navigates his “Shitbox car” through the dry of outback Australia.

But if he were to attempt that next year without checking the weather first, there’s a good chance he’ll get bogged.

For the better part of 15 years, Mr Freeman, the founder and chief executive of the famed Shitbox Rally, has been raising money for cancer research with five rallies a year across the country.

In 2024, all but one rally has had to be rerouted due to extreme, unpredictable weather, during different seasons. 

In fact, Mr Freeman says the past five years have all been subject to very noticeable changes in climate.

While he is not a meteorologist, with his fundraising rallies so dependent on the weather, he’s been closely monitoring the conditions for some time.

“We’ve found in the last five years … the amount of unseasonably wet weather coming through into the outback, into central Australia, outside of the normal periods … is getting more commonplace,” Mr Freeman said.

Known for its flamboyant cavalcades of cars that pass through Central Australia, the Shitbox Rally typically runs its rallies during the traditionally drier months for those areas between April and October. 

“Historically, those times of the year are usually very dry and very favourable for the types of projects that we run,” Mr Freeman said.

“It’s becoming a lot more challenging because the weather patterns seem to have made a bit of a change.”

Since starting the Shitbox Rally in 2009 in memory of his mother and father who both died from cancer within a space of 12 months, Mr Freeman has raised more than $50 million for cancer research. 

Cars that take on the challenge need to stay true to the rally’s name and be “shitboxes”. That means they can cost no more than $1,500 and be two-wheel drives.

Suffice to say, this number of cars with questionable reliability need support vehicles.

While these vehicles are well-equipped four-wheel drives with satellite phones, recent extreme weather events have seen even the support cars get into strife and need rescuing. 

Neil Starrett and his partner Nikki Wickham, who are already well-established rally drivers, had one such experience.

In late 2022, while driving the support vehicle from Tibooburra in far north-west New South Wales en route to Glengarry Hilton, they and the other support car became bogged in the black soil mud. 

“Then we talked to a farmer who said, ‘Even if you had been able to get through here, the bridge about 2 kilometres ahead was under water and had been for weeks.'”

Both support cars were able to pull each other out of trouble, but the rally had to be rerouted to Nyngan in central NSW.

“We were able to reroute the rally on that day and make sure we could do that before any rally cars got into anywhere where roads weren’t suitable.”

What’s happening with the weather?

Janette Lindesay, a climatologist with the Australian National University, says there is an explanation as to why the outback is seeing unseasonable weather.

“Well, what we’re seeing with global heating impacting on the climate system is different effects in different parts of the world, and different parts of Australia as well,” Professor Lindesay said.

“But in essence, we’ve got a warmer atmosphere, which has more evaporated water in it from the ocean. That atmosphere has more energy in it and it’s able to therefore contribute that energy to rainfall-producing weather systems.”

Professor Lindesay said there was also more extreme weather.

“We’ve got greater extremes because the overall weather systems are shifting and a bit destabilised, and also, we’ve got this extra energy in the atmosphere, which then plays out in more extreme events occurring and less predictable patterns,” she said.

Cancer doesn’t stop, so the rallies don’t

Despite the change in weather conditions, Mr Freeman is not concerned about the future of Shitbox Rally.

“We’re not going to stop doing what we’re doing because of the weather,” he said.

“Box rallies is all about raising funds for cancer research, so cancer doesn’t care what the weather is doing and nor should we.”

While the Shitbox Rallies will divert and reroute each rally when the weather does impact them, the organisers won’t be making major changes to rallies based on what the weather might do in the future.

“It doesn’t mean that farmers and the station owners are going to turn around and just go, ‘Alright, let’s just stop doing what we’re doing now because we’re concerned about a future drought.'”