He won his first state championship event, the Safari Rally in June 1986 and followed it up with victory in the very next round, the “Experts” Cup.
In 1987 Herridge acquired a more competitive Subaru RX Turbo and developed this car to go on and win the Western Australian Rally Championship in 1988 and 1990 and was runner-up three times in 1986, 87 and 89.
In 1992 Rob was invited to be part of the newly-formed Team Subaru in national championship, with Rob teamed with Kiwi Possum Bourne.
While Possum took possession of a new Prodrive-built Group-A Legacy, Rob’s Group-N Liberty (as the Legacy as it was branded in other parts of the world) was built by Possum Bourne Motorsport in NZ and was originally Peggy Bourne’s family road car.
After having a few years off to allow his son Dean to climb the rally ladder, Rob returned to the State Championship and proved he had lost none of his speed by winning the 2001, 2002 and 2003 Championships and has now won more state titles than any other driver.
With the additional demands of running Maximum Motorsport, Rob scaled back his competition program to selected state and tarmac rallies (including Targa Tasmania 2009 and Targa West 2010). He is very much involved with the day to day running of the company, including the fabrication of many of the specialist Rally parts used by Maximum Motorsport.
However the competitive spirit still burns fiercely. In 2011 Rob took his Maximum Motorsport Subaru Forester to a Production class victory on debut at the Australasian Safari. He then followed it up in 2012 by claiming second outright in the Safari, the Forester beating much larger 4WDs in the week-long enduro through the Australian outback.
