adventure when they joined the Lunchbox Rally which passed through Cobar on the weekend raising funds for Cancer Research. Sean’s a regular Box Rally participant (this was his third and he heads off on another in a fortnight) while this was Portia’s first event. Sean said he really loves the outback sunsets while Portia said she liked seeing all the animals as they were driving … and the food!
The Lunchbox Rally passed through Cobar on the weekend with the 140 participants spending Saturday night in town.
The Lunchbox Rally is new to the Box Rallies group which raises funds for Cancer Research.
It’s formatted the same as the Shitbox Rally with a few kid friendly differences and also takes inspiration from the Mystery Box Rally with the route starting and finishing at the same location.
The idea of the Lunchbox Rally was to introduce the next generation of fundraisers (the Box Rally drivers’ kids) to the rally life and rally family.
All of the participants on the Lunchbox Rally have been affected by cancer in one way or another.
Box rally veteran, Callum Leemon decided to introduce his son William to rally life.
“William was only a baby when I did my first rally and two years later I did my next one when his sister was a baby,” Callum told The Cobar Weekly.
“The first one was back in 2013 when my dad had bowel cancer and, my mate I did it with, his mother had breast cancer. And then my mum passed away with lung cancer.”
The father and son have been enjoying their time together on the road and they may even let mother and daughter do the next one.
William said part of his job was to help with navigating and to also talk with other crews on the UHF radio.
“I’ve been talking on the radio but not so much navigating,” William said.
With funding coming from their own business, Leemon Design, and lots of other mates, Callum said they were proud to have finished in the Top 10 fundraisers list.
“We finished 10th but I’m pretty proud of that,” he said.
The idea to theme their 2004 VY Commodore wagon and themselves as Willy Wonka came from William’s name and Callum reckoned he was just right to play the Oompa Loompa part.
