Not only was Ivanovic a rallysprint rookie, but he was running with second-hand tyres in a 2001 model which had no turbo charger.

However, come the end of the day, Altitude Race Team attracted a lot more attention. It came thanks to its outright victory.

The result far outweighed the expectations of Ivanovic, who had his uncle Andrew Mohr as co-driver.

“I was sort of hoping to run top 10, but my uncle came back after three runs and said I was leading – that was a bit of a shock,” he said.

“We won by four seconds to the next four wheel drive, so it was fairly close the whole day.

“I had done Khanacross before, but that was my first rally sprint, it was a bit quicker.

“There were quite a number of newer cars and a lot of similar cars, but the turbo versions and with suspensions that were worth a lot more than mine.”

The Volksmuller Rallysprint, staged at Eastern Creek, attracted a strong field of 60 cars given it also doubled as the third round of the NSW Rallysprint Championship.

Racing on a 3.5 kilometre circuit, Ivanovic drew on the skills which had seen him crowned the 2015 Bathurst Light Car Club champion and win his class in state Khanacross series last year.

“It was a one-day event with six runs. We did the same stage three times one way then reversed it and did it three times the other way,” he said.

“I had one hairy moment where I nearly went off, we came fairly quick into a left-hander and nearly went off the road, but somehow managed to keep it on.”

Ivanovic and Mohr were just 0.1 seconds behind the pairing of Bethany and Matthew Cullen after the first run, and soon drove their way into the lead.

The Bathurst talent clocked the quickest times on runs two and three to lead by 5.4 seconds at the halfway point of the rallysprint.

Though the Cullens pushed hard over the back end of the event, Ivanovic and Mohr held on to win by 3.6 seconds.

Support crew member David Catt, who had provided the tyres, was impressed with the effort of Ivanovic.

“There were rally cars fully prepared, fully done with all the multi-thousand dollar suspensions and turbo units and all that sort of stuff,” he said.

“It was funny to watch people at the start of the day, they looked at us setting up there and they’d sort of snub their noses a little bit and walk past.

“Then at the end of the day when the results were coming in, they were looking at us and pointing at us.”