JCB Photography was at the East Riding Stages Rally on Sunday 25th February 2024. For Special Stages 5 & 6 at Westwood Super-special in the market town of Beverley in East Yorkshire. The event was organized by the Beverley & District Motor Club.
With five
stages, each run twice and a ceremonial start and finish in
Beverley’s Saturday Marketplace. The first of the 150 competitors
were flagged away at 09:00, with such a large entry is a testament to
the rally’s growing popularity in only its third year of
running.
The event is
only one of five closed road rallies in the country. Which means that
the club use closed public roads which are then used as special
stages for the event. Competitors use other public roads to get to
each stage, so the cars have to be road legal and obey the highway
code.
The rally
featured some challenging stages across East Yorkshire’s roads,
attracting some of the best competitors from across the UK. A large
number of competitors were driving Ford Fiesta’s of different
specs, from WRC to R5 and R2’s, along with Ford Escort’s, Subaru
Impreza’s, Mitsubishi Evo’s and a number of other manufacturers
including an Aston Martin Vantage build by Prodrive (the same team
that build the Subaru’s Impreza for 1995 World Rally Champion Colin
McRae) for the Race of Champions. With many thousands of rally fans,
lining the stage at Westwood.
After a cold
and overnight frost, a number of competitors hit trouble in the first
couple of stages, including the past winner of this event David
Henderson who had turbo issues and would eventually retire from the
event.
The sun did
come out, mid-morning but started to cloud over just before the
action got underway for the start of SS5. Competitors were set off at
one-minute intervals but once the first car was due to start SS6
(this followed only 15 minutes later after the start of SS5 and was
the same stage layout), this was reduced to 30 seconds as later cars
starting SS5 would also be setting off.
Winner of the
2024 East Riding Stages Rally was Mark Kelly driving the Skoda Fabia
R5, car#5, with co-driver Will Atkins.
Top
3.
Car 5. Skoda Fabia R5 driven by Mark Kelly and co-driver Will Atkins
Car 3. Hyundai I20 R5 driven by James Williams and co-driver Ross Wittock
Car 2. Ford Fiesta Rally2 driven by Callum Black and co-driver Jack Morton
Full
Results from the event can be found here:
https://www.ewrc-results.com/final/86145-east-riding-stages-rally-2024/