RAC Rally of the Tests 2025, final day. Yarnfield to Llandudno

After three and a half days, 720 miles, 30 tests and 22 regularities, the most unlikely rally car, a Lotus Elan Plus Two, has won the most competitive event, the RAC Rally of the Tests against the odds and defied the doubters.

With odds laid against it even surviving the pounding of the forest, farm and undulating tarmac, John King and Matthew Vokes have scored a deserved win in an unlikely car, their first big win as they measured their performance to retain a gap of over a minute to second place Paul Dyas and Martyn Taylor in their Cortina with the Lotus Twin Cam engine. They in turn battled the third place Lotus Cortina of Belgians Kurt Vanderspinnen and Bjorn Vanoverschelde for most of the event, separated by just one second on for part of the final day!

An emotional John King was talking after shaking the victory champagne with Mathhew Vokes on the Llandudno Promenade after their great win;  “It's great, but I’m a bit emotional. The Lotus, has come good, we've come good. The car was bought for this event from the start of year, and feeding it in slowly and sorting out lots of little problems. She's come good, there’s loads of different rattles, but she's fundamentally done a great job for us.

“They were saying she wouldn’t last, and everybody said me, are you under pressure? No pressure. Matthew has been brilliant, he nails it, so long as I wasn’t stupid on the tests, we were quick, but we had to be because it's such a tough group. All three are from the same class, so I couldn't afford to be dropping time, we had to keep on the money. Everybody was keeping each other honest, but I couldn’t have scored such a great win without a great navigator in Matthew, we are both delighted to win our first big event.”

Matthew Vokes and John King enjoyed some success together earlier this year in HRCR events, but now having won his first RAC Rally of the Tests, Matthew described how it felt; “I don’t think it's quite sunken yet. I finished second on it twice back with Neil Wilson when I did with Neil several years ago. But yes, to finally win it is special, it's the one that everybody wants to win.

“We had great competition from the other podium crews, but it was a shame what happened to Kurt and Bjorn. To John, what a great drive and finally, that’s quite a car!”

John King has had quite a rally car journey as he as climbed the HERO-ERA ranks to claim this big win. From Dolomite Sprint to Toyota, then the Lotus, and now he is preparing for the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge in 2028!

John; “We're going to do the Flying Scotsman next year to bed in my latest car. It’s a good old Dodge, 89 years old and it will be ready for P2P.”

Paul Dyas and Martyn Taylor got fed up of battling three time winners Dan Willan and Niall Forst, as Paul and Martyn finished runner up each time. It wasn’t the win they wanted again, but they loved it none the less.

Paul said; “What a day. It's been nip and tuck all day with Kurt and Bjorn, but unluckily for them they got a bit of a problem on the last regularity, but there was nothing in it. We've just been flat out today. You don't want to be flat out everywhere on all the tests, but you need to try and get a couple of seconds, but we've had to push hard on the last day. What a battle, it was great. “

Martyn Taylor commented on the level of relentless competition and the sort of close battles that can materialise like with the Belgian crew of Kurt and Bjorn.

Martyn; “That's what happens on an event of this length, and this difficulty, really. I mean, Guy Woodcock has really chucked everything into the mix, including the kitchen sink... The mountainous terrain and all the gravel tracks and all the farm roads, it naturally become very difficult, but really enjoyable. It produced a great battle for us with Kurt and Bjorn in the two Lotus engined Cortinas.”

Paul Dyas was delighted with their Cortina as he said; “It has held together brilliantly, the Twin Cam Lotus engine has gone well, I’ve put a half a litre of oil in, that's it. But second place again, well I thought we might have been in with a shout, but John has driven a brilliant rally. Everybody had got a book running that the Lotus Elan would break, even John had put money on it breaking! But, he's driven it like he's stolen it and he hasn't broken it. So fair play to him, a well deserved winner, but we will be back to try again.”

Martyn added; “It does defy the odds, a Lotus sports car winning the tests, especially when you consider the cars that have won the event in the past, it's a bit of a different animal, but fair play to both of them, Matthew and John have both done an absolutely fantastic job.”

Colin Chapman would have been pleased to have seen three Lotus cars having rally success in 2025, as he was when Jim Clark was up there until he crashed his Lotus Cortina on the 1966 RAC Rally. Kurt Vanderspinnen’s Lotus Cortina is faithful to the original with its green flashes, nearly winning the RAC Rally of the Tests two years ago in the same car. This time, he and Bjorn got on to the podium.

Kurt; “It was just a good battle, as the good kind of stress means on the RoTT you have to be focused 100%, but finally we were a bit unlucky, because we caught a van for about one and a half miles. So at one timing point we lost considerable time, but we will be back!”  

Bjorn; “Yeah, we dropped 15 seconds at one timing point, so we dropped to third, but it's always a great battle. Finally, a podium result on a challenging event, and always a great pleasure to try to beat the UK crews.”

The day began with two airfield tests for crews to shake off any sleepy heads, in fact it was Steve Head and Oli Waldock who were absolutely on it first thing as they threw the Escort RS2000 around with total commitment. Still driving Shropshire’s beautiful but challenging lanes, crews would have to suddenly make a turn into a farm or an estate as part of the regularity. The Meres was one such challenge, except that this was a narrow road through a prominent local ex Army Major’s estate, and the Major, who is 100 years old on Thursday, was there to wave to the rally cars as they flashed by.

The Major was ready to go to the local Remembrance Sunday Parade after the cars had left, whilst at the Rednal Kart track, all competition ceased at 11.00 am as RoTT crews and spectators all observed two minutes silence to remember the fallen.

As is the norm for the ‘Tests.’ There was no let up, but the highlights just kept coming. There were two sensational hillclimb tests, the first of which took the cars through the middle of a barn, the second over hill roads that could only be described as slimy as sludge where traction was at a premium. Christopher and Claire Day were doing their best to charge up them in their Cooper S, but stopping to read the code board lead to a spinning wheels standstill. Chris just let the Mini slide back until he got a bit more purchase. The Imp of Mike Dent and Mark Gilmour however, let everyone know it was coming up the hill with its raucous engine echoing out across the valley, but then slithered and bounced its way to the finish control without losing traction.

Of the crew highlights, there was an incredible performance by young navigator and Bob Rutherford Scholarship winner, Miles Fieldhouse who was navigating for Martyn Payton in his Volvo PV544. Martyn, who won best Newcomer Driver Award takes up the plaudits of his navigator who rightly won the Newcomer Navigator Award: “We clung on to fourth, after we had a couple of issues earlier on in the day, but the boy's doing good. This boy has been absolutely fantastic. You know, he's come of age on this event, and it's our first year doing it, and it's just clicked, it’s been brilliant.”

Miles responded; “Like Martyn said, it just clicked. We've had two events where we had our ups and downs, but I have just loved every second of it, and we work really well together, so we happy with how it's all gone.”

Another highlight of the 2025 Rally of the Tests was the final three terrific tests around the Great Orme, WRC Rally territory. Clerk of the Course and HERO-ERA Competition Director Guy Woodcock summed up the event and its links to rally history and the WRC.

“The competitors are coming in saying they've had a wonderful day. Today we had 10 tests, finishing off with three around the Great Orme where many Wales Rally GBs and RAC rallies have played out. We had some great regularities, plus a few tricks up my sleeve, which seem to have sorted the results out.

“We're just so lucky around this area with people having grown up with rallying and so you go and knock on the door and they respond, they love to see the old cars come through. So it's been really good.

We had the Dutch, German and Belgian crews coming over to us at the finish, saying they  have loved it. They always keep coming back, it's a challenge to them to go back to the old style of trip meters, rather than bluenix sat systems they use, as this is what that's what the sport is all about, tradition. We don't want to go too modern, we keep it as original as we can.

“I’m really pleased with the way it's gone, the team have worked really well, putting it all together with the biggest number of tests we've ever had, and it's great to finish up here in Llandudno as this is where we're going to start in 2026.  A lot of people are dressed traditionally, as this event harks back itself to early 60s, late 50s, how rallying was originally done before we went into the forests. So, it is about using the public roads, using sort of off road tracks and private land. You've got some great landowners who have let us into play in their areas.

“The important thing is to keep that ethos of the 60s, and finally, getting to go around the Great Orme is quite a privilege for these guys, because that's WRC territory and we took them the wrong way around, so they couldn't even drive around it to work out what was happening.

“Next, we've got LeJog coming up in a month, so I go from here to home, swap a bag and head down to Land's End to finish off the recce for that. And in a month's time, we'll all be setting up in Land’s End up to John O' Groates for the last event of the year. We will have run 13 rallies at over a 100 plus rally days. So, it's been a tough but satisfying year for me and the team.