Rally for the Ages

Second podium on second ever Rally for the Ages 2024

* Jonathan Shepherd & Imogen Shepherd - win after previous 2nd place

*Young turn out in force with some competitors using Sustain Biofuel for 1st time

*Magneto magazine crew win media award ahead of event support sponsor Classic Car Weekly team

*Women Driver’s Social Club enjoy all the action first hand

*“A resounding success” said HEO-ERA Chairman Tomas De Vargas Machuca as he watched the 65 cars return to the Bicester Heritage base after four regularities and tests over 100 miles of the second ever Rally for the Ages on Saturday 7th September.

“Judging by the smiles on the faces of so many young people, you can see they have had a happy day out. There have been so many parents with daughters, sons, friends, sisters and brothers, all in a great broad church of cars from a 1924 Bentley and 1929 Ford Model A to modern cars. Hopefully many more youngsters will be converted to historic motorsport, it has been joyous.”

Winning young navigator Imogen Shepherd in a BMW 325i said; “It was a great fun day out, we lost a few seconds due to hesitancy, but the event was so well organised by HERO-ERA. We will be back for more HERO rallies next year.”

Imogen’s father and driver Jonathan said; “It was a great route and the marshals were brilliant, but I have to say we were nervous this morning. We were second last year so there was only one way to go, to try and win it, but we did it and Imogen was great. It is just so good seeing all these happy young smiling faces!”

Roland Thomas & Tamzin Thomas were second overall in a 1977 British Leyland Mini 1275 GT after a great performance by the brother and sister act. Tamzin commented; “Never in a million years did we think we could get second place! We were sixth at lunchtime which was good, but we managed to keep it going.” Roland who was in his second event as a driver agreed. “We have borrowed Dad’s car but maybe now we should take over, Tamzin did a great job! We have been on Summer Trial before and were 10^th on Rally for the Ages last year, so we aimed for the top ten this year, but second is great, we have never been on the podium before!”

Tim Sawyer’s young navigator had to depart quickly after the event to get back and finish some homework, but Jack Love successfully navigated Tim to third place in his1971 Ford Escort Mexico. Tim; “Jack is in our car club, but he only answered the message to join me ten days ago. This was an impressive first-time job as a regularity rally navigator, he picked it up really quickly.”

With support from Coryton Fuels and their Sustain brand to encourage ‘Environmentally Responsible Driving,’ some competitors took up the Sustain offer of ‘buy a litre and get a litre free,’ whilst Classic Car Weekly ran their editorial in the paper providing their valuable media support. However, unlike last year when CCW’s Jesse Billington won, this year, features editor Chris Hope and navigator Richard McCann were beaten to the RftA Media Cup by the news editor of Magneto, Elliott Hughes. He was navigated by Sam Leatherland who only received the call to join Elliott on Thursday before the rally after his original navigator had to cry off. Sam said; ”Yes it was a late call, but I jumped at the chance. The camaraderie of the event was impressive, people will help you, talk to you, unlike other car community groups, the classic car group were very welcoming. I also love the character of the cars. HERO-ERA lent us their Arrive Drive Lancia Delta which it was a privilege to be in.”

Elliott agreed, “It is one of my favourite cars, and as this was my first ever rally, I was impressed and grateful to be in such a car for my debut. The atmosphere on event was great too, so I look forward to writing a feature for Magneto next week – and as a bonus, we won the Media Cup!”

The Women Driver’s Social Club put in a team entry in their 1990 VW Scirocco and Hyundai i20 after they connected with each other online and decided to enter the event. Driver Katie Bushell felt that this was an easy entry to cheaper motor sport; “We all love all kinds of cars, particularly the old ones, but we came together in the club and agreed to have a go at this event. We didn’t do very well, but we just all had so much fun!” Navigator Sara Fleming nodded in agreement along with Hannah Hilton-Tapp and Fay Stevenson who managed to finish in the Hyundai.

In fact, the girls were out in force on the Rally for the Ages. Arabella Welch navigated father Jeremy in an Austin Healey 3000 and had a ball on the rally. Arabella said; “It was amazing the amount of people who came out to see us!” Sisters Anna and Louisa Getley were in their 1924 Bentley 3/ 4.5 which has been in the family for three generations. Anna said; “We enjoyed it so much last year that we just had to enter again this year.”

Emily Martin was in a Morris Minor with Beatrice Debney-Lee navigating and they were both absolutely fizzing afterwards; Emily enthused, “OMG, it was so much fun it was the best! Beatrice did really well, and I would say despite the odd error, we did really well!”

Winners last year, Jon and Jack Harvey switched to an MGB and won their class but not the rally overall this time, they were fifth as Jack explained; “ We just made some silly mistakes but we are really happy with first in class, although I would say Dad was a bit weak on the brakes!”

The Rally for the Ages also appears to have been a good platform for some fathers to convince their daughters that historic rallying is a sport they should consider taking up as regular HERO-ERA competitor John Evans explained; “I brought my 13 year old daughter Elise to navigate in our BMW so she could see how much we enjoy historic rallying, I hope she may now come back for more!” They were ninth overall.

Christopher Gobell felt the same way about his daughter Martha; “I’m hoping if she gets hooked then we might carry on competing in the Porsche!” In addition, Craig Goff felt that the sport was ideal for him to spend some time with his daughter Holly and enjoy competing in their Toyota Sera.

There were lots of older cars out on RftA such as the Getley sisters 1924 Bentley and Georgia Peck and Georgie Fenn’s 1929 Ford Model A Boattail Speedster. Jake Cawthorne and Niamh Smith were also vintage car mounted in a 1926 Alvis 12/15. Niamh and Jake are from the world of Drag Racing but hadn’t considered historic rallying until a friend posted a link to RftA, Niamh explained; “We are from a different  motor sport world and hadn’t thought about another area until we saw the link. As we qualified for the free entry, we said let’s give it a go and we loved it!”

Seren Whyte, HERO-ERA Event Manager who was the Competitor Liaison Officer on RftA summed up the rally; “We were very happy with the outcome as we are encouraging a whole new generation to come and try our fantastic sport. Hopefully they will enjoy our other rallies as much as the Rally for the Ages and spend a lot of time in the future enjoying this fabulous form of motor sport with us.

“It was also important to demonstrate our commitment to our NET-HERO programme of Environmentally Responsible Driving with the support of Sustain Fuels on Rally for the Ages. We look forward to the third RftA in 2025 which should be confirmed later in the year.”