By Cool weather, cool racing, cool cars, cool atmosphere, cool was the word to sum up the fifth East Riding Stages Rally edition.
Enhanced to two days beginning with yesterday’s night stages, East Yorkshire’s ‘Monte Carlo’ race equivalent once again attracted huge crowds and an ultra-diverse pool of modern era, yesteryear, specialised automotive machinery.
Ten stages took place today and by the end of Sunday’s action, P1 outright carrying a four-second winning cushion over Citroen powered James Ford/Neil Shanks were 2025 Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Champions, Jersey driver Sam Touzel/Max Freeman.
Touzel/Freeman, Ford/Shanks finished as the only crews to complete the fourteen event stages in sub one hour two minutes.
Matt Hirst/Declan Dear wrapped up the first three finishers, FIA Motorsport Games competitors Ollie Mellors/Ian Windress took fourth.
Fifth to tenth overall were Kevin Procter/Rob Fagg, class (3) victors Lee Edwards/Sam Spencer with their potent G3 Escort Ford, Brad Cole/Jamie Vaughan, Ian Forgan/Callum Young, Roger Duckworth/Alun Cook and Rob Swann/Tom Woodburn in an ex-Ott Tanak WRC Ford Fiesta.
103 crews in total completed the rally, with fifty plus teams on the retirements list.
Having attended each East Riding Stages Rally edition (just imagine TT style racing in East Yorkshire!) since its incorporation in 2022, it is fantastic to witness the meeting’s growing stature, popularity.
Famous faces attending included Beverley’s Sidecar World Champions Sam and Tom Christie, British Rallying Champions Matt Edwards, Howard Davies, and the Mayor of Beverley!
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
