THE popular Swift Signs Christmas Stages Rally will again take place at Croft Circuit on bank holiday Tuesday, December 27, with all 80 available places snapped up by competitors within 30 minutes of entries opening last week.

Organised by Northallerton Automobile Club Ltd, the event's entry list includes seven-times winner Kevin Procter, from Leeming, who plans to wheel out his new Ford Fiesta, former Le Mans winner Guy Smith (Ford Focus WRC) and ex-British rally champion Steve Perez.

Local aces Paul Swift, from Darlington, in his Ford Escort Mk2, Scotch Corner’s Tony Bardy (Ford Focus WRC), Ryan Champion, from Castleton, and Northallerton ace Graeme Bell (Proton Millington) will all be vying for honours on the day.

Entries are still being accepted as the club operates a policy of the final 10 places on the entry list being offered by selection or ballot after the closing date early next month, so prospective competitors are still being encouraged to enter.

Indeed, there’s more rally action to look forward to at Croft early in the new year when Darlington and District Motor Club organise their popular Autogas/Cartersport Jack Frost Stages Rally. Scheduled for Sunday, January 15, the 45-stage mile event will run to its usual eight-stage format, with regulations available soon at darlington-motor-club.org.uk.

Meanwhile, round two of the Motorsport News MSVR Circuit Rally Championship takes place at Cadwell Park, in Lincolnshire, on Sunday, with another healthy local contingent making the trip in search of more glory.

Paul Swift, with wife Jessica on the maps, plus Graeme Bell and Russ Radford, are hoping for a good run on the North Humberside Motor Club event, as are Hutton Rudby’s Paul Woodhouse and Paul Rowland (Ford Escort Mk2) and Saltburn crew Ian and Nick Colman (Nissan Sunny GTi-R).

Stokesley’s Mark and John Burton (Ford Fiesta XR2) and Dave Johnstone, from Leeming Bar, with Pickhill co-driver Bruce Lindsay (Peugeot 205), will also be in action, while Northallerton teenager Georgina Smith again co-drives for Larry Carter (Peugeot 206). Giles Dykes, from Barnard Castle, partners former event winner David Tinn in their Proton Millington.

AFTER a difficult time over the past couple of years which has resulted in cancellation of the 2016 event, the Roger Albert Clark Rally will return to the forests in exactly 12 months’ time. The new event format will be over four days, starting on Friday, November 10, and finishing on Monday, November 13, 2017.

The four-day format will cover between 250 and 300 stage miles and will again become the greatest challenge in rallying in the UK, using forests from all around the country, much of which are expected to be in the northern region. Planned to be a biennial event for the near future, it will run with subjective route notes and a class structure for those crews who wish to use maps.

The entry fee will be in the region of £3,000, which can be paid in stages, and the full format, including start, overnight and finish locations and stages to be used, will be announced at the Autosport International show at the NEC in January.

Rally manager Colin Heppenstall said: “A lot of people didn't think the event would come back into the motorsport calendar, but the motor club always had the intention of bringing the event back to how it all started back in 2004 and bring the true life back into the traditional RAC rallies of the 1980s. The event format will be long stages, long days and a challenge to both the crew and the service personnel and be an event that people look forward to doing and spectating on every two years.”

A lot of foreign interest has already been shown in the event and for more updates as they are released, visit the event’s Facebook and Twitter feeds.