Lombard Rally Festival Duncombe Park

Report and Images by Davis Gowshall of :DEEGEE: Motorsport Photography

Saturday, 1^st April 2023

Last Saturday I travelled north from my home in the Lincolnshire Wolds over the Humber Bridge, which remains the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world that can be crossed on foot or by bicycle, albeit in my car.

It was the third time in the last few weeks I had made this same crossing, and once again I had packed my camera kit to cover another rally event.

After crossing the bridge, I headed to Duncombe Park near Helmsley which is not far from the famous North Yorkshire forest special stages of Dalby and Cropton that are so associated with rallying.  Just a stone’s throw from Wass forest, which I had visited to cover the Riponian Stages only last month, I was full of enthusiasm to take in some nostalgia at the latest Historic Lombard Rally Festival.

Most people, like myself of a certain age will remember when the motorsport “circus” used to come to town. Or in the case of the Lombard RAC Rally, pass through it.

First held in 1932, the annual tour stretched the length and breadth of the UK to host Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship, synonymous with those halcyon days in the 1970s and 1980s, where the route changed every year.

One of the attractions of the 1,800-mile five-day extravaganza that took place in England, Scotland and Wales, was the off-road Special Stages where the crews would try to take a pre-defined route as fast as possible, whether through the grounds of stately homes, race circuits or for the most part, forestry tracks.

In the UK, thanks to the Forestry Commission, there are plenty of such locations where fans flocked at all times of the day and night. Back then, competitors, support teams, officials and spectators, like myself, rarely slept for a week. It was as much a test of endurance as speed on the stages for all involved, especially being held in November and the worst of the British weather.

Lombard Rally Festivals are the brainchild of Tim Nash who rallied in the seventies. He competed in three Lombard RAC Rallies, which he has reinvented and are now designed to appeal to historic rally enthusiasts like me. It’s a great idea as there is a growing interest in historic rally cars which are now unable to be rallied competitively, so getting them back out on the stages where they belong is very welcome.



The aim of the events is to re-create a typical mixed surface stage inside the grounds of a stately home, just like those used on the "Sunday Run" of a late 1970s or early 1980s’ Lombard RAC Rallies. 

These ticketed “Mickey Mouse” stages, as they were known, were very popular with spectators as they were closer and more accessible to large population centres than the forests of England, Wales or Scotland, although the drivers taking part in the Rally did not always share the same enthusiasm.

There were many firm gateposts and deep fords and watersplashes on hand to catch out crews and cause them problems barely fifty miles into the five-day marathon.  It wasn’t possible to win the RAC Rally with fast times through these stages, but a slight slip could very easily remove any hope of winning. 

I remember vividly such stages run at Weston Park (with its “infamous” ford), Chatsworth House, and Trentham Gardens.

Duncombe Park provides a similar stage, combining a mixture of gravel, and, uniquely, concrete tracks (the park was a base for the tanks of the 30^th Armoured Brigade in the Second World War), through open parkland and forests.

Most of the cars taking part on stage are now too valuable to be rallied, fall outside current regulations in the UK, or their owners do not want to damage them due to difficulties in obtaining replacement parts. 

The events are not timed or driven competitively - this event is billed as a demonstration Rally. However, the drivers are always happy to drive the cars “enthusiastically”, providing a nostalgic spectacle on the day. 

Last weekend a selection of suitable cars from the 1960s, 1970’s and 1980’s took part, and included Minis, Ford Escorts, Vauxhall Chevettes and Talbot Sunbeams. All tackling the mixed surface stage, most of which was last used in 2013 on the Roger Albert Clark Rally as part of the British Historic Rally Championship which also ran through the estate.

Knowing the day would be long and damp and the forecast was not good after the recent bad weather and it would inevitably involve a lot of walking, I chose to travel light and took along my Canon 80D. A relatively simple workmanlike tool which has proved on every occasion I’ve used it to be a very reliable and versatile companion. I also packed a couple of telephoto lenses 18mm-200mm and 150mm-600mm.  Unlike motorsport meetings held on circuits,  you never know what to expect in these type of events, or how close you can get to the action.

I also made sure, as I do every time I attend a rally, that both lenses were fitted with filters.  It’s much cheaper to replace a filter damaged by a stray stone thrown up by a car than have to “splash out” for a new lens!!

I also took along two recent acquisitions which I can highly recommend, a lightweight camera rucksack and a telescopic seat, to help make my photographic outings more comfortable and try and help my “troublesome” back.  Sadly, age catches up with us all.

During the first few runs through the stage (there were eight in total) I concentrated on the part of the stage closest to the River Rye, which runs through a normally quiet valley to the south of the House.  Unfortunately, from a photography point of view, the stone arched Grade 2 listed Mill Bridge was not part of the stage as the risk of contact from a rally car was deemed too great a risk for the event organisers and park owners to contemplate.



The climb up from the scenic river valley for the cars to the house included two hairpin bends which were very popular with spectators, and provided good opportunities to catch the cars in action.

During the afternoon I headed into the northern part of the stage, where the well-trodden Cleveland Way passes close by, and which included a wide selection of spots to capture some images of the cars and the chance listen out for them as their revving engines echoed through the trees.

Throughout the day the wide selection of historic rally cars participating were based opposite the impressive house, in a central service area, so that they and their and drivers could be seen after each of the eight runs that took place between 10 am and 5 pm.

The drivers were very approachable and ready to talk about their cars, particularly the older ones who have stories of finishing rallies in cars that they have literally dragged to the finish line, winning, or losing.  As the saying goes “the older we get, the faster we were”! 



Amongst the cars attracting a lot of attention from spectators on the day were two Vauxhall Chevette HS models.

In 1976, Vauxhall decided to increase their profile in international rallying and opted to develop its small hatchback of the time, the Chevette. The Chevette HS was built to compete in Group 4 and challenge the Ford Escort, which had dominated British rallying for almost a decade.

It was a great success as a rally car, chalking up notable wins for British drivers such as Tony Pond and Jimmy McRae, who finished 12^th in the 1979 RAC Rally in an example. 

The car was also successful in winning the British Open Rally Championship for drivers in 1979, in the hands of Pentti Airikkala and for manufacturers in 1981. 

The merger of the Vauxhall and Opel marketing departments resulted in GM Dealer Sport being formed, with the result that the Chevette became obsolete, being replaced by the Ascona and Manta 400.



An Ascona, the one driven by Jimmy McRae in the 1982 European Rally Championship, and similar to an example driven by Italian driver Antonio Fassini, McRae’s team-mate, to championship success that year, took part at Duncombe Park too.

This format of rallying is relatively new, the first one having been run in 2021, and provided an opportunity for spectators and crews to have some fun.  Further Lombard Rally Festivals, thanks to Tim Nash and his organising group, are planned throughout the UK in 2023, (see lombardrallybath.co.uk for details), culminating in a two-day event, based in Bath, (just as the Lombard RAC Rally was four times in the seventies and eighties), over the weekend of 20^th -21^st October.



I’ll next be at the Festival planned at Grimsthorpe Castle, near Bourne on July 9^th, when a wide selection of rally cars from the past will be once again be driven on a 3 mile tarmac stage, re-creating the past, as part of the Baston Car and Bike Show.

A specific effort is being made to gather together as many Peugeot rally cars as possible on the day, which is another reason for me to attend, as I have a very real affinity to Peugeot, having owned four 205 1.9 GTi’s (arguably the best hot-hatch ever built), in the eighties.

Travelling home from North Yorkshire I was able to reflect on a long but thoroughly enjoyable day, which turned out dry but cold, during which I walked several miles, but for most of which I had a broad smile on my face as I remembered some very similar days from the late 70’s through to the early 2000’s watching high performance rally cars being driven on rough stages.

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