East Riding Stages | Paul Commons Motorsport

Surviving a time penalty scare, Sam Touzel and Max Freeman would continue their strong run of form on the 2026 East Riding Stages Rally; the reigning Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Champions quickly getting to grips with their brand new Ford Fiesta Rally2 to claim a narrow victory.

Historic Category
Overall
Classes
Gallery

Having only debuted in 2022 the East Riding Stages Rally has quickly established itself as one of the top UK closed road rallies, featuring in the British Rally Championship in 2025 and now opening up the Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship season for a third time.

Clearly not an organising team to rest on their laurels Beverley & District Motor Club had turned the event into a two day affair for 2026 with the addition of 4 night stages on the Saturday evening acting as a prequel to the usual full day of action on Sunday. And this was clearly a hit with competitors as almost 150 crews would leave the start ramp in anticipation of over 72 miles of competitive stage mileage through the picturesque countryside of East Yorkshire.

Citroen C3 Rally2 duo James Ford and Neil Shanks would find themselves with the illustrious #1 on the door but would have a tough task to end the rally on top spot with 2025 reigning Protyre Asphalt Rally Champions Sam Touzel and Max Freeman seeded just one place further back. And by close of business on Saturday evening there was nothing to separate the crews with Touzel and Freeman holding a slender overnight advantage of just 0.4 seconds!

Overnight / early morning rain had made for tricky driving conditions on Sunday morning and, despite taking the lead with fastest time on SS5 (Seaton), it would be Ford and Shanks who were caught out by the aforementioned traction limiting mud strewn lanes; a trip through a field on Stage 6 (Rise) costing the Citroen pairing almost 10 seconds.

By this point however, Jerseyman Touzel was well into his stride, following up fastest time on Stage 6 by topping the time sheets in Ellerby and Swine to head into the two Westwood spectator stages with an 11.4 second advantage on stage times alone. That wasn’t the complete story though as during the morning loop a 1 minute time penalty had been added to Touzel and Freeman’s total time courtesy of an adjudged short cut on the final stage of Saturday evening.

Controversially the penalty would be removed by the time by the time the cars returned for a second run through Seaton which coincided with Touzel and Freeman registering a time 10 seconds quicker than anyone else, more than making up for 2 casual runs through the short Westwood stage to find themselves sat on a relatively comfortable 15.3 second lead margin with just 3 stages to go.

Ford and Shanks would not go down fighting however both in terms of protesting the removal of the penalty and by setting fastest time on 2 of the final 3 stages to miss out on victory by a mere 4 seconds; their rejected appeal against the stewards decision to remove Touzel’s penalty the final nail in the coffin, condemning the Citroen C3 pairing to the second step of the podium.

The defending National Asphalt Champions had however put in a near faultless drive aboard their brand new M-Sport Rally2 machine, continuing their rich vein of form which also saw the pairing claim the 2025 British Open Championship title. I suspect the pink and black liveried Ford will be tough to beat throughout the 2026 season.

Behind, Matthew Hirst and Declan Dear would put in a strong performance aboard their Skoda Fabia Rally2. More at home on gravel the 2025 BTRDA and Welsh Rally Champions would shine on the asphalt of East Riding; rarely outside the top 4 stage times, the Delta Salvage backed duo would keep the leading 2 honest on their way to a fantastic third overall and second Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Championship registered crew home.

Class Winners

Perhaps the star performance of the weekend however would come from the superb class 3 Jaguar powered Escort G3 of Lee Edwards and Sam Spencer. Not only would the Ford duo fight off stiff class opposition in the form of Huw James & Lewis Sim (Ford Escort MK2) and Chris Richmond Hand / Shaun Richards (Toyota Starlet) but end the event in an incredible 6th position overall. Surely beyond all expectations given the condition of the roads and V6 power through the rear axle!

Somewhat overshadowed by the phenomenal performance of Edwards, James and Richmond Hand still put in great drives to finish well inside the top twenty; a respective 12th and 15th to be precise to round out the ultra competitive class 3 podium positions. Ross Brusby and Sam Collis in their MK2 Escort had held third after the Sunday morning loop of stages but a late charge from Richmond Hand over the drier afternoon loop would see the aforementioned duo demoted to fourth.

Class 6 would be another hotly contested affair which would see Alyn Welsby and Daniel Parsons claim class victory by a mere 5 seconds aboard their Ford Escort MK2. The Renault Clio’s of Alistair and Andrew Hutchinson had been in the mix early on but it would be another MK2 crew in the form of Jake Briggs and Harry Walshaw who would prove their closest challengers. Indeed, following a slow time in stage 8, Welsby and Parsons would find themselves relegated to second but this appeared all the motivation they needed as 3 faster times in a row would see them wrap up the class victory with 23rd position overall.

Class 8 would be lead by George Thomas and Mark Ammonds overnight in their Citroen C2 R2 (yes the very same duo who played a starring role at the peak of the BTRDA 1400 championship some 20 years ago!) with the Opel Adam of Luke Constantine in hot pursuit. However both crews would find themselves condemned to the retirements list by mid morning on Sunday leaving the way clear for Luke’s brother Tom, with Tony Walker alongside, to claim class victory in an identical Adam R2 (45th overall).

Elsewhere James Hall and Laura Marshall would top Class 2 aboard their Subaru Impreza with 19th position overall whilst Northallerton duo, Mark and Andrew Constantine, rounded out a fine day for the family by claiming class 9 honours with an excellent 43rd.

Historic Category

The 2026 East Riding Stages would also open up the new for 2026 Roger Albert Clark Historic Asphalt Rally Championship, an exciting new series delivered by the same legendary team responsible for the current British Historic Rally Championship and the biennial R.A.C Rally.

Hoping to encourage more varied historic machinery out onto the stages, especially the category 1 machines that appear to have disappeared from historic gravel rallying, the opening round of the season had attracted a pleasing number of entries. Indeed, whilst Ford Escort’s would still have a strong presence, particularly at the front, it was great to see a handful of Minis as well an immaculately turned out Sierra Cosworth for Simon Bowen and Craig Simkiss take the start.

As it was Stefan Davies and Michael Gilbey, aboard their Ford Escort MK2, were the crew to beat with stage times consistently well inside the top 30 seeing them beat their seeding by a massive 35 positions to finish the event in a superb 16th position overall, 4th in the unofficial 2WD standings. Will Rowlands and Emyr Hall, in a similar Ford, would lead after stage 1 but could not match the pace of their compatriots throughout the remainder of the event. Nonetheless 21st overall and second in the Historic class represented a great start to the season for the Bala Motor Club duo.

Elsewhere Dave Watkins and Dave Shepherd would wrap up category 2 victory aboard their glorious Ford Escort Mk1 with 80th position overall with the Mini Cooper S of Andrew O’Hanlon & Kevin Hogan second and Avenger of Ian Robertson and Andrew Scott completing the podium. Whilst in category 1 Shane Gamble and Julia Perry would come out on top of the Pre ’68 Mini battle to take victory with 86th position overall.

Concluding Comments

My second visit to the lanes of East Riding proved just as enjoyable as my first 2 years ago and the rally remains top notch from a viewing and ease of access point of view. The addition of the Saturday evening stages (although I wasn’t able to attend) provide an extra dimension which only heightens the appeal of this great event; the level of entries achieved proof if ever it were needed.

Lee Edwards putting his Escort G3 through it’s paces was a sight to behold, matched only by the sound of that glorious V6 engine note. Some talent by the way both in terms of driving and engineering ability as that machine is clearly very well sorted! 6th overall against a huge contingent of modern 4wd machinery, in tricky conditions will possibly go down in folklore.

The new R.A.C Historic Asphalt Championship also had a pleasing start to life and hopefully interest continues to grow throughout it’s maiden season. Fingers crossed Simon Bowen’s once immaculate Sierra Cosworth can make it out on future rounds after the significant front end damage suffered on this event.

Next up for me is Rally North Wales at the end of March (unless I can shoehorn something in before that is) for the 2nd round of the British Historic Rally Championship.

FULL RESULTS

GALLERY

Mark Kelly and Will Atkins held off a late fightback from the Hyundai I20 R5 of James Williams and Ross Whittock to claim 2024 East Riding Stages rally victory aboard their Skoda Fabia R5.

Now in it’s third year, The East Riding Stages rally has obviously continued to capture the imagination of competitors having attracted a whopping 133 car entry, this despite not featuring in any of the major championships! In fact the top of the entry list was flooded with R5 / Rally 2 machinery as many leading crews elected to use the event as a shakedown for their 2024 plans with 10 challenging stages, mainly to the East of Beverley, totaling almost 55 miles the order of the day.

Having no fewer than 7 overall rally victories to his name in 2023 (according to ewrc), Mark Kelly would have started as one of the pre event favourites and the Garstang Motor Club man wasted no time living up to this hype as he and co-driver Will Atkins set fastest time on all 3 opening tests. And, despite seeing their lead marginally pegged back in stage 4, would hold a 6 second lead by the time the crews reached the mid event service.

The top 5 crews were however all still in contention with the Hyundai of James Williams, Ford of Callum Black, Citroen of James Ford and VW of Kevin Davies all within 15 seconds of the lead. Thus leaving everything to play for over the afternoon loop, which consisted of a second run over the morning’s 4 stages but preceded by two short blasts through the Westwood spectator stage.

New for 2024, the Westwood stage was an attempt to bring the competitive element of the event closer to Beverley town centre but I am guessing no-one would have expected it to be so pivotal to the event outcome! Ridiculously however early leaders Kelly and Atkins managed to traverse the 2 runs of the 1.63 mile stage 6.2 seconds quicker than anyone else, more the doubling their lead to 12.6 seconds in the process.

And that time gain did indeed prove vital as 2^nd placed crew James Williams and Ross Whittock lit up the timing sheets over the final four stages of the day to close the gap to 5 seconds by the time the cars arrived back in Beverley! A story of what might have been for the Hyundai crew, but another win for Mark Kelly who continued his strong recent form.

2023 Protyre Asphalt Rally Champions, Callum Black and Jack Morton were another crew to lose ground on the two short spectator stages but dug in over the afternoon loop to claim a hard fought third, whilst Kevin and Owain Davies finished fourth in their VW Polo and Neil Roskell and Dai Roberts rounded out the top 5 (Ford Fiesta).

Historic events is where I am mostly found and therefore it was extra pleasing to see two wheel drive honours go the way of Gareth James and Steffan Evans aboard their Historic specification MK2 Escort. A sublime drive by the Welsh duo saw them end the day in 14th overall, not only finishing ahead of more powerful and more recent 2 wheel drive machinery but also many a R5 / Rally 2 machine.

MK2 Escorts would in fact complete the historic podium with Martin Rossiter and Dan Petrie ending the day 20th and Phil Rogers and Jordan Jones ten places further back, both improving on their start positions by a massive 58 and 47 places respectively!!

Elsewhere class victories would go the way of Gordon Montana Morrison / Ian Parker with 15th overall in their Ford Escort (Class D), Jake Briggs / Harry Walshaw in another of the Blue Oval favourites with 17th (Class C), Ben and Andrew Wilkinson in their Peugeot 106 Maxi with 32nd overall (Class B) and Mark and Andrew Constantine (Class A) with 36th in their Vauxhall Corsa.

All in, it had been a brilliant day in the stunning East Riding countryside. Having never been to this area of the country before there is now a good chance I’ll be back to the area with the family, if not for future East Riding Stages; a tick in the box for bringing tourism to Beverley then!

Closed road rallying is pretty special and whilst we seem to be losing usable forests annually it is great to see a few of these events now popping up. Ease of access on this event and fabulous late winter weather definitely aided the spectacle and watching the top drivers take the Eastfield Farm ‘crest’ on the rev limiter in top was something to behold, definitely whetting the appetite for more in 2024. Fingers crossed for the South Yorkshire Stages!

FULL RESULTS

GALLERY