Motorsport UK celebrates the dedication, resilience and teamwork of organising clubs who work tirelessly behind the scenes to deliver high-quality events, often in challenging circumstances. The Organising Team of the Year award recognises those who go above and beyond to ensure motorsport continues to thrive, even when faced with significant obstacles.

We are delighted to announce that the Keilder Carlisle Stages has been named Motorsport UK’s Organising Team of the Year for 2025.

Early in 2025, rallying was significantly impacted by the notification from Natural Resources Wales that there would be no rallying in Wales for at least the first four, and potentially six, months of the year due to damage caused by Storm Darragh and the requirement to remove fallen trees. With the British Rally Championship benefitting from dedicated ITV4 coverage, the Roger Albert Clark Rally Motor Club felt that maintaining the sport’s public profile was too important to lose following the cancellation of the Severn Valley Stages Rally.

The club approached both the Championship organisers and Motorsport UK to offer a potential replacement event, before entering discussions with Forestry England to secure a forestry allocation on the same April date as the cancelled round. With just three months available to plan an event that would typically take six to nine months to organise, the organising team worked closely together, and in partnership with Forestry England, to deliver an event to the standard expected of a British Rally Championship round.

In just 12 weeks, the team successfully organised 50 stage miles of forest rallying, including reconnaissance for BRC crews. Exactly 100 crews entered the five-stage event, which ran to time throughout the day with no major incidents. The event’s Safety Delegate noted in the post-event report: “Considering the [limited] time that the organising team had to organise the event they did an incredible job.”

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