The membership of this 120-year-old Club is about as varied as it gets. It includes karting and Hill Climb venue officials, Motorsport Council members, a BWRDC GoldStar winner, regional Association officials, the Sprint Leaders Championship organiser, Clerks of the Course for Stage Rally, Sprint and Hillclimb, safety officials and a group of safety radio operators.

As a result, the Club is active in almost every motorsport discipline you could mention – from Autotests and hill rallies to Touring and night Rallies. It regularly sends representatives to support on events across the country, and Club Chairman Steve Flanaghan believes this discipline diversity is one of its biggest strengths.

“A lot of Clubs focus on one specific thing, but we have a huge range of different motorsport interests amongst our members,” he says. “I think we are pretty unique in that, and it really helps when you can talk to other members from other genres of motorsport, share different aspects of vehiclesetup and learn from each other.”

The Club has a rich history in bikes and cars, and after the First World War it ran meetings for both at Gamston Aerodrome. After World War II, when the Royal Automobile Club was slow to issue racing permits, it was one of the founding members of the Association of Northern Car Clubs (ANCC) and ran events under the ‘Northern Rules’ for three years until the rest of the nation caught up.

At one stage, the focus was on Autotests and Production and Sporting Car Trials, as well as Sprints, but this has evolved and broadened. The bike section separated off around ten years ago – although there are still many members involved in both – and the core emphasis this year has been on Sprint events. “Sprinting has always been a mainstay,” says Flanaghan. “This season has been good, with two Club-run Sprints at Mallory Park, two at Curborough, and one weekend at Blyton. Curborough is quite tight and is a good starter course, while those with faster cars and open-wheelers prefer the other courses.

“In recent years, the Sprint discipline has really changed. It used to be designated an old man’s sport, but there are now a lot of younger people going. They are very sociable events, great for having fun on track and meeting lots of people off it, and they’re now starting to become more of a full weekend of motorsport, too. Our events are very well attended, both by our own members and by members of other Clubs across the country – and this season we had the biggest numbers for years. One of the Mallory events had around 170 applicants for
a maximum of 125 entries, so we had to turn people away, which just doesn’t normally happen!”

Building the future

Flanaghan says the Club has “a good core” who are “still prepared to roll their sleeves up” to organise events, but he does concede this group is now ageing, and although several next-generation family members have become involved, the Club has consciously tried to evolve recently to attract younger members into the fold.

“Over the last four or five years, since COVID-19, we have changed quite a lot of things,” he explains. “We have become much more active on social media and we are looking to bring in different things like ‘coffee and cars’ events and looking at StreetCar activities. We are also trying to get more involved in karting through some of our members. It does get very difficult to find organisers for more events and the other major challenge is venues. I have a list of 35 venues in the northern area that currently not available for use, and lots of our members think it could even be the end of single-venue Stage Rallying unless we can find a venue that can be shared.”

Flanaghan believes that collaboration is not only key when it comes to venues in the future, but also when it comes to overall event operation. He believes that the complexities of putting on an event today compared to 10 years ago, with the size of team required and the modern health and safety requirements, has made it extremely challenging as a single Club.

As a result, regional Associations such as the ANCC, East Midlands (EMAMC) and North East Midlands (ANEMMC) will become essential for putting on bigger events in the future. While at the grass roots level, the Club has joined four others – Rotherham MC, Matlock MC, Lindholme MSC and Worksop MC – in an Interclub Challenge run by Worksop MC every year.

“A lot of clubs might have two or three people who are interested in a particular discipline, like 12-Car, tabletop rally, or treasure hunt, but you can’t organise an event for just two or three people,” explains Flanaghan. “With five Clubs in the group, if we get two or three from each Club, there is then enough competitors to put on a small Clubman event. There are ten events in the year and each Club runs two – a competitive element, such as an Autotest or a scatter, and a social element, like a quiz, slot car racing, or bowling. It brings us all together and we get to know members of the other local Clubs who we can then work with when organising the bigger events – and that will be a real help in the future.”