Club Nights
On the first Monday of the month, the club meet up at the fabulous NY500 Cafe, on the Malton to Pickering Road, we have been holding events at all the meetings there since we moved venue, and would welcome you at future events:
NY500 is located on Malton Road, Pickering, YO18 8EA and opens up at 7:30 for an 8:00PM start for events, food and drinks are available all evening.
2025 Events
January: – AGM and tour of Mathewson’s Classic cars Pickering:
Matthewsons opened their doors to us in Pickering to host a look around the classic cars they currently have for sale, as well as a Q&A session to allow discussion about their motorsport activities for the last few months and their ambitions for the year ahead.
The Malton Motor Club AGM was also hosted in their Motorcycle sales room and a new committee was voted in. We also had the opportunity to thank Tom Spencer for his stint as chairman, and he stood down at this meeting and Dan Robinson was voted in as his successor. The success of the Malton Forest Rally will hopefully continue as Tom has agreed to carry on heading the organising team up for the next year. For details of the new committee and other positions check out the contacts page.
February: – Silver Fern talk:
We have club Members Richard Spink, Nigel Hutchinson, Curly Haigh, Sally Peacock & Charlie Hutchinson up to talk us through their Silver Fern Rally in New Zealand last Noveber!
And what a great evening it was too! The Silver Fern Rally surely has to be added to everyone’s bucket list after this fascinating talk and wild stories from the team’s experiences there! If you have the chance get over and experience it for yourself, either as a spectator or if you are lucky enough to find the resources to do it, as a competitor!
Photos supporting the talk have been added to a gallery: Here
March: – Dick Wardle:
Guest Speaker Dick Wardle – with over 1000 rallies under his belt, in every class of car out there, there will 100% be some cracking stories to tell!
Dick shared a massive selection of stories spanning his career from the early start through to the experiences of all the different drivers he’s co-driven for with the highs, lows, accidents and tragedy.
Being caught “Nearly Speeding” in Wales, through the experiences with local drivers like Steve Magson, to international drivers and many others.
Dick also revealed his ambition to compete on the Robert Albert Clark Rally this year, in a car to yet be revealed, though a Lancia 037 was mentioned….
April: – Kevin Bardon
For our April Club night we have Kevin Bardon up in the spotlight! He’s the Club Treasurer, Ryemoor Trophy Clerk, Past Chairman, Navigator Extraordinaire and all round top fella, who recently bought a car to drive on 12 Cars in order to help people learn to navigate! All the usual applies – food from 7.30pm, talk at 8pm and chatting after…. See you there!
The evening started with a cheque being presented by the club to Jonathan Pulleyn following the successful book launch of his “Forgotten Rally Photos” where the ticket sales for the launch event raised Β£1400 which were donated to the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. The book launch was held at Malton School, who donated the cost of the venue hire once they heard what was happening with the ticket sales.
Kevin and Mark Simpson treated us to a pair of close friends having an entertaining meandering chat about Kevin’s extensive time in motorsport spanning 35 years, from helping Yuk build a rally car and the ride as navigator to repay him for all his time, where the rallying bug bit, through marshalling, driving, navigating, tutoring and being Club Chairman. As well as driving his mother as his navigator on 12 car events!
Kevin revealed that he’d navigated for over 20 drivers in 12 Car events, Road Rallies, Stage Rallies and Rallysprints and is currently trying to give something back by mentoring a new to the sport navigator, having bought a car specifically to compete in 12 car events, returning as a driver to provide a seat for Phil his current “student”.
The Ryemoor Rally return was one topic that included a few of the audience members recollecting the sheer fear of the first event where Kevin had been “volunteered” to become Clerk of the course by Tom Spencer who was desperate to see the return of the event so he could compete in it! The long wait for the first cars to complete the first section, arriving 8 minutes late were probably the longest 8 minutes in Kevin’s life where he simply wanted the ground to swallow him… OTL limits were extended to ensure all drivers got through OK.
The evening was quite interactive with the audience being asked more questions by Kevin, than they asked! Confirmation of dates and names was a recurring theme! The joint recollections of Kevin, Mark and the audience made for a very entertaining evening.
Photos supporting the talk have been added to a gallery: Here
May: – Ryan Champion – May 12th
Our next Club Night will be May the 12th due to the Bank Holiday and we are pleased to announce that we will have local superstar driver Ryan Champion up as guest speaker! This will be a night worth attending, so let’s see you all there!
Tonight was Ryan Champion’s turn to face questions from Mark Simpson and to help the evening along Clive Taylor had brought Ryan’s Puma Super 1600 up from Diss. Clive and his team have spent three years restoring the car back to it’s prime as Ryan used it in the 2003 British Rally Championship and displaying the colours Francois Duval used the car in the World Junior Championship.
Ryan’s early years and early memories including seeing a Porsche 911 without its engine cover on an RAC rally and his mum Joyce co-driving with Chris Birkbeck.
Ryan then took us on a journey through his career, from his trusty Maestro Challenge car, which the family still own at 180,000 miles, through to using it as a recce car, and then on through the Peugeot one make championship to the Puma 1400 championship that he won, on to the Puma 1600 and then onto the Mitsubishi works BRC team, where he did shakedown work for the WRC team. His best result is his win on the 2006 Pirelli rally (Check here) and then on to his work for Tuthill prepping cars and drivers for the Below Zero Ice Driving School and onto the Safari rallies.
The evening went into far more detail than described here, with stories including unearthing WW1 mines while diverting off a rally stage and through a field into a barn (backwards). A few photos are here.
June: – 12 Car Planning meeting
Your chance to have your say and see what’s needed to organise the 2025/6 championship, we will be looking for organisers, ensuring the rules meet up with Motorsport UK requirements, and allowing questions. The ambition is to have a full season of events, having fallen short due to lack of organisers in the last couple of years. Get involved! We haven’t had a scatter rally for a couple of years either, so if you can organise one come along and join us!
The evening was hosted by Pat and Richard and the 2025/6 12 car championship was fully discussed. Dates have been set for the championship (see the 12 car page) and organisers for each event “volunteered”.
The evening was a great success and the 2025/6 season is looking to be a very good one!
July: – Introduction to Rallying Evening!
For our July Club Night, we will be holding a night for those that are wanting to get into the sport, at all levels! 12 cars, road rallies, marshalling, stage rallying, car prep, officials etc. We will have a whole heap of “Experts” who will be there to answer questions and guide you through the process. We will also have some lovely ladies with laptops and ipads willing to tackle the Motorsoprt UK website and either get you through your marshals test or get your licence application through on the new Sport 80 site! We can take club membership applications and renewals and we will have our Club Safeguarding Officer on hand to explain the rights and wrongs and what you should be looking out for and reporting. We will have help with car prep and what to expect at your first noise test or scrutineering, and we will have a BARS Tester to explain how to get your Motorsport UK BARS test passed. If that’s not enough we will have a stage set up team outside showing how a stage junction should be set up, and we will have a representative from the forthcoming Yorkshire Dales Rally if you are interested in marshalling or competing on the first closed road rally in North Yorkshire! Obviously we will also have the usual hospitality from our friends at NY500! Phew!
Stage Rally Stage Set Up – Mark Williams & Julian Floyd
Stage Rally BARS Test – Tim Johnson
12 Car Championship – Richard Foster
Safeguarding Officer – Linda Harper
Road Rally / 12 Car Marshalling – Phil Bramma & Nick Skaife
Navigation – Road & Stage – Kev Bardon & Danny Robinson
Car Preparation – Mark Simpson & Ben Cree
Scrutiny & Noise Checking – Rose Raynor & Peter Rowntree
Yorkshire Dales Rally Representative – Ian Jackson
Stage Rally Marshalling – Joanna Wilkinson
Sport 80 – Donna Harper & Nicky Jackson
A very well attended evening, with cars on show giving an impression of entry level stage rallying, and a small display of a “stage” set out showing all the elements of a typical stage, so that potential marshals, spectators and competitors alike could see what is involved in preparing, and competing in a stage. Rob Brook of Clubman Motorsport had a stand showing the Mini Cooper rally cars, including a coupe of cars from Mathewsons. Also on show outside was a typical set of signs used on Road Events like the Ryemoor or the 12 car series. Indoors a series of tables were set out for people to have chats about various subjects, from marshalling with the opportunity to sign up for the Malton Forest Rally, or road event marshalling. Talks around navigating, the upcoming Yorkshire Dales Stages and BARS test providers Chris Birkbeck Rally School.
Thanks again for the wonderful support that was given by the NY500 team and all the contributors that went into making it a fantastic evening!
August: -Bring your car night
Your chance to let people see your competition car, the more the better! Or your chance to get up close and personal with competition cars and their crews. If you have a competition car, from Road Rally through to a Rally 2 car, from auto test to circuit racer, bring it along to join the fun!
Northallerton Automobile Club will also be joining us for the evening, so hopefully even more interesting cars to look at!
A great attendance with various car, with plenty of chatting going on around them! From Stage Rally cars through to a couple of show cars, including a Trabant! A gallery has been added with a few snaps and the NY500 photographer has shared his work too. Good to see a mix of cars, from Mk1 Escorts a couple of Subarus and an Astra Spanning the years. The Citroen C2 is a C2 Super 1600 body running EVO4 running gear and an EVO8 engine!
The stage cars (plus a show car)
It really is coincidence it was parked next to the fire extinguisher!
September: – Table Top Rally
Whether you’re an expert or a beginner, come along to our September meeting to get some navigation practice in place ready for the upcoming Malton Motor Club 12 car season.
Seasoned competitors will be there to guide you through the navigation “rallies” set and help you move from where you are to the next level!
Dan and Kevin had put together some excellent navigation examples to work through, covering just about every type of navigation clue available, spot heights, grid lines, tulips, herring bones, grid clues and a few more! Teams ranging from complete newbies through to experienced navigators took part and the feedback from everyone was to confirm how much they’d enjoyed themselves. It was also a good social event and plenty of introductions and chat was had!
October: – Guest Speakers “Then and Now”
One of our established evening talks with guests speakers to give a comparison between the dawn of the sport, with Dave Holliday, who competed in the 1965 Gulf London rally through to today’s competitor and committee member Phil Bramma, to give a comparison between 1950’s to 80’s motorsport and how clubs and events were run and how motorsport is organised and clubs are run today, hopefully with lots of interesting anecdotes .
Dave ran through his motorsport career and gave an insight into “Old Fashioned Proper Rallying” looking at events like the Gulf and RAC rallies with 80 plus stages lasting five days and more with major lack of sleep to be worked around. His involvement in the RAC events of the 80’s were fascinating culminating with his last event as an organiser in 1986, some glassy eyed older members were remembering along with Dave as he described what was organised and as competitors and spectators on some of these events. The early one make championships were discussed following on from Phil’s experience in the Mini Challenge and now the MG3 competitions.
Phil gave an insight into competing in the Mini Challenge and the MG3 Challenge giving an insiders view of the different approaches for both series. A discussion around what is currently available for youngsters graduating out of these series was also had, as there’s no real pathway promoted by Motorsport UK at the moment…
A really good night, unfortunately down on numbers owing to lots of the regulars travelling up to Mull for the upcoming Bateson’s Mull Rally…
As the NY 500 will be closed for the November and December meets, we will be meeting at the Pickering Recreation Club in for the November event.
π‘πΌππ²πΊπ―π²πΏ:- Guest Speaker Chris Birkbeck
Our guest speaker this month will be Chris Birkbeck!
As you can see from the one picture below, there will be many great stories from Chris! There will be Fish & Chips available from 7.15pm with the talk starting at 8pm!
Pickering Recreation Club from 7pm – Fish & Chips available from 7.15pm! Mill Lane, Pickering YO18 7DB ///browsers.only.incorrect
Another of Marks interviews, this time with Chris Birkbeck, running through his early rallying experiences, his first rally car – a TR7 V8! and on to his events with a Nova, in the Vauxhall supported one make series, winning this gave him a works drive in the RAC rally that year.
Driving for Vauxhall in the late ’80’s and into the 1990 saw success against Dave Metcalf his team mate and also drove for Peugeot in a 205.
1990 saw marriage and the setup of the rally school in a farm and disused quarry, and his move into car preparation. He then went on to prepare cars for Ford for the Ka one make championship, the Super 1600 Puma’s and an F2 Escort.
Chris was able to reel off a long list of big names that had passed through his Rally School and One make series.
A long and interesting chat with Mark, that entertained us all , but most importantly, Mark has a gearbox he’d like to sell him!
December: – Christmas Social
Venue to be confirmed.
Meet up to celebrate Christmas and enjoy a mince pie while talking cars!