THREE SHIRES STAGES

England's Third Closed Road Rally

The Rally will be based at the Eastnor Deer Park near to the town of Ledbury with 6 stages spread across the three counties. 5 will be on Closed Public Roads and 1 will be on the tarmac roads within the Eastnor Deer Park.

The 18 Stages will traverse the Three Counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.​

120

Cars

48

Miles

18

Stages

3

Counties

Hills Ford has been announced as the Event Title Sponsor for the Three Shires Stages Closed Road Rally in September – on Saturday 7th September 2019 - based at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. The event is being organised by Cheltenham Motor Club. It is just the third Closed Road Rally to take place in the UK since the legislation regarding closing roads for car rallies changed last year. The Rally will see 120 rally cars competing over 48 miles of local roads in 18 stages – across three counties with stages in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

The Rally will be based at the Eastnor Deer Park, by courtesy of Eastnor Castle, near to the town of Ledbury, with 6 stages spread across the three counties. 5 will be on Closed Public Roads and 1 will be on the tarmac roads within the Eastnor Deer Park.

The event will be a major one for the area and will have a hugely positive impact on tourism and major benefits for the local economy in the Three Counties. Each of the 120 teams will bring an average of four members, the 400 ‘plus’ marshalls required for the event will need hotel accommodation for themselves and possibly their spouses, and at this stage it seems likely that the event will draw spectating crowds in their thousands to watch what will be a massively exciting event - making rallying accessible to families for the first time ever in this area, on this scale. It’s thought it could be a bumper weekend for local caravan parks and camping facilities as well as for local restaurants and takeaways! And with advance tickets on sale to spectators at just £20 per car – it’s a fantastic day out for anyone wanting to experience the thrills associated with rallying in the stunning surroundings of this beautiful part of the country.

Jeff Wheeler is from organisers Cheltenham Motor Club: “We are committed to working with residents to minimise any inconvenience on the day of the rally and in the days leading up to it. Resident Liaison Teams have been visiting properties located on the competitive rally route which will be closed during the day since December last year. We are also visiting residents who are located on approach roads, some of which may have access restrictions.

“A month before the event, all affected residents will be provided with a Residents Handbook which will detail all the information about the event, including timings and access arrangements. Residents will also be provided with Resident Access Passes which will also allow free entry to Spectator Areas on the stages.”

Tim and Richard Hill are joint managing directors of Hills Ford and they are delighted to be involved in this landmark event for Rallying in the UK: “2019 marks the tenth year in business for our company and being involved in this rally is the high point of our celebrations for our tenth birthday! We have a long history in Rallying both sponsoring drivers and in preparing cars for rallies and this involvement is something that fits our company DNA perfectly. Most recently we’ve been working with Osian Pryce, supporting him in the British Championship, and it’s a sport that gets many of our team at Hills Ford excited. They’re all looking forward to being there on the day to watch the cars in action.”

Entries for the Rally open on 18^th June and the expectation is that all 120 places will be taken that day. The event will require more than 400 marshalls and the event has come about as a result of the initial drive of Jeff Wheeler’s 15 year old son Josh, who made contact with a number of people to gauge interest in a local closed road rally in the area before handing over the initial positive responses from venues and county councils to his dad to try and finalise arrangements for the rally!

“It’s not going too far to say that the whole event is really down to Josh,” says Jeff Wheeler. “We had talked about ‘wouldn’t it be nice if…’ but had never really given it that much thought until we saw the responses from many of the organisations that would need to be on board for it to work! Josh had got the bit between his teeth and managed to get expressions of interest and then my colleagues at the Cheltenham Motor Club decided we should take this to the next stage. And here we are with the event virtually organised and just putting the final bits in place. It’s going to be a really exciting day and everyone – including many of the residents on the route that we’ve spoken to – are right behind us.”

To purchase tickets please click the link below.

Purchase Tickets

For further information, please contact:

Jeff Wheeler, Cheltenham Motor Club – 07484 814014

Richard Hill, Joint Managing Director, Hills Ford - 01562 540 522