Celebrating its 70th anniversary, Dukeries Motor Club has navigated many challenges to create a solid core of Stage Rally events and a healthy number of highly active members.

At the very first committee meeting for Dukeries Motor Club, at Mansfield’s Swan Hotel on Friday 24th September 1954, the members of the newly formed committee declared its
aim of ‘promoting, encouraging and organising motorsport’ in the local area.

The Club burst into life with an eclectic mix of Fuel Economy Runs, Treasure Hunts, Night Navigational Trials and Scavenger Hunts, but things then ground to a halt almost as quickly as they had begun, due to national petrol rationing. When events resumed after a near 18-month hiatus, they did so in high volumes, with a half-half split between ‘serious’
and ‘social’. The flagship Dukeries Rally was soon established and in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Club expanded its range of organised events.

Gymkhanas, Autocross and 12-Car Rallies were added into the mix, along with road safety events and driving tests, while an active social scene included two annual dinner dances and even several popular children’s Christmas parties.

Fast-forward 70 years and, after a similar 18-month hiatus caused by the recent pandemic, the Club has built back to around 200 members – a reasonable percentage of its 1970s
totals – with a busy organising committee now focused on just a few major events. “The Club has primarily been involved with Rallying since its inception,” summarises Club Chairman Paul Rees. “There have been forays into other things over the years, but these days it is hard to concentrate on more than one core thing, so Rallying is the main focus.”

The Club became known for its gravel Rallies, which ran through the Nottinghamshire forests for more than 40 years, but when these stopped ten years ago, no longer practical in such popular public places. However, the club successfully managed to negotiate a new venue for its stage rallies at Donington Park, and over the past 10 years has built a fantastic relationship with the venue and now organises two single venue Rallies there each year.

Achieving such prolonged success has required a lot of hard work, particularly with venues. After running the very popular Flying Fortress Stages for 11 years at Grafton Underwood,
the event was put on hold due to the construction of a solar farm on the Boughton Estate.

Instead of giving up, the Club worked with Blyton Park to secure a Rallying return this season, running the Rex Premier Anniversary Stages and the Rex YSTRA Targa Rally over one weekend, and is still in talks with Boughton about how to accommodate a future event. “Venues are always a big challenge,” Rees explains. “We are always working hard with them and I was at Grafton Underwood recently with the forestry manager, looking at other areas on the site we might use in the future.

“The problem with single venue Stage Rallies is that you need to run decent length stages and that means multiple laps and the restrictions that come from that. You also need 70 entries to break even, so you need a venue that can accommodate a large service area too. These events require a lot of resources and there is just a small core of volunteers who undertake the majority of the work. In fact, I think the biggest challenge for Motor Clubs in general is not the number of competitors, it’s the number of organisers and volunteers.”

Placing a core focus on what it does best – delivering major Rallying events – is perhaps the key to the Club’s success. However, the addition of a motor show and recently a StreetCar
event, have also helped open the door to new members. The car show is run at the local rugby club, which has been used as the Club’s social meeting place for the last 25 years, and while it is not big enough to host a Motorsport UK permitted demonstration event, its static displays have proved popular with the local community.

Meanwhile, the introduction of a StreetCar section within the Club’s YSTRA Targa Rally proved to be a positive move. Rees adds: “One was a multi-venue Inter Club event and the other was a Clubman on a smooth surface venue, open to Streetcar participants.”

As well as encouraging participation in its own events, the Club motivates members to get involved in more motorsport through its annual Club Championships, which include a
range of other Rallies run by other local Clubs as well. “We are quite active in the East Midlands Regional Association and some of the events cross over,” says Rees. “Pete, our Competition Secretary, develops a Club Championship calendar each year and we give points for performance, volunteering and marshalling.

“A few years ago, we started to attract younger members so set up a Junior Championship. As a Club, we don’t run Juniors in our events because the way they need to be separated
has a major impact on the event, so we use existing Junior rounds as part of our Championship.” The introduction of the Junior championship has led to a small but important rise in younger members, and the Club is keen to attract more. To that end, earlier this year the Club offered its youngsters a very special reward at its pre-season members track day.

We invited the European Rally Champion, Chris Ingram, to come along and coach them,” says Rees. “He doesn’t have a connection with the Club, but he does have a connection
with the Juniors, so it was a fitting thing for us to be able to facilitate.”

The Club is certainly doing all the right things to maintain course on its original mission, and as it prepares for its anniversary dinner in the beginning of October, Rees is ready
to celebrate the past, but is also firmly focused on the future. “Rallying is in a state of change,” says Rees. “From the organising teams to the competitors, age profiles are
changing, and moving forward I think that our main job is to ensure that Rallying remains relevant to everybody.

“Our mission, when we were formed back in 1954, was to promote, encourage and organise motorsport and, truthfully, I think that still follows now. It’s something that we need to
ensure we continue to do; whatever challenges are thrown in front of us.”

To find out more about Dukeries Motor Club, visit dukeries-motorclub.co.uk