The low cost, sociable discipline of 12-Car Rallying is an ideal entry point to motorsport. Will Gray spoke to some first-time competitors just starting out, and discussed the secrets of putting on a good event with an expert organiser.

From long undulating roads on the East Anglian fens to curving routes over moorlands and hills in Yorkshire or the Scottish Borders, 12-car Rallying is a great way to explore local countryside while brushing up on your driving and navigating skills. Even if it is often done in the dark. This is an extremely accessible form of grassroots motorsport, usually run over the course of an evening. It requires precision driving, timekeeping, navigation skills, strong teamwork – and an interest in socialising with fellow enthusiasts, often in a pub, at the end of the night.

Anyone who has run a 12-Car event will say they should be a staple on every Club calendar; a simple exercise that gives existing members great value and encourages involvement and helps to bring in newcomers to the sport. Tim Sawyer took on his first 12-Car with the South Oxon Car Club (SOCC) last year and explains: “It was a great event to try out because you can do it in an evening, you’re in the car for two hours and you’ve got that social element at the end.”

Although Sawyer grew up around motorsport, with a dad who competed in Clubman events, he had never tried it himself until 2016, when he took part in some Historic Road Rallies sponsored by his employer – and these eventually led him to try out a 12-Car. “I’d been involved in the Club for a couple of years and it was always something I wanted to have a go at,” he adds. “It was so easy to enter, because I was able to use the car I drive to work in every day, and I was just driving on normal roads that I am used to.”

Olivia Wisniewska is another novice who followed her dad into the sport. The 16-year-old initially joined him on route making journeys when he was organising 12-Car events and also marshalled at Targa Rallies before asking to get into competition. “I thought the Targa events looked fun so asked Dad if I could try and navigate,” she says. “He suggested I start navigating on 12-Cars as I could do them as a beginner and that would make it relatively simple to get used to. I joined the Club and we competed in our first event last February, with dad driving, and me as his navigator. It was really nice to spend some time with him, as it’s something I know he enjoys, and it was a lot of fun.”

At SOCC, the 12-Car events are proving to be a big hit for Club regulars and newcomers alike. Club Chairman Robert Hall is a regular organiser and adds: “It’s a nice two-hour format, normally on a Friday night, and it’s very sociable. “Our 12-Cars are filling up quickly, as are our Autotests. You can do either on a free RS Clubman license, which really helps at this level, and ultimately, it’s pure grassroots motorsport, which is exactly what people want. Many people have not got the time or the money for bigger events, but a simple 12-Car on a Friday night will take around four hours including travel time and with the entry, insurance, a bit of fuel and a beer, you’re probably looking at a cost of around £80 total.

“It’s not just a cheap form of motorsport, it’s really enjoyable as well. I love doing them. You just get your head into it as a navigator, or as a driver you are trying to manage the time as best you can. It’s a great way for a Club, and its members, to build connections.”

Quiet beginnings

This unique form of Rallying emerged during the 1950s and 1960s when local Clubs, aiming to make off-road Rallying more accessible, devised smaller-scale events that could run on public roads, often in the evening, and emphasised navigation and precision over speed. The entry limit of 12 cars was chosen to avoid complex road closure regulations and ensure that events remained simple to organise and affordable to enter, while also allowing the use of public roads without requiring extensive permissions They became increasingly popular, particularly in rural areas where quiet roads and scenic routes provided ideal conditions, and they attracted a diverse range of participants, from amateurs eager to test their skills to the more experienced looking for low-key competition.

The format’s affordability and simplicity make it especially appealing to young people who are new to motorsport, and that is one of its key benefits, with many events now part of the Motorsport UK StreetCar programme and achievable in an everyday road car. A typical event involves 50-60 miles of open public roads, split into sections each with a specified time allowance. The aim is to navigate the route accurately, ticking off ‘code board’ checkpoints and maintaining the correct average speed to arrive at each on time. “It can’t be averaged at anything quicker than 30mph, and that is actually not easy when you are stopping a lot,” says Sawyer. “You have to stay within the highway code but you have to progress on quite rapidly, staying within the speed limits.”

The navigator plays a crucial role, interpreting route instructions to guide the driver, and with penalties awarded for early or late arrivals at the code boards, that dynamic between the driver and navigator is crucial to success. Sawyer has experienced both sides of the car, having started out as a driver on two events, then taken the map for the next four. “It’s definitely easier driving,” he smiles, knowingly. “All you have got to do is twist the round thing in front of you! Navigating is far harder. In our Club, any new navigator can do three events using a marked map, which is easy, but after that you have to plot it as you go and that’s a very different challenge, because you’ve got to try and understand what the organisers are asking you to do.

“You have to work out map references or features while trying to navigate your driver – and it can vary depending on the event – sometimes you get full instructions at the start, other times you get told them at each control and have to sit there working it out. That’s where it’s nice to have a relationship with the driver so you can tell them to drive to the first point, so you’re not sat still, and when you get there, quickly look and give them the next direction as you try to plot the route faster that they can drive it!”

Sawyer’s experience on his Historic events helped, but for Wisniewska, it was vital to get in some practice on the local roads before her debut, mostly to get used to the RallyAppLive system that is used by the Club for their events. Wisniewska’s first time on the notes was in the Chatsworth 12 Car, which started at a pub in Banbury and covered 60 miles. She and her dad finished third and quickly tried another, and another, and by the end of the year she had won the Club Navigator’s Championship. Despite her success, it was not all easy – because navigating, it turned out, actually made her queasy. “I didn’t realise how intense it could be travelling at such speeds on bumpy roads,” she recalls. “So, I now take anti sickness tablets an hour before each event!

“I did find it quite easy to follow the OS map, although some of the narrow lane roads were tricky to navigate on and it was sometimes hard to understand exactly where we were, especially in small villages which demand greater attention. Another thing I learned is that it is actually ok to get lost! It happens – and if it does, you just need to stop and check the coordinates on the app. I found that much better to do that than continue driving further away from where you need to be.”

Preparation and planning

The partnership between navigator and driver is the key to success in a 12-Car, just like any form of Rallying, and making sure you are well prepared – and know how each other thinks – is vital before you start. Sawyer was guided by a friend from Historic competitions on his first 12-Car, but when she opted out of the second at the last minute, he had to find a partner from within the Club, and first met his new navigator in the car park at the start of the event.

“Familiarity does it make a difference,” he says. “Everyone computes information differently, but we just had a quick conversation in the car to make sure he was saying the same words I wanted to hear, so I could understand, and that was that. Once we got that out of the way, it was just a case of driving around and hoping we got it right. The big one is if you say to someone ‘miss a left’ and that could mean ‘pass a road on your left’ or ‘turn right’, so you need to know exactly the terms being used. Another example is when you come to a triangle in the road in a village green and have to go the long way around it – so you want to go left, but first you’ve got to go right. It’s just making sure you both understand what ‘long way around’ actually means.

“Even in sections where there is a code board you have to stop at and register, you need to check you both understand the phonetic alphabet because the time is always tight and you don’t want to have to stumble on anything before getting back on route. On my first event, we didn’t understand the navigation information on the handout and when we were in the car together it just seemed like it was in French! We went a bit wrong, but once we found out what it actually meant, it turned out it was very simple! When I navigated for the first time, the organisers gave me a map with the route already drawn on because I was a beginner. That made it a lot easier, because you’ve not got these hieroglyphics to try and work out.”

There is little to no preparation needed for a driver, because a 12-Car literally just involves driving on ordinary roads. In fact, Sawyer says he would drive faster on a daily commute than he would on a 12-Car Rally, and the late event timing means the roads are often very quiet. However, preparation is everything when it comes to navigation – from making sure you have right pens and pencils to mark up your map and a torch to read in the dark, to creating your own personal code to help guide you through the route.

“You don’t want to be driving with the interior light on because then the driver can’t see, so you need to get a torch and you need to set up your own little office in the car when you get to the start, so you are self-contained,” Sawyer advises. When it comes to the map you need to see what is on the instructions and know what that means and what you’re looking for – a place name, a feature, a grid line. Sometimes it’s all very similar information and it’s about trying to understand it. I asked the Club for some examples of previous years’ handouts before my first go at navigating, just so I could get an expectation of what to look for. They were quite happy to give that out because they just want people to succeed and enjoy themselves.

“You are always trying to find something quickly on a 12-Car, so you need to be able to find it easily without looking over the whole map – and if you speak to ten different navigators, they will all tell you a different way to do that. There’s lots of things you can highlight on the map – such as grid references and squares – to make it easier. I use different colours, but they can look different under different lights, so you just need to find a bright colour that stands out.”

Local knowledge helps too, and Sawyer adds: “If you know the road you’re going down, once you’ve plotted it on your map you don’t have to go back to look at it and instead you can just look up and focus on where you are and where you want to go. It gives you more time too, because if there’s a tricky junction or a turning that is partially unsighted and you already know that, you can concentrate on doing something else, rather than holding your hand to find the left-hand bend.”

Competitive elements

Ultimately, however much a 12-Car can be considered as a sociable event, the competitive edge often takes over – and most people are keen to win, which you achieve by getting the lowest penalty points on the route. Each of the control points – of which there will be around 15 on a typical event – has an allotted arrival time for a competitor, to the minute, and if you are earlier, or later, then you will be penalised by the relevant amount. There are also passage controls to go through to make sure you are on the right route – which at SOCC are parts of number plates on the side of the road – and if you miss one of those you get a penalty.

Finally, controls are normally at a junction which you could approach from one of two or more different directions, but you must approach from a certain direction and the wrong
approach would also get you a penalty. “The organisers always do something to try and catch competitors out, but often it’s not the bit they intend to that does it, it’s something else that comes up,” explains Sawyer. If you do go wrong, both people in the car have to be patient and just stay calm and collected.”

And if you find yourself in a good team – as Sawyer did on numerous occasions last year – and get chatting in the bar afterwards, taking on a 12-Car can sometimes even become the start of something more. The charm of 12-cars is that they usually start at seven or eight o’clock of an evening, you’re out for around two hours, and then you spend some time socialising,” he continues. “You get to know the person you are with very well, and also the people you are competing against. It has definitely made me more active with the Club since I have been doing them. I’d been a member for a few years and dabbled at various things, but when you do the 12-Car events specifically, you get to know the people more.

“I have sat with three or four different Club members this year on different 12-Cars and then that’s spawned off to us going off and doing bigger events, just because we’ve got chatting at the pub at the end of the event. I’ve have done a couple of Targa Rallies, and I did the Preston just through Club chatter when someone said, ‘I want to go and do it’ and I thought, well, I’ll give it a go as well. In fact, by the end of the year I had actually done 20 Rallies of various forms! Next year, we have about eight 12-Cars planned and there is always a full field or close to it. They always attract a different group of people, some are out every time but there’s also always a nice, varied mixture – so, if you’re curious, just go and try one.”

Running a 12-Car

Robert Hall is the Chairman of South Oxon Car Club (SOCC), which was founded in 2019 and is growing fast. A big part of its success has been the focus on grassroots motorsport – and Hall puts much of that down to the accessibility of 12-Car Rallying. He says every Club has the capability of organising this type of event because by using modern technology – such as RallyAppLive – it can be achieved by a team numbering as few as three on event, with a total of 24 hours required to plan the route.

The SOCC now has a seven-person sub-committee and organises eight 12-Car events across the season, with an annual championship sponsored by National Rally Driver Callum Black’s company Pallas Connections. This is how they do it.

Route Selection

“The first thing we do for each 12-Car event is look for an organiser within the sub-committee or the wider Club and then work together to confirm a date, a start and finish venue and what maps the event is going to run on. We have a number of different areas we cover and each person usually has a preference, so that usually determines where their event will be. it’s nice to always try to do new routes and we always try to avoid having too many events in the same area.”

Regulations And Insurance

“Once we have decided on the location and date, we write a set of regulations and apply online for a Clubmans 12 Car Navigational Permit. That’s a very easy process and we can usually just copy the previous event information and change the specifics. We also apply for a quote for the competitors road section insurance top up cover, normally through REIS, because Motorsport UK’s insurance only covers events on private land, not the public road. A lot of competitors have their own cover, so they don’t need it, but we make sure we have it available in case.”

Route Planning

“When we are planning the route, the first thing we do is check the ‘Sensitive Areas’ sheet for any black spots or quiet areas – you can get these from Motorsport UK or the Route Liaison Officers (RLOs) – and we then plan a rough route to fit the mileage requirements. We usually time it to run from 8pm to 10pm and try and finish in a pub, where we can give the trophies out and also have a bit of a social. That’s an important part, because these are very sociable events and a good chance for Club members to get together.

“A standard 12-Car would be 50-60 miles and we will usually head for the part of the map that’s got the most interesting roads on – a lot of yellows, a few whites, not too many houses, villages or towns – and start to draw it out. We then go and drive it, in the daytime, to see if anything doesn’t work – there might be a gated yellow road or it might go through a hamlet with no speed restrictions which requires a quiet zone – but once you know the maps, you get to know what works and what doesn’t.

“We also check to see if we’ve missed anything interesting, make adjustments for length and pick out rough places to put control points, avoiding any near houses. Once we’re happy with the route, we send it to the Motorsport UK RLO to check for route clashes with other events and Public Relations requirements, and hope to get the go ahead.”

Route Set-Up

“Once the permit’s approved, we set up the event on RallyAppLive so competitors can enter, we put it on our Facebook page and our website, then two of us drive the route a second time and, using the app’s admin mode, we set up and save all the location points. The app automatically gathers the distances between controls and calculates the time information that should go on the timecard – if you have a two-mile section, for example, it will be four minutes because it is all averaged at 30mph. If there are a lot of houses or you’ve got to go through a town, we always put a neutral section in where you give a lot more allowed time. Then that is all ready for the time card to be set up. The app makes that whole process a lot easier than it was in the past!

“We then put together the notes for each location, always in the same way, with a warming, approach, distance, whether a stop is required and, if there is a code board – usually a part of a number plate – we put in the required letters and numbers. We often include some navigational traps – such as long way round triangles, stop places, herringbones – and we note any give ways, adjusting the distance accordingly on the app. That is all pretty easy, though, and it can be done from the comfort of your living room.”

Navigation and Event Planning

“Once the route is complete, we start on the navigation. In our Club, beginners are allowed to do three events using marked maps, which contain the complete route, so if we have any of those on the entry list, we must create the maps for them. The next level is novice, which is still pretty basic, with the next time control map reference on there, so at least if they struggle, they’ve got a chance to get to the next control. Then there is the expert level, which is where it starts getting more difficult and technical.

“Once that is all done, we do a final run of the route to make sure the locations work and the timing is roughly right, then we shout out for some volunteer Driving Standards Officers (DSOs) to stand in quiet zones and any other areas that could be an issue during the event. One week before it runs, we send out the final instructions with any blackspots that need plotting or any other information the competitors require – for instance, a change of start venue or rough places on the map – as well as the full entry list.”

Running the Event

“On the day of the event, we usually have three or four people as organisers, plus the DSOs. This will include a course opener, who drives around and checks everything’s in place, and a course closer, who handles any issues and picks the code boards up at the end. Before the competitors arrive, we set up a physical noticeboard at the start containing event and insurance signing-on sheets, a copy of the permit and the insurance document. I always put a set of finals on there too, so everyone can check them again if they want. The competition class is checked when people enter and the app checks cars for tax and MOT before the event, but we also carry out scrutineering, such as checking spotlights are not HID, and we also do a driver’s briefing to cover any potential issues.

“We have crew heading off to put out the code boards and a course opener running approximately 30 minutes before the first car leaves to check there are no road closures and that the correct code boards are in the correct places. Then, during the event, all the competitors use the app and log into each location, so we know where they are. We will be in admin mode to check all locations are working correctly and also pick up any potential issues. “At the end, once everyone’s back, we literally hit a calculate button on the app and that works out the result – although there will always then be queries after the event, and you need to deal with them in the best way possible.

“If 10 people missed a passage check, for example, it might be an issue with the GPS so you might void the penalties. Once all the competitors are happy, you set the results to final and hand out the awards – usually in the pub over a drink. Once it’s all over, the code boards are collected up, the signing-on sheets and regs are filed – as they need to be kept for a certain period of time – and the Insurance is sent off for an invoice. Then that’s that event over and you’re ready to organise the next one…”