British Rally Cross 2023 Round Two - Lydden Hill
Easter Monday isn’t normally a day I’d have anticipated motorsport events occurring, but by 7am I found myself with cruise control set round the M25 trundling through the rain en route to Lydden Hill for the second round of the British Rally Cross series for 2023.
Not only was this a first trip to Lydden Hill but also a first experience of Rally Cross. Freshly caffeinated from a Starbuck stop and in head to toe waterproofs it was time for a wander round as the drivers were out for some practice before the heats started. From a spectator perspective it’s an amazing venue where you can see the full circuit from almost everywhere round the perimeter.
As with all motorsport events a personal highlight is always getting a wander round the paddock/service areas where you’re met with tea and craic or total chaos with tools flying (and even one guy taking an angle grinder to the mounting face of a set of wheels).
The format for the day was a contrast to the majority of circuit based racing I’ve previously experience, practice was over by 10:30 at which point the day launched straight into heats where between 4 and 8 cars would battle it out before progressing to semi final and lastly finals. Constant action from 10:30 till nearly 18:00, fantastic.
The range of categories was great to see, with the Suzuki Swifts starting off proceedings featuring drivers aged between 13 and 17, followed by R53 super charged mini’s, then working through historics, super historics, Mini Countryman and fastest of all the Supercars.
It’s great to see a motorsport where the progression path for drivers is well defined and the price range between categories is not vast, especially when compared to something like stage rallying where you jump from a 1600 non-homologated car to a Rally4 (circa £50k+) and then into a Rally2 at around £200k plus tens of thousands per event to run.
There’s always some car park gems at events, and this was no exception with an immaculate M3 Touring perched on the grass.
After the short lunch break the abysmal weather from the morning which had turned the dirt sections of track to slop it cleared giving bright sunshine and strong winds. The crews has been flat out through the break repairing cars and re-prepping ready for the afternoons semi finals and finals.
With the track starting to dry out the lap times were getting quicker along with the air time over the jump sitting pride of place in the centre of the circuit.
The day concluded with wheel to wheel racing complete with some nudging and barging through the finals for all categories. A potentially controversial opinion from my day at Lydden Hill, but Rally Cross is a better spectator event than circuit events and stage rallying. With it’s compacted nature you can see so much more throughout the day compared to stage rallies, and with it pretty much being a contact sport there are far fewer yellow and red flag incidents which put a dampener on circuit racing.
Thank you very much to British Rally Cross and Lydden Hill for organising and hosting an amazing event.
If you’re into motorsport action I would thoroughly recommend getting to some rally cross as it’s fantastic watching. At the back end of July the World Rally Cross will be taking place at Lydden Hill too, we’ll see you there.
Check out more images below, and a quick video of the days action can be found here.
Words and Images by Mitcham Media.
