2017 Berwick Classic Rally - A Brilliant Result!

Peter and Guy recently took part in the 2017 Berwick Classic Rally and did what everyone dreams of - they had an absolutely fantastic time, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and to top it all they brought home a truly fantastic result for not only themselves but also Whickham and District Motor Club!

Read Guy's report on the event and see for yourselves just what it takes to bring home a result like this - it really is a superb fillip to the boys and certainly one to celebrate very loudly indeed!

Peter and Guy - we salute you!

Read all about their exploits in our up to date reports pages here.

Food for Thought:
Hexham and DMC's Interclub Quiz and Curry night
3 May 2017

Wednesday May 3rd saw a very different type of meeting for the members of Whickham and District Motor Club that decided to venture forth to New Ridley and take part in Hexham and District Motor Club’s excellent Interclub Quiz and Curry night at their regular meeting place: The Dr. Syntax.

The invitation had been extended to a number of local Motor Clubs and representatives wre present from Whickham, Durham, Alnwick and Tynemouth to name but a few, and as could have been expected, competition was fierce. Teams of three was the order of the day and so Whickham fielded three teams: Mac Cliff, Guy Wickham and Gordon Bradford as Whickham A; Peter Metcalfe, Gordon and Ollie Currie as Whickham C, and Tosh, Brian and Gary as the best of the rest (or more accurately - the rest)- Team Mad B’Stards.

Questions were divided into ten categories ranging from BRC Champions, BRC Drivers and Co-Drivers, Sponsors, Rally locations, Race Flag signals, Historic Rallying, old car makes and models etc. and certainly had many competitors scratching their heads and muttering under their collective breaths.

From the word ’Go’ it became very apparent that two of the Whickham Teams were going all out for the win, with both of them maintaining the top two spots throughout the competition, never relinquishing the lead and eventually taking both the top two places with a very fine Win and Second Place. The third WDMC team managed to hold their own quite well considering that 67% of the team knew nothing at all about Rallying (which made up 80% of the questions on offer), nevertheless, they came into their own on the Flag Interpretation round, scoring an impressive nine out of ten and being the top scoring team.

Final results on the night saw WDMC taking both First and Second place, an impressive win and showing that we have some real talent in the Club. Our third team may not have been particularly good at the questions but they did wipe the floor when it came to the raffle by taking 25% of the prizes on offer and going home with a ’Very Good Haul’.

Hexham did, however, take top honours in the hospitality stakes with a truly superb curry that really showed everyone how to host a curry night - it was absolutely brilliant, with a huge cauldron of curry that would have put the Witches of Eastwick to shame, an equally impressive sized pot of rice, plus a dozen extra cartons of Mild, Medium and Spicy curries next door together with Pickles, sauces and Naan bread enough to feed a King. Or at least Brian and Gary. Fabulous food, really well provided.

Many thanks must go to both Hexham Motor Club and in particular Ed Graham, who ran the quiz in his own inimitable style, with good humour, in a superb atmosphere, and with a great selection of raffle prizes that went down really well indeed with all present.

A really good night indeed, we were made extremely welcome, everything that was good about an interclub evening all coming together perfectly.

Thanks Hexham!

A Sunbeam Stiletto - or as Ed Graham calls it: A Hillman Stiletto

Border Counties Rally a Huge Success

With just 10 Weeks notice, local rally enthusiasts pulled together to put on one of the most celebrated rounds of the British Rally Championships (BRC).

Whickham and District Motor Club (WDMC) and Hawick and Border Car Club jointly hosted the Brick and Steel Border Counties Rally, which was used to kick start the BRC season after a late cancellation.

With a stage in Kielder Forest, the round was labelled a great addition to the championships with runner-up Tom Cave taking to Twitter to say it was the ‘best organised BRC rally I have ever done’.

WDMC chairman Ollie Currie, of Hexham, was delighted with the success of the rally, and is hoping the teams have done enough to secure the BRC next year too.

Some of the wor1d’s best rally drivers descended on the area for the championships, with Sweden’s Fredrick Ahlin teaming up with Norwegian navigator Torstein Eriksen to take the victory after two days of intense competition.

The all-Welsh crew of Cave and James Morgan were long-time leaders in their Ford Fiesta R5 but settled for second spot, ahead of fellow countrymen Osian Pryce and Dale Furniss who took third in a similar machine.

Rally fans don’t have long to wait before the BRC rolls back into Kielder, with the hosting of the International Pirelli Rally on April 29 and 30.

Report courtesy of the Hexham Courant

Whickham and District Motor Clubs Annual General Meeting was held at Kibblesworth Workmens Club on Wednesday the 22nd February 2017.
A summary of the various Officer's reports can be found in our 'Archived' section.

The new for 2017 Car Tax changes - what are the details?

Vehicle Excise Duty car tax squeeze: annual bill jumps £140 for cleanest petrol and diesel cars

Read a much more in-depth article by Parkers here