At its height, the RAC Rally, Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship, could boast that it attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators to the woods each and every year. This vast throng of intrepid, bobble-hatted rally fans would spend the best part of a week chasing the competing cars around the country, racking up vast mileages as the route wound its way from the north of England to the Scottish borders, back down through Yorkshire and into Wales by way of numerous country houses and estates; the infamous ‘Mickey Mouse’ stages.
The enduring popularity of the RAC Rally in this period provides tangible evidence of just how rabidly passionate for motorsport a considerable slice of the British public was in the age of the kipper tie and flared trouser. This, after all, was also the era that saw the birth of rallycross, the period when Super Saloons drew massed crowds each and every weekend, and when no local motor factor would dare open without first stocking up on a selection of
