The Ashley Forest Rallysprint

This years event will be held on 16 & 17 September 2017.

The first running of the popular Ashley Forest Rally Sprint was held in 1979, which saw Steve Millen in a factory backed 2.3 Vauxhall Chevette win.
This meeting was staged over a downhill section before changing the year after to the 1.7 kilometre (55% uphill) course that has challenged competitors and thrilled spectators in the intervening years.
The first winner on the current circuit was the late John Woolf driving a Mazda RX3 with a winning time of 1.10.81.
From that time the magic minute has been the challenge for all prospective winners. This finally came in 1988 when Steve Millen’s brother Rod driving a four wheel drive Mazda RX7 won in a time of 59.14.
The late Kim Austin then became a regular in breaking the magic minute and his 1999 winning run of 56.57 in a 4WD Mitsubishi Starion V8 remains the course record.
Over the years winners have included national rally champions Neil Allport, Tony Teesdale and the late Possum Bourne together with other big names in the sport.
More recent winners include 3-time champion Steve Murphy in the V8 Mitsubishi Cordia, Glenn Inkster, Hayden Paddon driving Steve Murphy's V8 Mitsubishi Cordia, John Silcock, Chris West and winner of the 2014, 2015 and 2016 events Matt Summerfield.

The 2016 Ashley Forest Rallysprint will go down in history as the year what was considered impossible happened - Kim Austin's 17 year old course record was finally broken - not once but three times by Sloan Cox. Unfortunately Sloan Cox's brilliant drive came to a premature end when the driveshaft of his Mitsubishi Evo 8 Hillclimb Beast broke off the start line in the top 2 runoff.

Matt Summerfield won his third consecutive Ashley Forest Rallysprint. The only other driver to win three consecutive events is Kim Austin. In doing so Matt Summerfield becomes the first driver in the event's history to win three consecutive events in three different cars.