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Next Rally - The Bulldog Rally, Saturday 27th March 2010

http://www.bulldog-rally.co.uk/

Wolverhampton & South Staffs Car Club's major rally has, since its inception in 1958, always carried the name of its sponsor in the title. Over the years the sponsors have changed and therefore so has the name. Despite the changes the the event has remained constant to its concept of a major annual motorsport event in mid-Wales.

The event began with sponsorship from the local Wolverhampton evening newspaper, the 'Express & Star' in 1958, six years after the club was founded, when the newspaper agreed to provide financial support, awards, and cash prizes. The first event took place on March 8/9th 1958 and continued each year as a road rally in various formats until 1966. In that year the event became one of the first national rallies to include forestry stages. Every year from then on, the rally was always forest based.

In 1967 a second sponsor, Goodyear Tyres, became involved and the event became known as the 'Express & Star/Goodyear' rally. In 1968 the oil company Castrol joined as a sponsor and the event was known as 'The Castrol-Express & Star'. The last year of sponsorship by the newspaper was to be 1969. Following insurance problems stemming from the 1967 event there was no rally in 1970 and 1971.

In 1972 the event was revived as the 'Castrol-Timpson' when additional support was received from Timpson's shoes. Despite the success of the event the problems were not over and in 1973 the lack of availability of suitable forestry roads led to the postponement of the rally for another year.

Things were very different in 1974 when Castrol became the sole sponsor of the rally to celebrate the company's 75 years. This was the first of the two rallies called the 'Castrol 75'. The second ran in 1975 which made the title a bit more understandable. There followed the Castrol '76, '77, '78, '79 and '80, all based in Aberystwyth with a similar format.

Work is still being done to build archives for the years from 1981 to the present day.