Historic Rally Festival gets greenlight for postponed October date

Britain's first major celebration of rallying history will centre on demonstration special stages in Weston Park on the Sunday and will include a guest appearance from Louise Aitken-Walker.

The news that rallying can resume has been vital for the event, which was postponed from its original date in June.

Promoter Warner Lewis said: "This is great news for us: when we chose to postpone the event, we had all our fingers crossed that by then we would have a good chance of our event running.

"We have been busy preparing for this and our plans are now fully underway for the new date. We very much look forward to running our event within the guidelines set out by Motorsport UK and also the UK government.

"We have 80 cars all signed up. The golden era of rallying is coming back and we look forward to welcoming spectators, media, competitors and officials who will be helping us to make this event a great success."

Leading British rally driver of the 1980s and 1990s Louise Aitken-Walker MBE will be one of the stars of the event when she returns to the wheel of a Peugeot 205GTi.

The highlight of her career was winning the Ladies Word Rally Championship title in 1990 and the Weston Park-based event will mark the 30th anniversary of that success.

"This was a very special moment for me, possibly the pinnacle of my career," Aitken-Walker said. "I signed for GM Eurosport to contest the World Rally Championship and was having a very good season until my horrific crash in Portugal where we summersaulted into a lake. However, we came back and went on to take the title."

The driver from the Scottish borders started her rallying career in 1979 and across 14 years competed for Ford, Peugeot, Nissan and Vauxhall. She retired in 1993 to start a family.