Haynes Ford are pleased to announce an Affiliation with Lydden Hill Race Circuit.
Haynes Ford are set to provide the use of a Ford Transit and a Ford Transit Connect van to the historic ‘Home of Rallycross’ Lydden Hill Race Circuit for use on and around the track and to support rounds of the British Rallycross Championship in various locations across the U.K.
We are delighted to make this new affiliation with one of the County’s top spectator attractions, which hosts some fantastic motor sport events including rounds from both the European and British Rallycross Championships, amongst many other highlights.
As many of our friends and customers will know, Haynes Ford have many historic links with Lydden Hill and we see this affiliation as a great way of keeping our name in the public eye across East Kent, where we have also have Haynes Trucks and Haynes Agricultural businesses too.
In fact Haynes Trucks will be present at the Truck Festival over the weekend of 16th /17th June and we hope that there will be other opportunities for the various Haynes franchises to meet up with customers old and new over the coming few months.
We will also be working with Lydden Hill and other Kent-based businesses through some joint marketing campaigns to ensure Kent consumers have easy access to some of the County’s favourite brands. Watch this space for further announcements!
A Brief History.
The Lydden track was founded by the late Bill Chesson and the Astra Motor Club in 1955. They promoted stock-car racing and grass-track racing for motorcycles, and in 1965 asphalt was laid for the circuit for hosting car racing up to Formula Three.
On February 4, 1967 the sport of Rallycross was born at Lydden, thought up by TV producer Robert Reed and race organiser Bud Smith in cooperation with Chesson. Combining tarmac and non-tarmac elements. Between 1973 and 2009 Lydden Circuit saw a total of 24 rounds for the Embassy/ERA European Rallycross Championships and FIA European Championships for Rallycross Drivers, the first 23 (till 1996) all organised by the Thames Estuary Automobile Club. To this day, Lydden, as the so-called "Home of Rallycross", still holds British Rallycross Championship racing.
In rallycross several cars start abreast at the same time, and drive three to six laps on a rather short racing track, setting the best qualifying times. In the end there are 'C', 'B' and 'A' finals for the 16 fastest drivers of the qualification and the overall winner of the event will be decided in an afternoon showdown. Please see latest-news/haynes-rally-cross-event-lydden for a review of last August’s race day with the renowned rally driver Marcus Gronholm driving a Ford Fiesta emblazoned with the Haynes logo on both rear wings.
Haynes very own rallycross car was driven by John Taylor in 1973 when he became the first ever European Rallycross Champion. All John's cars were built at Haynes' Parkwood workshops and in these prepared cars Taylor became the first ever International Tarmac Champion and won no less than seven other Rallycross championships and either won or was highly placed in a myriad of other national events. Lydden was known as THE place to race and the Haynes-Taylor combination proved a winning formula.
This affiliation is seen as a natural progression from the relationship enjoyed historically between the Racing Circuit and Haynes of Maidstone.
