HERO-ERA has a new Head of Competition

As former Competition Director Guy Woodcock steps down from the full time role to work on selected rallies in 2026, step up the new Head of Competition, James Phillips. James gives us an outline of his love of the sport and his new role in his own words.

With an involvement in Motorsport going back possibly too far! I've been involved in Rallying for over 40 years; being able to remember the top 10 of the Lombard RAC on the rally results phone line with ease yet performing miserably at school probably set the tone for a future in the sport! 

I started navigating when I was 17 for a friend and then got asked by someone else to sit with them and from there, as many co-drivers will tell you, it just snowballed. It’s not been all glory though, and one notable highlight and immediate lowlight was joining the works Proton Team to tackle the BRC, quitting my job to commit to codriving full time and then having Foot & Mouth shut everything down the next week...

With approximately 200 events tackled and some fifty odd drivers sat with, the sport has given me some fantastic memories, most notable ones are flat out in a Metro 6R4 across the Epynt Ranges, winning a round of the Nissan Cup in Norway with a Norwegian driver and having a massive accident in a Historic Mini in Ireland, likened to an aircraft accident by the following car and only marked by the lovely chap who owned the house we landed by, complaining we'd taken out his daffodils.

As well as competing, organising has always been a part of my involvement with stints on classics such as Rally of the Vales and Targa Rusticanna and running stages on Wales Rally GB.

From joining HERO-ERA just over two years ago it has been an amazing journey and with some twenty odd countries under my belt already, including two P2P's its been a blur! I'm looking forward to carrying on the amazing work that Guy has put in, although after only four weeks in my new role I'm starting to see why he sent emails at 5am! - I'm grateful to Guy for the faith he's shown in me and its pleasing to know he's still happy to take my calls! 

For the future, its just a case of building on what we have, small tweaks here and there and a quest to just keep making our events better, keep working with great people and occasionally going home to see my family.

And on that note I would not be doing this job without the amazing support of my wife Kate, who keeps the whole thing moving and keeps the family (3 children, 2 cats and an absolute tool of a Labrador called Frank) together - She does see some perks of the job though, before last year’s P2P and me being away for 6 weeks, I bought her an electric mower (as she was struggling to start the petrol one) to help her keep the grass to a manageable level - she'd calmed down by the time I returned!