HERO Challenge Three 2026
Championship Concludes in God’s Own Country
Take one part one day rally, one-part mini championship finale and add a smattering of an additional rally series as well as a healthy helping of classic rally machinery and leave the entire thing to simmer in the Yorkshire Wolds. What you have is the perfect recipe for a fantastic day of rallying in the form of the HERO Challenge 3, that takes place in Yorkshire on Saturday, but watch carefully, as the whole thing is likely to boil over if left unattended!
The Motorist, Yorkshire's premier location for petrol heads, will play host to the 87 classic rally cars that will be competing in the HC3 event. These will be split across the main HERO Challenge Clubman Rally, as well as the penultimate round of the HRCR Championship. The event begins at 07:45, with HRCR cars leading the rally away, and ahead lies a 165-mile route that will feature 7 regularities and 11 tests, on what is sure to be a quickfire day of engaging action.
After the 30 HRCR cars have left, the Clubman event will begin, which is at the heart of HC3 and also the final round in the HERO Challenge Championship, a three-round mini-series. Previous Challenge winners of this have gone on to have success in all manner of competitions, from triumphing on international marathon events to winning the HERO Cup and Golden Roamer trophies outright.
This year’s championship is still wide open, with neither the drivers' nor navigators' classes looking settled. Indeed, some of the main protagonists in each have chosen to compete in the interclub, or not enter at all, and are thus ineligible for points, leaving those a little further adrift in the points table every chance of leaping up into the podium positions. John King is in the hot seat in the driver’s championship, with his HC2 win putting him four points ahead of Nick Bloxham in second, with Stephen Chick a little further adrift in third. Neither Nick nor Steve are entered this weekend though, so the challenge to the King will come from HERO Cup champion Dick Baines, Peter Higton or John Lomas, though JLo will have his work cut out for him on the tests, as he competes in a Riley Sprite in a class that features far more powerful Austin Healeys.
In the navigator’s championship, neither leader Alex Chick, nor second placed Miles Fieldhouse will be competing in the Clubman’s event, so bar an unlikely calamity the title will be won by someone currently further down the leaderboard. Indeed, Bob Rutherford Scholarship Graduate Miles Fieldhouse is pushing to strengthen his lead in the HRCR Experts Championship, as he takes part in the Interclub with HERO-ERA Sweep Martin Payton. Champion elect then must surely be Harry Baines, who is currently third and 8 points ahead of reigning champion Mike Cochrane, who is the next challenger with an entry. Mike has the potential to score big points though, and could flip the positions, particularly as he is sitting alongside John King. Disaster for both Mike and Harry though would likely see Alex Chick win outright and regain the trophy he last won in 2023, such is his current points lead.
There are plenty of those entered as a one off that are more than capable of taking points away from all of those in the hunt for overall championship success, such as Paul and James Bloxidge, Niall Frost and Jocelyn Jones or Chris and Claire Day – who incidentally are in the same class as Dick and Harry Baines and who always go well on the tests. It presents an intriguing conclusion to the championship however it finishes up on the day.
Jocelyn Jones is the 2026 Bob Rutherford Historic Rally Scholarship winner for Young Navigators and will be competing on the second of her prize winning events. This time she is navigating top winning navigator and sometime driver, Niall Frost, who recently became married to the award winning navigator and driver Amy Henchoz, now Amy Frost, so congratulations to both.
Anyone wishing to win the HERO Challenge Championship or just do well on the day, will have to keep their concentration levels up across the 18 competition sections shoehorned into the rally, as well as look after their machine. The Challenge hasn’t visited Yorkshire since 2021, and this year’s route will of course revisit few old favourites and areas long associated with road rallying. There are also some new venues for crews to get their teeth into, including a pair of tests on the site of a former colliery that was part of the massive Selby Coalfield.
This is one of the sections that returning Clark of the Course, Guy Woodcock, is most excited about. Yes, you read that correctly, after telling the world of his retirement at last year’s HC3, Guy is back as the man in charge of this year’s rally, though these days he is picking and choosing what he gets involved in. He says he is feeling fresh because of it, and hopes the planned route reflects this. He promises there won’t be anything too cunning in the day’s navigation for the Clubman’s, but confesses that, as the final round of the season befits, there will be a step up in difficulty at times. This will include some speed table work and a navigational handout, providing a tougher test for the more experienced crews and introducing those who have been using the Challenge series to gain experience, a taster of some of the more complex navigational challenges on harder events.
The day will finish where it began, back at the Motorist, after one final regularity through the infamous Wistow Lordship, and there under the arch the day’s winners can celebrate, and the maths can be done to work out who our 2026 champions are. It promises to be a grand day out in the Wolds, as the Challenge season reaches its conclusion.