THE 32nd running of one of the most popular events in the BTRDA National Gravel Rally Championship will taking place in September.

The Eventsigns Woodpecker Rally, based around Ludlow Racecourse, will be on Saturday, September 5 and will offer six stages in the Welsh and Shropshire forests.

It plays host to a raft of national rally championships including the REIS-Ravenol BTRDA Rally Series, MSA English Rally and Pirelli MSA Welsh Rally.

Joining them are regional championships like the Jelf Motorsport 2WD Welsh Clubman’s Rally, FMP Motor Factors Rally Challenge, Brian Dennis Motorsport Welsh Historic Rally, REIS ASWMC Rally and ANWCC Forest Rally.

Event organisers have listened to feedback from crews, and to ensure all competitors can take advantage of the fantastic conditions of the forests, will run all the stages only once, apart from the popular spectator stage, Haye Park.

The rally kicks off on Friday, September 4 with pre-event scrutiny and signing on at Ludlow Racecourse. The first competitors will leave the start at 8.30am on Saturday morning for 43 miles in the Radnor, Wigmore, Haye Park and Bringewood forests. Competitors will return to Ludlow Racecourse for two services through the day, before heading back to the ceremonial finish. More information on the event, regulations and entry are at www.woodpecker-rally.co.uk

Meanwhile, Alex Summers continues to lead the way in the British Hill Climb Championship after another successful weekend at Wiscombe Park in Devon.

The Tenbury driver finished second on Saturday, and third on Sunday, and now boasts a 33-point cushion over Trevor Willis in the scratch standings. He has 173 points with Willis on 140. Five-times champion Scott Moran (132) sat out both rounds after crashing in the previous event in Guernsey and is now down in fourth place behind Wallace Menzies (137). Moran began in style at Le Val des Terres in Guernsey with a win in the opening run-off and a new hill record, his second of the season. But it all went wrong in qualifying for the second run-off. In a rare lapse of concentration he bounced the Gould off the left-hand bank, with the car skating across the road, breaking the front suspension on the kerb and narrowly missing a lamp-post. Such was the damage that both Moran and Summers, who had run a sixth in the opening run-off, were sidelined from the second shoot-out.

The earlier event in the Channel Islands, at the picturesque Boulay Bay in Jersey, which had been reduced to just one round when Jos Goodyear had to be cut out of his car with leg and ankle injuries after a crash into a tree, saw Summers finish second behind Willis, with Moran fourth.