Motorsport News to ride with rally legend Brookes

Sean Moriarty of Motorsport News

Motorsport News will ride with British rally legend Russell Brookes when he contests his first-ever single-venue rally next month at the Rockingham Stages.

Sean Moriarty, ‘Sporting Scene’ editor for the motorsport newspaper, will be co-driver for the double British champion at the December 13–14 event in Northamptonshire, UK.

Despite a career that stretches back four decades, Brookes says he has never entered a single-venue event before.

“The nearest I have come to competing on a single-venue rally is on the Loughall Historic Rally in Northern Ireland in June 2007 but we used several of the roads and lanes within the Loughall country park that day,” said the 63-year-old.

“You never forget how to drive a rally car but it might take a while to get all the brain cells working.”

Brookes will drive a Talbot Sunbeam, the car that he used during his 1980 and 1981 British Rally Championship campaigns.

He has driven the car on many occasions in the recent past – including last December’s Killarney Historic Rally and several demonstration events – but Rockingham will be the first time that he will drive the car competitively on British soil since the early 1980s.

Full coverage is in this week’s Motorsport News, on newsstands today. The Haymarket title is Britain’s only weekly motorsport newspaper.