The successful team behind the last six Three Castles Trials will again organise the 2025 event, but who are they all? Let's take a trip around some key team leaders.
The sporting team is led by Baz Green as Clerk of the Course, Route Planner and Test Designer. Baz is out on a rally in north Wales almost every week. There is seemingly no road (and no farmer) he doesn't know, which is utterly invaluable. Aside from this, he is a great team builder and a terrific test designer who can get the absolute best out of his sporting team and our fine test venues alike
Matthew Vokes is again his Assistant, measuring the route precisely and creating the regularity sections that give so much of the fun. Matthew is, in my opinion, the best road rally navigator in Britain. But you don't have to take my word for it; his skills won us both the HRCR Hagerty Insurance Clubmans Rally Championship in 2018 and he won the Navigators section again in 2019. Three Castles is proud to be the only event to bring his talent and prodigious work rate to bear on the design and timing of its regularity sections.
Matthew will again be assisted in his route forays by his father Mike Vokes, whose wisdom and advice are greatly valued, as are his skills and effort as our PR Coordinator, while Baz is ably supported by Deputy Clerk of the Course Robbie Jones, his right-hand man in the left hand seat on rallies throughout Wales for many years. We are hugely fortunate, too, that our fine Secretary of the Meeting Kerry Bate will again be multi-tasking by undertaking two roles…..as well as organising Documentation so well, she also acts as our travelling medic. She will be with husband Rick Bate, who returns as Safety Officer and is well known to many from his long stint heading up Health and Safety at Formula E.
None of this would mean as much without the terrific turnout of marshals we rely on Joint Chief Marshals Ifor & Peredur Davies to provide. 2018 was Ifor's first year as Chief Marshal and we're delighted the tradition carries on with his son Peredur, himself an active competitor, now sharing the duties of the role.
On the hospitality front, Wendy Crammond is already booking and working with key halts and venues. Back at base, Sara Keel remains at the helm of our finances as Club Treasurer and Sara and I work together daily as entries come in. Both Sara and Wendy are working hard on the event all year, to make sure that Three Castles competitors have a great experience at every level, both in and out of the car
Andrew Nash has been designing our entry packs and ads and you'll be seeing those soon if you click any of the information links on this website. Andrew designs pretty much everything you see from Three Castles. He also contributed to the smooth look of our test diagrams in the upgraded road books, the remainder of which are the remarkable work of Matthew Vokes, and will do so again in 2025.
Peter Keel, our Club Chairman, will be curating the judging of the Concours D'Elegance, which in 2025 is again sponsored by the Imperial Hotel and so, will be the Imperial Concours D'Elegance.
Our super calm results guru, Tony Michael, returns with his excellent live internet results service mtc1.uk. Tony will be providing live updates on the web both for scratch penalties and on class index throughout the event so even if you choose not to stay in our HQ hotel, you'll be able to keep abreast of the latest positions online. One side effect of this is that we must now have available to us the largest number of Liege Timers of any UK event. Expect plenty of time controls on those regularities... Tony will again be able to concentrate solely on results as we’re delighted that Lee Vincent returns as Chief Timekeeper and will be running ahead of the rally like Peredur, ensuring everything runs smoothly.
Once again, vehicle assistance is in the very capable hands of Norman Winchester and his three-vehicle team from Brit Assist. Our partners TenAcre VW will help the team offer overnight services, too.
Equipment control is the province of Bruce Perry and his team, supported by Martin Williams. With two vans to load and unload each day, they are busy folk. Bruce's partner Christine Jones is part of the team, and doubles up as our Child Safety Officer.
Over on Competitor Liaison Graham Raeburn stays in the lead role. In addition to being a fine rally organiser in his own right Graham, as many will know, is the son of Nigel Raeburn, who was our longest-serving CLO for almost ten years after an illustrious career as a world-class rally navigator. You'll be in kind and thoughtful hands. Graham has also launched his own rally navigation teaching business called Rally Navigation Training Services, and you can read more about it here. Needless to say, all Three Castles entrants receive a useful discount and access to a free pre-event seminar from Graham on Zoom. Graham is joined in this role in 2024 by another long-term event supporter and leading organiser in her own right, Ronnie Sandham. Last but not least, Peter Keel, Richard Watton and Myf Owen return in the key role of Club Stewards to guide us all with their sage advice.
I'll focus on a few of our unsung hospitality heroes and introduce some new faces in a later piece, but for now, I don't think we've ever had a stronger team. And what a rally we have in store....!
Ian Crammond. October 2024