The Northern Saloon & Sports Car Championship is a key event for the club

All photos: Tony Todd

This innovative Club continues to evolve and adapt to maintain its status as a hub of motorsport in the North East of England

The centre of Darlington was teaming with racing car displays and motorbike action last month, when a host of Clubs took over the town to showcase the many different forms of motorsport that take place in the local area – and Darlington & District Motor Club( DDMC) was one that took centre stage.

The area’ s rich motorsport history dates to the early 1900s and DDMC was first formed under its current name in 1946, when it hosted its first competitive event, a Sporting Car Trial. Since then, it has been involved in a wide range of categories, from Hill Climbing and Rallycross to Motorbike Trialling and Road and Track Racing.

Currently it has many different focal points including Circuit Racing – organising the Northern Saloon & Sports Car Championship and running two of the rounds; Rallycross – running the BTRDA Rallycross rounds at Knockhill; and Stage Rallying – organising its Jack Frost Stages Rally every winter.

On top of all that, the Club also helps to run a variety of different motorcycle trialling events, supplies a number of experienced marshals to venues around the country, and owns and operates two fully-equipped rescue units, which are in near-constant operation for around 10 months of the year.

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“ It’ s a very busy Club, to be perfectly honest,” says Lesley Starkey, the club’ s Chairperson, understatedly.

One constant throughout the last 60-or-so years has been the Club’ s relationship with Croft circuit, which began when the track first opened.“ We support Croft in pretty much anything we do,” continues Starkey.“ We try to have at least a couple of meetings a year there – although sometimes that is not always possible.”

Its biggest event is the Battle of Britain, which is held every August. It was first run at Croft back in 1963, drawing in large crowds to watch two-, three- and four-wheeled motorsport. It continues to be a popular event, and this year’ s will include sidecars, Scottish minis, Legends and the flagship Northern Saloon & Sports Car Championship.

That Championship, which has been running for the last 27 years, is an important part of the Club and Starkey explains:“ We’ ve got a very loyal group of drivers – they might leave for a year or so, but they all come back – and there’ s fresh faces coming in too. We have had four brand new drivers join us this year and we get inquiries all the time.

Revolution- June 2025