Bigger, better and darker - McDonald & Munro Speyside Stages Rally expands to second day with night-time stages to celebrate Silver Anniversary and 60th year of Elgin's 63 Car Club

The 25th running of the McDonald & Munro Speyside Stages Rally promises to be best yet.

Organised by The 63 Car Club (Elgin) Ltd - who will be celebrating their 60th year - the Moray and Aberdeenshire leg of the Scottish Rally Championships is expanding to a Friday night as well as the full Saturday of high-speed action.

The 2023 rally will take place on April 21 and 22 and has many reasons to celebrate next year.

It's the Silver Anniversary of the award-winning event, which has grown to be an eagerly anticipated fixture in the Scottish motorsport calendar. Since the first rally was held back in 1997, the event has established itself to be one of the biggest events held in Moray, drawing thousands of spectators into the area annually.

The organising club turns 60, having run a busy calendar of clubman motorsport and social events throughout the year in addition to putting the 'Speyside' on.

To honour this dual anniversary event, The 63 Car Club have a special treat lined up for this year's rally, which once again benefits from title sponsorship from Elgin-based electrical, plumbing, heating and mechanical company McDonald & Munro Ltd for the tenth year.

The rally will rev into action on the Friday evening with competitors tackling two short forest stages in the dark, before the traditional full day of rally action on the Saturday. This will give competitors and spectators a rare opportunity to experience the thrill of forest rallying in the dark.

On Friday after the crews complete scrutineering - which will be held in the centre of Elgin's pedestrianised town centre - the rally will move to the centre of Fochabers for a Parc Expose, a chance for locals and families to meet the competitors and see their rally cars up close with spotlights fitted before they take on the evening stages.

Starting at 8.30pm, the crews will head out to compete on two short forest stages. After completing what will be, for the majority of the competitors, their first experience of forest rallying in the darkness the crews will return to finish the first evenings competition back in Fochabers some 70 minutes later.

To help shake things up, this first leg of the rally will run reverse seeding, where the darkness will build with the anticipation as the crews battling for the rally win start last on the road.

This experience isn't just for competitors though, as event organisers plan to arrange a floodlit spectator area on one of the stages to let the fans experience the spectacle throughout the evening.

For anyone supporting the event from home or afar, there will be live coverage streamed on Facebook page of the Scottish Rally Championship - also at a floodlit area for the best viewing.

After an evening’s excitement, crews will get the chance to fettle themselves and their cars before the event gets under way from Elgin’s Cooper Park on the Saturday morning (April 22).

The park is another unique feature of the 'Speyside' and as is tradition, the spectator stage will be run twice to get the day up and running, this time with the top seeds tackling the stages first.

After the two park blasts, the event will head back out to the forest stages of Moray and West Aberdeenshire for the remainder of the day – which will see crews tackle over 50 competitive stage miles for the first time in the event's history.

Event clerk of the course, Neil Shanks, is excited at the prospect of mixing things up in the event organisation.

“As a competitor, some of my favourite events have featured night stages and when the club were thinking about ways to mark the Silver Anniversary event I started to explore the possibility of expanding the event - without extending the timescale for competitors too much," he explained.

"One thing we have tried to do over the past few runnings of the event is expand the community involvement in the local area.

"Running these two stages at night will give us the chance to involve the community in Fochabers and also take the event back to its roots (the very first 'Speyside' in 1997 ran from the Speymouth Hall). It was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Miguel Gomez, director of title sponsors McDonald & Munro added: "The rally is always an event that I look forward to each year, and one that takes priority over anything else in my calendar on that weekend and with these new changes for the 2023 event it’s taking it to another level.

"I’m personally really looking forward to the new experience of watching the rally crews compete in the dark, as I’m sure many others will be too.

"We at McDonald & Munro are very proud to be associated with the 63 Car Club and the event and even though it’s already one of - if not the best event on the Scottish rallying calendar - the organisers are always thinking ahead on how to improve things and progress the event further.”

Up-to-date information on the event planning and the latest news will be available on the rally's social media channels.