Lydden Hill – the Home of Rallycross – will host a new event next summer, the Lydden Legend Festival (July 19 – 21).
Focused entirely around celebrating the glory of period rallycross and rally machinery, the Lydden Legend Festival will follow in the footsteps of the hugely-successful Loheac Legend Festival held earlier this year in France, that was run in collaboration with the Rallycross Legends Show, headed up by concept creator Philippe Tollemer along with Loheac’s Patrick Germain and his team.
The Lydden Legend Festival will feature on-track action for machinery from the history of rallycross, the discipline having been created at the Kent circuit in February 1967. A diverse range of classes will be headlined by Group B and 4WD monsters, with star names and international cars already planned to make an appearance, and machinery and drivers from the Retro Rallycross Championship set to be in action.
Along with a range of rallycross ‘demonstration races,’ cars from across the history of rallying will also be in action, attacking both the Lydden rallycross circuit and the tarmac layout at intervals, while off track, a fully-accessible paddock will allow fans to get up close and personal with some incredible cars, with other exotic machinery, and car clubs providing displays.
The event will be opened on Friday with a Welcome Gala, while the celebrations of this amazing discipline will continue throughout the weekend.
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Hannah Bennett, Managing Director, Lydden Hill Race Circuit:
“We had a fantastic taste of international period rallycross cars in action during our round of the World Rallycross Championship this year and, coupled with the success of other events elsewhere, especially Loheac Legends in France, we are so excited to be revealing the Lydden Legend Festival for next July. We are sure it will be our biggest and most anticipated event of the year. There is nothing not to like about having a whole weekend dedicated to an amazing array of period rallycross and rally machinery at the birthplace of rallycross, and we have a number of surprises already in place, which will start to be announced in the coming weeks as we begin to reveal the line-up for the event.”
Philippe Tollemer, Rallycross Legend Show, France:
“Being passionate about historic rally and rallycross cars, the idea of bringing together all these universes and creating a festival for passionate drivers and a connoisseur audience came to me naturally. The concept was to create a European event with 50% rally cars and 50% rallycross cars, each category having its own set of rules and the outcome was a real-life museum, comprising of 90 racing cars ranging from the 1970s to the 2000s. It was quite natural that we turned to the most beautiful rallycross circuit in France, Loheac for the first event in May 2023. It was an immediate success with 15,000 spectators and 90 exceptional cars from all over Europe. Every driver and spectator present in Loheac had the feeling of having experienced an event of a new kind that did not exist before. In Loheac, we decided to organise that event every other year to keep it exceptional, so it will return in May 2025. My secret dream was for this concept to be exported to other countries, so I was immediately excited about the plans for the Lydden Legend Festival. Everything is in place make this a success.”