As seen in The Bowler Motors: Experience the thrill of Bowler Motorsport’s 2023 Defender Rally Series as UK and Baja champions are crowned. Excitement builds for 2024 with new events and the largest Defender Rally team ever.

• 2023 SEASON CHAMPIONS HAVE BEEN CROWNED AT THE END OF SEASON AWARDS CEREMONY, BY BOWLER MOTORSPORT
• UK CHAMPIONS, WILLIAMS/DENNIS
• INTERNATIONAL EUROPEAN BAJA CHAMPIONS, BEECROFT/PARISH
• 2023 CELEBRATED AS A SUCCESS
• LOOKING AHEAD TO AN EXCITING 2024, WITH FURTHER EVENTS AND CHALLENGES ADDED, AND THE LARGEST DEFENDER RALLY TEAM YET

The 2023 season of the Defender Rally Series saw the culmination of two rally championships; the UK Championship and the newly added International Baja Championship, across Europe.

The Bowler Driver Development Programme can take anyone from a rally novice through to experienced rally drivers, providing training, enhancing skills and taking them to incredible locations for racing events to develop their experience, and progressing their rally licences.   

“2023 also saw us embark on phase two of our race and development programme for clients, with our first European BAJA series. Many of our 2022 clients successfully completed enough events to upgrade to an MSUK National status licence, enabling them to experience even bigger races in amazing locations for 2023, from rural France to the high plains of Spain and on again to Iceland. Covering over 400 km of stages per event, our teams and cars showed incredible capability with multiple class wins and top podium finishes.”

Bowler Works Driver, Vanessa Ruck, joined the Series at the start of 2023, with little to no rally car experience, but well known for her motorcycle off-road events, ended the year with multiple podium positions in the UK Championship and an upgraded rally licence.

Commenting on her journey with Bowler Motorsport,
“The Series has been mind-blowing. From feeling like a rabbit in headlights, to dancing in the car and winning 4 podium positions over 7 UK races, it’s been amazing. The experience and team have been incredible; not only have these experiences added to my driving database and skillset, I’ve made great friends across a brilliant group of people, driver teams and Bowler teams alike, all united across a love of motorsport. I’ve also completed the year’s requirements in the driver development programme, which means my rally licence is now upgraded to a National Licence, and this enables me to compete in endurance rally events abroad from next year, which is exciting! I’m really proud of the journey and how far I’ve come.”

The Defender-based series puts driver skill to the fore in identical cars, and the UK Championship included 7 gruelling rounds to test their skills. For the Year 2 seasoned Defender Rally Series drivers, they could also compete in the 5 awe-inspiring International Baja rounds, across Europe.

Results from each championship below:

EUROPEAN BAJA CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS 2023

DRIVER NAME	CHAMPIONSHIP POSITION
BEECROFT/PARISH	1ST
TEAM LAND RECOVERY RACING	2ND
SJP GROUP	3RD
WHITE/WILSON/CHAMBERS	4TH
SEDDON/TOMLEY	5TH
WILLIAMS/DENNIS	6TH
WILLIAMS/LOWE	7TH
HYMEC	8TH
BULLEY/SOLIE	9TH

UK CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS 2023

DRIVER NAME	CHAMPIONSHIP POSITION
WILLIAMS/DENNIS	1ST
WHITE/WILSON	2ND
MULTITUDE SE	3RD
THE GIRL ON A BIKE RACING	4TH
WYNNE-WILLIAMS/LOWE	5TH
BOWLER BOYS	6TH
FERRY/TOMLEY	7TH
CHRISTINA DOBLOUG RACING	8TH
WILLIAMS/ACHER	9TH

The Defender Rally Series continues to go evolve, with 2024 introducing new events and new driver teams, for a bigger-than-ever racing season.

Each championship has been carefully designed to enhance the challenge and adventure for our driver teams, with new racing events added to the Defender Rally Series for UK and International championships.

“The Defender Rally Series set out a clear three-year strategy for clients to be able to develop their cross-country motorsport skills and knowledge, in a manner that brings a huge amount of fun coupled with great close competition,” Dave Marsh explained, “2024 is the culmination of this motorsport journey, where those who have completed the previous seasons get to take on a Rally Raid event, to test all their skills and endurance over six days racing in the Balkan Rally. All the events we select for the full race programme are carefully chosen to develop all the skills crews will need in order to compete in these marathon events. Next year is no different, with a great variety of cross country and rally events to develop core skills for Year One candidates, and to increase the distances that our European BAJA series our year two teams will experience, to develop the endurance strategies and pace in our drivers. We also keep the championships fresh by rotating events year on year, so that at every level there is something to look forward to.”

The 2024 Baja Championship kicks off for Round 1 in February, followed by the UK Championship starting from March. Prior to this, further training and driver support days will be held, to refresh the driver teams and prepare them for the racing events.

For the rest of The Bowler Motors article see here.

If you’re new to my page – it’s more than just dirt bike riding, Harleys and racing, I’m on a mission to prove that nothing is impossible if you want it bad enough. See more about my story plus read about my life-changing accident, which started it all.

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