Bob Rutherford Historic Rally Scholarship for Young Navigators (2026) winner Jocelyn (Joss) Jones wins her first Regularity

Niall Frost, serial winner of the RAC Rally of the Tests, the most competitive of all the HERO-ERA rallies, and Joss Jones winner of the Bob Rutherford Historic Rally Scholarship for Young Navigators, were paired together for HERO Challenge Three in Yorkshire. The second prize rally in Joss' schedule, this was a fascinating crew combination as one is at the top, the other is planning to get to the top of regularity rallying, so Niall gave Joss as much help and advice as he could in the time. Despite technical issues with the Volvo, it went the right way, Joss scoring a first regularity win beating all the HC3 and Interclub crews.

Next up, Jocelyn will partner the other half of the RAC Rally of the Tests serial winning crew, driver Dan Willan, who enjoyed an enduring partnership with Niall Frost. Dan will no doubt be just as caring and helpful in bringing on Joss using his all his experience in the last of her prize events she won as part of her Scholarship victory. The package also includes attendance at various Motorsport UK Academy classes. 

Rather than piece together their HERO Challenge Three rally story from an observer's perspective, we have taken the contents of Niall's social media post below which describes their exciting day, highlighting Joss' success despite the technical car problems.    

Niall said in his post;

'A most excellent day on HERO-ERA Rally challenge 3 with Joss Jones on the maps.

We had our issues, including a bit of last-minute servicing late into Friday and then a front suspension issue after test 4 causing us to drive delicately for the rest of the day. Thank you to Blacker Automotive and Ben from HERO-ERA for all their efforts.  

An outstanding performance from Joss on her 2nd ever road rally, lots of positives and learning along the way, I'm only surprised she didn't fall asleep more often as I went into detail about the intricacies of nailing speed changes!  A lot of sour sweets were eaten following successes throughout the day, (including a mint handbrake turn on the tightest hairpin).

Fastest in class on the first four tests and then surprisingly, even driving delicately, we managed some 2nd fastest in class test times. 

The best thing was besting the entire field (including Interclub) on regularity 7, joss' first ever time doing speed changes, on maps, with an annoying driver getting in the way when she had it under control. The UK best navigators were present and so to pull that result out on the final regularity (1s dropped over 3 timing points) after all our issues, hats off.

Thank you to Guy Woodcock for the opportunity and best of luck to Joss and Dan Willan on the RAC Rally of the Tests.'

From all at HERO-EA, well done Joss! We also look forward to seeing you on the Rally of the Tests.