Friendly competition. A stopwatch. A route book. Dashboard stickers desperately reminding you which way is left and right. And, if you're lucky, a very patient driver.

That can only mean one thing – HERO-ERA's Rally for the Ages.

Designed as the perfect introduction to historic rallying, Rally for the Ages has become one of the highlights of the calendar for young enthusiasts. Better still, crews with a combined driver and navigator age of under 70 receive free entry, making it a genuinely accessible way to experience grassroots motorsport, and proving you don't need a huge budget to get involved.

This year, StarterMotor teamed up with HERO-ERA to bring several of our young Ambassadors along, each competing in their own everyday road cars. That's one of the best things about the event, there's no need for specialist rally machinery. If you've got enthusiasm, a road-legal car and a willingness to learn, you're already halfway there.

Morgan Wallace took on the challenge in his 2003 Mini Cooper, Matthew Hartin competed in a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 190E, and I tackled the route in ‘Monty’, my trusty 2003 Mazda MX-5.

To say we had fun would be a massive understatement.

Of course, no rally would be complete without a few navigational mishaps. There were the inevitable wrong turns and missed junctions, while my own day got off to a particularly memorable start after somehow managing to miss page one of the route book entirely! This led to the first half hour of the morning wondering where exactly the "dirt track on right" was supposed to be. Despite these moments, or perhaps because of them, the day became one of those experiences that we will look back on and laugh about for years.

But Rally for the Ages is about much more than getting from one control point to the next.

For young people with what we call the spark – the passion to be part of and build a future in the classic automotive world – events like this can be genuinely life-changing. It's one thing to read about historic motorsport, but it's something entirely different to experience it from inside the car, meet the people who make it happen and realise just how welcoming the community really is.

Whether someone's dream is engineering, restoration, event management, journalism, motorsport or something else entirely, experiences like this help turn those ambitions into something real.

The excitement clearly rubbed off too. As soon as we started sharing photos and stories from the event, messages began arriving from other young enthusiasts asking how they could enter next year. They'd seen the challenge, the teamwork, the laughs and the sense of achievement and they wanted to experience it for themselves.

That's exactly what StarterMotor is all about: creating opportunities that transform enthusiasm into confidence, skills, connections and, ultimately, careers.

Perhaps the biggest inspiration came from the results themselves. Thirteen-year-old Beatrix was crowned Overall Navigator Winner, Serafina claimed the Highest-Placed Under-18 Competitor award, and 14-year-old Archie took home the Young Navigator Award.

Their success proves that age is no barrier. Given the opportunity, a route book and a little encouragement, young people are more than capable of rising to the challenge.

If Rally for the Ages demonstrated anything, it's this: historic motorsport isn't just preserving the past.  It's creating the next generation of competitors, engineers, organisers and enthusiasts who will keep it alive for decades to come.