» About the Rallye Register |
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What is the Rallye Register
The
106 Rallye Register is an exclusive car club based in the UK. It caters
for all Peugeot 106 Rallye models
around the world, including motorsport Rallyes. We offer a massive
source of information and technical data on the Rallye models, built up
over the last 10 years. We have a large online interactive
forum and website that provide everything you could possibly need to
know about the Rallye.
We
have over 250 members, and 3000+ forum users that shows the huge
popularity of the 106 Rallye. We organise exclusive events throughout
the year including track days, road rallies, social gatherings and are
present at most major car shows in the UK. Our huge discount directory
is one of the best around, offering members great savings
on parts from the major performance and tuning manufacturers.
The bottom line
is....if you're a Rallye owner, membership of the Register is an
absolute essential part of your Rallye experience!
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History and Formation
The 106 Rallye Register was formed by Mark Yates in
November 2000, with the aim of tracing all the Peugeot 106 Rallye
models left in the UK and bringing together the owners into an
exclusive club. Mark bought his first Rallye in the spring of 2000, a
completely standard indigo blue series 2 Rallye. After his purchase
Mark was keen to talk to other Rallye owners to discuss various aspects
of the car but found out the only way of contacting other
Rallye owners on the net was via email through Peugeot based
websites.....however at that time the number of Rallye owners online
was very limited!
Mark's enthusiasm for finding out more about the Rallye model lead to
the creation of a relatively simple website appropriately named www.106rallye.co.uk.
As
the amount of visitors to the site rapidly grew, a database was created
to store all the information of people emailing Mark to tell him about
their Rallye. The database contains information on each
individual Rallye such as colour, mileage, owners, location, etc.
It acts as a registrar for all the Rallye models left in the UK, and
it's this database that is the actual "106 Rallye
Register". It is a private database that only Mark has access to, so it's completely safe and confidential.
There
were only initially 1000 Series 1 and 500 Series 2 Rallye models
officially imported in the UK, that makes the 106
Rallye an extremely rare car, especially when you compare it to the
number of 106 GTi's - over 5500 registered in the UK. The Rallye
Register database is vital in keeping track of which Rallye's are
left in the UK. As time goes on more and more Rallye's are crashed,
heavily modified, converted into rally cars and scrapped, making them
even more scarce.
The
database tracks owner details, chassis numbers, engine numbers,
registration plates and more. This information is very important when
tracing a cars history. Some of the S1 models are now over 10 years old
so just think how much could have been done to a car in that time! In
years to come we may only have a few hundred Rallye
models left so keeping track of what cars are left is an essential aim
of the Register.
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Growth of the Register
Since
those early days the Register has steadily grown in size, with the
website continually evolving
into a bigger, better, more informative site. By the summer
of 2001, only 6 months after the Register had begun, there were over 50
members in the UK. Membership was free and all you had
to do was fill in a form on the website giving details of your Rallye
for insertion into the database. The members contacted each other by
email, none of this fancy online messaging, live forums and
chat rooms that are taken for granted these days!
In
early 2001, it was decided that it was time for the members to meet up
and show off their Rallye's in person! Our first official
event was PUGFEST 01 organised by the Peugeot Sport Official
Owners Club (PSOOC). It was held at the Heritage Motor Centre in
Warwickshire on the 24th of June. We had over 12 Rallye's
there on the day, in a neat little display which put the Register
firmly on the map in the Peugeot world and made people sit up and take
notice in the amount of interest in this little 106!
  
Pugfest & French Car Track Day 2001
From then on, the enthusiasm for the Rallye Register just grew and grew
throughout 2001. We had another few events that year that attracted
even more new members. The website got bigger and bigger as
there were now events to report on and details of the new members cars.
The Rallye has always been a real drivers car and therefore attracts a
certain type of owner who just wants to drive it to the
limit and not a lot else! To cater for this, we attended our first
track event at the REVS
French Car Track Day at The Three Sisters Circuit in Wigan, Lancashire.
We had 3 cars on track and
had a great time exploring the limits of the cars handling. It was also
fun exploiting the weaknesses of other cars on track, as the 3 Rallye's
drove rings around most of the other cars there! It
certainly made people take notice of the superb handling ability of the
Rallye.
The Rallye Register has always had very close links with the PSOOC which caters for all Peugeot makes and models www.psooc.com
. In July 2001 we were affiliated to the PSOOC to help attract
new members and to create more awareness for the Register. The
Register's first magazine
report soon followed in the November issue of Torque magazine,
distributed to all PSOOC members. Mark wrote a general introduction to
the Rallye model and let all the readers know all about
the Register.
The
winter of 2001 was an extremely busy time for Mark as he was improving
the website even further, adding new material, attracting new
members and of course carefully planning for an even bigger year in
2002! By the spring of 2002 the Rallye website was full of photo's,
video clips, downloads, member profiles and much more. We were
attracting a lot of interest from Rallye owners around the world, so we
set up an international Rallye Register to cater for all these people.
The
summer of 2002 was full of great events for the Register. Firstly we
attended a PSOOC rolling road day in Derbyshire bringing along
four Rallye's to be tested on the dyno for power figures. Mark then
organised a very exclusive day out at K&N Air Filters Research
& Development test facility in Cheshire. The ten members who
attended this event, were shown around K&N premises and then each
Rallye was carefully power tested on their very accurate dyno. This
event was so exclusive that a report on the day was published
in three national motoring magazines, attracting even more interest in
the Register.
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Events Galore
We decided to hold our 2002 national meet at PUGFEST,
held at Prescott Hill Climb in Gloucestershire. Before the event we
were pushing hard to get as
many Rallye's there as possible. There was a distinct "buzz" about the
Register at that time and we were quickly attracting lots of new
members. Through his close links with the PSOOC, Mark organised
a dedicated display area for the Register at PUGFEST. We had over 20
Rallye's present on the day in our special area that proved to be one
of the main focal points of the day. Our display looked
professional and organised, enhancing the reputation of the Register
even further.
Mark's enthusiasm for organising Rallye
events was growing steadily throughout 2002, after the success of
PUGFEST he negotiated a great deal to hold a Peugeot track day at the
Anglesey circuit in North Wales. This was booked for a wonderful
summers day in August and there was a variety of French cars in
attendance, including 4 Rallye Register member cars. It was a great
achievement for the Register to hold an event of this size and stature,
once again we were credited in the national press and on many Peugeot
websites.
After the success of Anglesey, the Rallye Register went for an even
bigger event, never seen before in the Peugeot club world....a road
rally weekend based in deep mid Wales!! This was organised
exclusively for members of the Register and PSOOC. We had a superb
weekend of driving on the glorious Welsh B roads from our country hotel
base. The 6 special stages took you out into the surrounding
countryside to enjoy a wonderful mix of fast A and twisting B roads
which cut their way through the hills & valleys past lakes, rivers
and stunning scenery. The four Rallye's on this event were
certainly in their element on these kind of roads! Once again, a Rallye
Register event attracted a lot of press and media interest.
After
the superb events of the summer 2002, the size of the Register was
really gathering momentum. The website was crammed full of Rallye
material but we lacked the interactivity of other car club websites at
that time. We needed a way to bring the members together online.
In November 2002, The Register launched its first
internet forum. This proved to be a major step in recruiting new
members as people could at last chat to other Rallye owners online in a
totally dedicated Rallye environment. The forum was a breath
of fresh air and gave us the interactivity we needed. It attracted many
new Rallye owners from all around the world and enabled us to build for
2003 after a highly successful year in
2002.
The
beginning of 2003 was spent building up the website even further,
adding new material and pages. Membership was still free of charge,
but in 2003 we asked for the members to make a £5 contribution
towards the costs of running the Register for another year. The
majority of members at that time had no qualms at all about this
voluntary contribution as they realised it would help the Register get
bigger and better. This new lease of funds allowed us to buy our
first club banner to display at events!
Our
first event in 2003 was the PSOOC karting endurance team challenge held
at Daytona, Manchester in January. The Rallye Register sent
two teams along to this event and we decimated the opposition finishing
1st and 2nd. The Rallye drivers really showing off their karting
skills! After so much fun at this event, the Register
organised its own karting event for members, again at Daytona in March.
We had an endurance race for 12 members and then a few drinks
afterwards, so it was a good social gathering.
By
this time, the Register members were gearing up for a hectic summer of
events. Busily preparing their cars and adding
new modifications. We had over 100 Rallye owners registered on the
forum at that time and many of those guys were present at our events
that year. We were beginning to build up a large number of
"hardcore members" who were active on the forum and made the effort to
attend our events. In May, Register members took over the PSOOC track
day at Curborough in Staffordshire! We had 11 Rallye's
there on the day, opposed to only 7 other Peugeot's from the PSOOC. We
had a superb day on the small former airfield circuit, testing out our
Rallye's handling in a safe environment. It was also
a good opportunity for the members to meet up and have a chat, giving
it a really friendly atmosphere.
  
Curborough Track Day 2003
We had massive exposure after our day at Curborough and it seemed to attract even more people to our forum to find out all
about the little Rallye's! The next major event was the French Car Show
organised by the Peugeot GTi Autosport Club (PGAC) held at Stanford
Hall in Leicestershire at the end of May. The
Register had a dedicated display area for members cars and we had over
15 Rallye's there, showing their class and pedigree in a show full of
highly modded Peugeot's.
Next up was the big one - PUGFEST 03,
we decided to hold our national Rallye meet at this event for the 2nd
year running. It
was held at the same venue as last year, the fabulous Prescott Hill. We
wanted to get as many members there as possible and the popularity of
the Register was clear to see with over 30 Rallye's on
display in our parking area. We had so many cars present that the
organisers had to move us to a special area just to fit us all in - all
the others Peugeot models there were well and truly blown
away by the number of Rallye's! There was a Rallye Register track
parade up the famous hill climb and our members enjoyed flying up the
hill on solo laps afterwards.
More
superb events followed in 2003 including another outing at Curborough
and a trip to Anglesey for the annual Peugeot track day. As
usual we had plenty of Register members in attendance. We also attended
the Rallye Super Car Day
for the first time. This is an event dedicated to rally cars and rally
bred road cars, held at
Castle Combe Circuit in Wiltshire. We had a joint display with the
PSOOC Wiltshire Group and also booked a Rallye track session for 10 of
our members to have sole use of the circuit.
After
a hectic summer of events, 2003 turned out to be another great year for
the Register. We had grown into an exclusive car club full
of active members who were very enthusiastic about the Rallye Register.
We had to satisfy the needs of these members so at the end of 2003 we
purchased a brand new ultra modern forum full of exciting
new features. This was a key stage in increasing the membership even
further. We now had an online Rallye community where members could
interact using the latest forum software. The end of 2003
was spent preparing the new forum for a big launch at the start of 2004.
We
had big plans for 2004 to increase the size and stature of the
Register. However we had reached the stage where the lack of funding
was
proving to be a major hindrance to all our new idea's. For the last few
years the costs of running the Register was funded by the member
contributions and from Marks own pocket! From the start of
2004, we introduced a membership fee to join the Register. This was set
at £10 for UK members and £5 for International members.
Anybody was free to join and we did have a few 106 XSi and GTi owners
sign up as they knew the Rallye Register offered them more than any of
the other Peugeot clubs!
The
new forum was fantastic and was proving to be very popular, many
members commented how it felt like a real "community" online. In the
first three months of 2004 we had 60 people join. The new lease of
funds allowed us to buy two new club banners and frames ready for the
busy show season. Our aim for the first year of the membership
fee, was to have 100 Rallye owners join the Register.
The success of the Register continues and we are celebrating our 5th anniversary in 2005!
You can see many more photos of all our past events in the Multimedia Gallery section.
To join the 106 Rallye Register, please click here.
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