THE name might have changed slightly but there’s no doubt that next week’s Mull Rally is still one of the most popular club events in the country.

It emerged from the ashes of the Tour of Mull Rally, which folded almost overnight following the 2300 Club of Blackburn’s shock decision to stop running it.

Now run by the island-based Mull Car Club, the gruelling night-day-night-day format remains the same – and with it a full entry list.

The attraction is three days and two nights of flat-out rallying, narrow roads with more dips and crests than Rally Finland, Escort Mk 1s and Mk 2s and full Scottish hospitality. And this year is no exception.

Within hours of the Mull entry list opening, dozens of entries had poured in, and clerk of the course Iain Campbell is delighted.

“Mull has a magic all its own,” he said. “You need a ferry just to get here, and it’s not an easy rally when you do arrive. We’ve had roads and bridges washed away in the summer floods, but we are all set for a brilliant three days of motor sport.”

Former Tour of Mull Rally winner Daniel Harper heads the East Lancashire contingent in his Mini Sport of Padiham-backed BMW Mini S.

Harper, Mini Sport’s engineering director, has regular mapman Chris Campbell, from Barrowford, along-side in the number three seed car.

The top two places are filled by Mull drivers Callum Duffy and James MacGillivray, both in Ford Escorts. John and Martin Cressey have a suprisingly low seeding of 39 in their Mini Sport BMW Mini, while Clitheroe navigator Ben Anderson teams up with Martin Page, from Finzean, also in a Mini.

Mull stalwart and veteran Clith-eroe DMC member Dave Calvert wheels out his Ford Escort for another crack at the Scottish lanes, with Blackburn’s Heidi Woodcock reading the notes.

The world’s largest independent rally App, iRally, is covering the event stage by stage.