THIS week saw the announcement that this year’s British round of the FIA World Rally Championship had been cancelled – leaving rally fans with little other than memories to keep them going for the time being.

With that in mind, we’ve taken a look through our archives and dug out some evocative images from a time when the RAC Rally - as it was known for many years - used to come through Yorkshire.

For five successive years in the 1970s, the event had its ceremonial finish in Yorkshire, with York and Harrogate sharing the honours. Harrogate hosted the finish of the rally again in 1988, 1990 and 1991.

However, for two decades, the rally has been based in Wales, even being renamed Wales Rally GB – with the shortened format being a far cry from the halcyon days when the RAC Rally travelled far and wide across Britain.

There has been little sign of the rally returning in recent years, with the exception of a time when Welcome to Yorkshire was on the hunt for a world class sporting event to draw attention to the beauty of the county.

After rumours that tourism chiefs had been trying to put together a package to bring the World Rally Championship back to Yorkshire, an even more high-profile event - the Tour De France - was secured in 2014 and all went quiet on the rally front.

So memories are all Yorkshire folk have right now of the world’s premier rally action on their doorstep, which is why it was nice to lay my hands on a dusty envelope this week, marked ‘RAC Rally.’

Happily, the envelope contained an intriguing variety of images - both colour and black and white - showing rally action from the 1970s and 1980s.

Sadly, the captions on the back of many of the images generally contained only the name of the driver, without giving a location.

But, with T&A copyright emblazoned on the back of them, it seems likely they were taken within striking distance of Bradford.

Bramham Park, between Leeds and Wetherby, Harewood near Leeds and Esholt near Bradford were all special stages that attracted scores of West Yorkshire rally fans over the years.

A number of images in the T&A archive show the legendary British rally driver Roger Clark in action in his Ford Escort RS 1600 MKI.

A firm favourite among UK rally fans, Clarke became the first competitor from this country to win a World Rally Championship event when he triumphed at the 1976 RAC Rally.

On one occasion - on being told that the next special stage was through the grounds of Esholt sewage works - the story goes that Clark responded with words to the effect of: “Well, if we go off the road on that stage, we’re really in it!”

Not surprisingly, the T&A photo archives from the time contain plenty of images of local lad Tony Fall, the Bradford-born rally driver, taking part in the event.

Accounts suggest that Fall worked as salesman for Appleyards Bradford, and gained permission from Appleyards to use one of their Cooper ‘S’ demonstrator cars as his rally car in the 1965 season, which is where he made a name for himself in the sport.

One of the T&A archive images shows Fall driving a Datsun 240Z - emblazoned with the number 18 - blasting through an icy-looking special stage in 1971 with co-driver Mike Wood. Another shows the Bradfordian a year later on his way to a respectable top 20 finish.

One image captures the Finnish driver Timo Makinen cornering at speed on the 1974 rally with an impressive stately home in the background.

Regarded as one of the original ‘Flying Finns’ of rallying, he is remembered for his hat-tricks of wins in the RAC Rally and the 1000 Lakes Rally.

While there will inevitably be disappointment at the cancellation of the 76th staging of the event - due to be held in October this year - we hope these memories help!