The history of RDC Promotions

RDC Promotions is a combination of brother Ron and Dave Coventry who both have a long history in short oval racing. 
Both started racing back in the 70s in the Bangers with PRI and later became involved in stockcar racing, Dave in the Superstox division until an injury in the mid 1980s ended his racing exploits and Ron in the Saloon Stockcars until the early 1990s.
Ron's retirement from racing came at around the same time RDC Promotions was born.
As well as being experienced behind the wheel the brothers also had experience at promoting race meetings, Ron at the Crayford Raceway in the 1970s and early 1980s and Dave at Arena Essex until the mid 1990s. 
They decided they would like to take their hobby further and take their knowledge and experience to make a business.
In 1992 they investigated staging stockcar and banger racing at a racetrack in Milton Keynes but at the last minute the project fell through.
Then an opportunity opened at Mildenhall Stadium in West Row, Suffolk, track which several other promoters had run in the past.
The deal was confirmed in November 1992 and the first meeting staged by RDC was on January 1 1993. 
At that time RDC promoted under the PRI banner and PRI drivers competed regularly at both tracks until the end of 1994 when the two promotions split and RDC became a separate entity licensing its own drivers. 
January 1 1993 was also a landmark day for RDC as it featured the first ever Reliant Robins race on an RDC track. The idea came from a scheduled rollover competition where 3-wheelers were permitted.
RDC said that if enough Reliant Robins arrived a race would be run for the cars. Four of them turned up and the race was a huge hit. Later that year the Grand Prix event attracted a dozen cars and now the formula regularly attracts entries of up to 36 cars and they even have their own World Final which has seen drivers from mainland Europe and USA compete. 
RDC also spent time promoting at King's Lynn in a partnership with Trackstar which came to an end in 1995. Trackstar continue to promote at the Norfolk venue today.
Then in 1997 RDC secured a deal to run race meetings at Swindon and did so in 1998 and 1999 while still running Mildenhall which was going from strength to strength. 
RDC's last meeting at Swindon was in October 1999 at which point talks were underway with the promoter at Dover's Coombe Valley Raceway in Kent, Brian Steed.
In November it was confirmed that RDC would be taking the Kent racetrack over and after a lot of work on improving the raceway the first RDC meeting was staged at Dover on Easter Monday 2000. 
RDC continue to promote race meetings at Mildenhall and Dover through the main part of the season, March to October, with a Winter Series at Mildenhall.
RDC also remains a family business. Ron's wife Dorina works the pass gates as does Dave wife's Rosemary along with her sister Theresa. Her other sister, Lynne is the Mildenhall lap scorer and her husband, Henry, the race manager, while their children, Henry, Sharon and Martin have all been flag marshals. Ron and Dave's late father, George, also worked on the pass gate and Ron's son, Michael is the commentator, programme editor and runs the in-house magazine T-Bone and the website.