“PHENOMENAL” ENTRY FOR WARM-UP RALLY

The Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Carnival Warm-Up Tarmac Rally on Sunday (April 22) has attracted an entry described by organisers as “phenomenal”, promising a day of superb entertainment for the many thousands of fans who are expected to make their way to the island’s south-east parishes.
The second round of the Texaco BRC Rally Championship has attracted 46 crews, including the largest four-wheel-drive entry - 10 cars - seen since Rally Barbados last year. They will tackle 12 special stages, including a SuperSpecial at Bushy Park, which will round off the day’s action before a prize-giving in the Club House.
BRC vice-chairman Barry Gale said on Tuesday: “The rally has a whopping 46-car entry, which is phenomenal! I can’t remember the last time that any event, other than an international, attracted such tremendous support.
“I think its attributable both to the hype generated by the Club’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, also the fact that there are many new competitors, who are cutting their teeth with a smaller rally before Rally Barbados, as is mandated in the regulations. There are five rookie drivers entered, all of whom are hoping to be accepted for Rally Barbados, and three or four others who have been out of action for some time and are either shaking down their new cars or shaking off their old cobwebs”.
The entry is headed by Texaco Championship leader Paul Bourne, co-driven in his Subaru Impreza WRC by Stuart Maloney; leading the chase will be Trevor Manning/James Betts (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) and Jamaicans John Powell and Michael March (Toyota Corolla WRC). The two-wheel-drive runners are led by Adrian and Jackie Linton, who claimed a memorable overall win in the equivalent event last year in their Vauxhall Astra GSi, Sean Gill/Michael Cummins (Suzuki Swift), Jonathan Still/Heath Hazell (BMW M3) and Roger Skeete/Ian Griffith (Peugeot 306 Maxi). A full entry list will be published once seeding order is confirmed.
The first car is scheduled to start at 8.00am from the Colleton Plantation Yard, where Rally Control and the Service Park are also situated. During the morning, there will be three runs each from Mapps to Stewarts Hill, and from Featherbed Lane to Woodland, before a lunch break slated for 11.35am.
The afternoon will see those stages run in the reverse direction, with two runs from Stewarts Hill and three from Woodland, before the Bushy Park SuperSpecial, scheduled to start a little after 4.00pm. With a special stage distance of 48.20kms, this will be the biggest challenge faced so far this season by island crews, so offers an ideal warm-up for Rally Barbados.
Gale notes that it is not just a warm-up for competitors: “From the Club’s point of view, this is also a true warm-up for Rally Barbados. The officials and marshals who are running these stages will all be working over that weekend, also the timing crews and those persons staffing Rally Control. It provides an excellent opportunity for us to spot any snags in our organisation, and allows time to resolve them before Rally Barbados.”
There is a Briefing Meeting at 7.00pm on Thursday (April 19) at the BCTSA Clubhouse at Searles, Christchurch, at which attendance is mandatory for all competitors to receive final instructions and competition numbers. Scrutineering will be at Bushy Park on Saturday, from 11:00am to 3:00pm.
The Carnival Warm-Up Tarmac Rally is also a round of the Banks Championship, organised by the Motoring Club of Barbados Inc.

Texaco BRC Rally Championship
Positions after round 1

1st Paul Bourne (Subaru Impreza WRC), 15 points
2nd Trevor Manning (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII), 12pts
3rd Kirk Watkins (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V), 10pts
4th Mark Hamilton (Ford Escort MkII), 9pts
5th Jonathan Still (BMW M3), 8pts
6th Freddie Gale (Toyota Corolla RunX), 7pts
7th Neil Barnard (Suzuki Ignis Sport), 6pts
8th Josh Read (Toyota Starlet), 5pts
9th Stuart White (Toyota Corolla KP30), 4pts
10th Allan Kinch (Daihatsu Charmant), 3pts
etc

For further information, robin@bradfax.com