ESSO COURTESY GARAGE JUNE SAFARI GOOD TO GO

Entries close tomorrow (June 1) for the Esso Courtesy Garage 50th Anniversary June Safari, the final event in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) month of celebrations to mark its half-century. Taking the Club right back to its roots in navigational rallying, the event runs off over the weekend of June 9/10.
Esso and Courtesy Garage are renewing former associations with the BRC through joint sponsorship of the event, which is the second round of the 2007 BRC Safari Championship. The successful running of the first June Rally on June 16, 1957 was the catalyst to the founding of the BRC, and it is the oldest-established motor sport event in the region with a continuous history.
Esso was one of the Club’s first major sponsors - starting with the Esso June Rally in 1965, the company developed a long-term relationship with the BRC, which lasted for more than 20 years. Club Chairman Mark Hamilton said: “During our Anniversary celebrations, it has been fantastic to link up again with companies such as Courtesy Garage and Esso, whose support was so important in the formative years of the Club.
“Although the events in our navigational championship are now run for four-wheel-drive vehicles, rather than saloons and sports cars, the emphasis is still on the skill of navigation rather than outright speed. And that was where our 12 Founder Members started 50 years ago.”
The route has been set Leslie Alleyne and Robin Hinds, both veterans of BRC navigational events; the navigational methods used are a mixture of BRC – the system devised by the Club in the 1960s and still used in and around the region – Tulip and straightline.
The June Safari will start from Courtesy Garage, Wildey, at 3.01pm on Saturday, June 9, with the first day of competition ending roughly six hours later at Esso, Paynes Bay, St James. The Sunday restart will be from Fisherpond Plantation Yard at 7.31am, with the lunch halt scheduled for 11.00am in the southern car parks of Emerald City, St Philip; the event will finish at Surfer's Bay Beach Bar, near Silver Sands, Christ Church, at approximately 3.00pm, with a Prizegiving to follow, once results are declared final.
Alleyne notes: “In the Club’s early days, events would end at somewhere like The Crane Hotel or the North Point Resort and the family and party atmosphere at the finish was as important an ingredient as the competition itself, and we are working to recreate that for the 50th Anniversary June Safari.
“The band KITE will be playing live, along with music from DJ Steve Rapley, and there will be food and beverages at reasonable prices; there is a nice little beach there as well, which will be great for the family and kids . . . also for competitors to refresh themselves after a day’s competition.
“We are making our best efforts to have a really good, old-fashioned family party to close the Club’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, and I would just like to encourage competitors and their families, marshals and their families and all other members and affiliates of the Club to come down and celebrate with us.”
The Briefing Meeting will be held at the Barbados Clay Target Shooting Association’s Clubhouse at Searles, Christchurch, next Tuesday (June 5) at 7:00pm, after which a final entry list will be published. Alleyne says: “It really is necessary for all competitors to attend this meeting, as we will be doing a few things in slightly different ways and, if our regular Championship competitors are not there to hear about it, their June Safari might become quite frustrating!”
Entries close at 5.00pm, Friday, June 1, and are to be dropped off to Autozone Inc Motor Services Complex, Fontabelle, St Michael.

For further information, robin@bradfax.com