PAUL BIRD ‘IN TRAINING’ FOR SOL RALLY BARBADOS

Runner-up to Kris Meeke in Sol Rally Barbados for the past two years, Britain’s Paul Bird is taking his third crack at the Caribbean’s biggest annual International motor sport event very seriously – once again, his rally car will travel south by air, giving him extra time to brush up on his tarmac technique in readiness for Sol RB2010 on May 29/30.
Confirmation of Bird’s entry brings to four the number of ex-works Ford Focus World Rally Cars listed for the 20th Anniversary running of the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) International All-Stage Rally; the ’07 car in which he finished second last year is now campaigned by Barbadian Paul Bourne, while Jamaicans Gary Gregg (Focus WRC 05) and Jeffrey Panton in his ex-Colin McRae example are also on the list – all three of the regional drivers are former winners.
While the rest of the European entries were on board the Geest Line freighter Klipper Stream sailing towards the Bridgetown Port in Barbados last week, ‘Birdy’ was preparing for his debut on the Cartell.ie Killarney Rally of the Lakes in Ireland at the weekend (May 1/2), an event also previously won by Meeke, in a Subaru Impreza WRC, in 2007.
With Scottish co-driver Kirsty Riddick, 2005 UK National Rally Champion Bird faced two days of tarmac stages – 14 at eight locations - in his Dom Buckley Motorsport-run supercasino.com/Vent-Axia Ford Focus WRC 08 . . . and it did not start well, as they lost more than 70 seconds on the opening stage thanks to problems with the anti-lag.
Bird fought back on stages two and three to start working his way back up the leader board, in part thanks to making an intermediate tyre choice, which worked well for him on the unfamiliar stages. As the on-event Patterson RallyNews bulletin reported: “This is Paul’s first visit to the Killarney Lakes and he is certainly getting on the pace now. He staged a great comeback from outside the leader board to finish the day seventh overall, despite the tyres overheating on the final stage.”
Apart from his problems on the first stage, Bird had been within the top seven stage times all day, with a best of third; things improved on Sunday, with a stage win on the second test of the day . . . Caragh Lake. RallyNews reported: “Paul Bird was fastest through the stage with a time of 6m 55.90s, with Alastair Fisher second, two seconds back. Bird and co-driver Kirsty Riddick were both laughing at the stage finish and Paul said: ‘We can go home now, we’ve set a fastest time!’” Brian Patterson added: “What a stage to set it on as well, one of the best roads in the country.”
That would be the only stage win of the weekend for the first-time visitors, but another five top five finishes during Sunday resulted in Bird and Riddick finishing fifth overall; also, at it was among those UK events in which the top three finishers overall are not eligible for class awards, they also went home with the class-winners’ trophies.
Bird is not resting yet in his preparations for Sol Rally Barbados and is seeded number one for the coming weekend’s Manx Telecom Rally (May 7/8), which he won last year in the ’07 Focus WRC which now resides in Barbados; last year’s win was an emotional one for Bird, who had enjoyed countless successes on the Isle of Man TT course in his other capacity as a motorcycle road-racing and Superbike team owner – these include the legendary Joey Dunlop winning his 26th and final TT on one of Bird's bikes in 2000 - but he had never won on the hallowed Manx lanes himself, despite coming close on numerous occasions.
And he’s after another win this year, also perhaps looking for a good omen: prior to Birdy’s win there in 2009, five of the previous nine events had been won by Ulster’s Kenny McKinstry, twice a winner in Barbados (in 1993 & ‘96), so perhaps Bird is hoping for some of the world-famous “luck of the Irish” to rub off on him.

Sol Rally Barbados 2010 (May 29/30) and Shell V-Power King of the Hill (May 23) are organised by the Barbados Rally Club, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007; title sponsor is the Sol Group. Marketing partners are Simpson Motors, LIME, Automotive Art, Banks and Karcher; official partners are the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association, Barbados Tourism Authority, Divi Southwinds Beach Resort, Geest Line and Virgin Atlantic Airways; associate sponsors are Stoute’s Car Rental and Little Switzerland.

For further information:
e-mail - robin@bradfax.com