Stockdale almost misses the boat for BCIC RB24

The Geest Line freighter Baltic Klipper docked at the Bridgetown Port early yesterday (Tuesday) with a cargo including 22 rally cars shipped from the UK and Ireland . . . but it was almost only 21, as last-minute delays nearly ended British driver Tom Stockdale’s childhood dream of competing alongside his father Martin, who this year participates in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) premier event for a record 22nd time.
  The cars will join nearly 80 local, regional and international cars already in the island on display at The Auto & Rally Show at Bushy Park Barbados on Saturday, May 25, before competing the next day in First Citizens King of the Hill, the final shakedown and seeding event. BCIC Rally Barbados 2024 will start at Bushy Park on the following Friday (May 31) with two floodlit stages, either side of a stage at Featherbed Lane in St John. Nine stages will run on Saturday in the south-east of the island, with a further eight in the north on Sunday, before the Final Stage and Rally Finish at the Vaucluse Raceway.
  Now 36, Tom was 13 when he travelled to Barbados in 2001, when his father competed in the first Barbados Rally Carnival: “I was quickly hooked, the event, the atmosphere, making new friends . . . and the holiday was something else! As the years passed, visiting annually for Rally Barbados, I remember thinking I've got to get a competition licence and get some of this all-round fun one day.”
  Although Stockdale’s last visit to Rally Barbados was in 2010, he has been to the island once since then, in 2019, a year after he finally started competing; his prize for winning the first season of the BimmaCup UK was entry for the Caribbean final at the Vaucluse Raceway. This year’s trip will be packed with new experiences: he’ll be driving an untried car, the recently (nearly) completed BMW Compact 3V6 in Group B, using pacenotes for the first time, and with a co-driver he met only two months ago.
  But Stockdale is just glad the car has arrived. Two weeks before it was due at the docks, the engine suffered a crankshaft failure when it was first run and a total engine rebuild delayed other work. Fast forward to the day before loading in their workshop more than 200 miles from Portsmouth: “Just gone midnight at home we decided enough was enough, let’s put it on the trailer and finish the rest of the work in Barbados. It was a huge relief getting to the docks (albeit an hour and a half later than the 4.30am they had asked us to be there) but luckily we were in time.”
  As well as being father, Martin aka Mad-dale is also the master engineer, building BMWs for customers in the island, along with his own. In his current Jaguar-engined 1M Coupe, the fourth different car he has entered, he won Group B last year with co-driver Graeme Wood, who is returning. Tom adds: “Without Dad’s commitment of time, knowledge and experience on this project, it wouldn't have been achievable. I am so grateful, also really looking forward to competing against him.”
  Active since the 1970s, co-driver Neil Chambers has a number of wins and podium finishes to his credit, notably with Tom Morris in an MG Metro 6R4 in the early 2000s. Rally Barbados had been on his bucket list for around 20 years, so when the call from Stockdale came, he says: “It didn’t take long for me to come to a decision. At last my long-held dream of competing on Rally Barbados had come true.”
  With a group of more than 20 including family travelling from Canada, the Stockdales are arriving in force, Tom with fiancee George, daughters Heidi (5), Paige (8) and son Ayrton, who will be 10 on the Saturday of Rally Barbados (June 1), who is “really looking forward to watching dad and grandad from the Rally Experience” says Stockdale.
  The Stockdales, along with Chambers and chum Ian Evans, a regular at Rally Barbados, were among the British competitors who gathered at Portsmouth docks before sunrise 10 days ago, with the temperature a chilly five degrees Celsius, to help load the cars. Rally Office Manager Jeanne Crawford said: "Every year, it is gives all competitors and the organisers peace of mind that these temperamental rally cars are being loaded with care and understanding, so big thanks to them, along with Andrew and Melissa Costin-Hurley, Dick and Kathy Mauger (always with her checklist at the ready), Chris Shooter and Bev LeGood, Mick Smith, Dylan Thomas and Nigel Worswick.
  "Yesterday, Club members Graham Gittens, Roger Hill, Jason King, Barry and Roger Mayers, and Stuart White were at the Bridgetown Port helping with unloading, so I must also thank them, along with Barbados Port Inc, Customs and Excise and our annual wrecker services of Alvin, Kirtis and Soldier Man.”

BCIC Rally Barbados (May 31-June 2) is a tarmac rally with around 20 special stages run on the island’s intricate network of public roads, under road closure orders granted by the Ministry of Transport, Works & Water Resources; the previous Sunday’s (May 26) First Citizens King of the Hill sprint, run under a similar arrangement, features four timed runs on a roughly four-kilometre stage, the results of which are used to seed the running order for the main event.

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