Birthday celebration for UK’s Gibson at BCIC RB25

Two-time UK regional rally champion Dan Gibson is to mark his 50th birthday next Thursday (February 27) by entering his one-of-a-kind Clan Crusader rally car in BCIC Rally Barbados 2025. His 52-year-old car, the only Clan granted a Motorsport UK Historic Passport, will face off against the Hillman Imp of returning Irishman Mick Smith in the island’s Historic 1 class.
  BCIC RB25, the Caribbean’s biggest motor sport international, will run from Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1. The Auto & Rally Show, where every car entered is on display in an annual celebration of island rallying, and the final shakedown and seeding event, First Citizens King of the Hill, fill the previous weekend (May 24/25).
  Gibson, who lives in Cornwall in the UK’s south-west, started competing in 1991, initially as a co-driver, before switching seats the following year. Over the years, he has rallied a wide variety of cars, both two- and four-wheel drive, from Ford Fiesta, Ford Escort MkII, MGZR, Mini Marcos and Vauxhall Nova to a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII.
  He now competes in the Clan or a Darrian T90 in mainly tarmac events. He is the reigning Association of South Western Motor Clubs (ASWMC) Overall Champion, a title he also won in 2017, finishing second (2022) and third (2023) driving the Darrian.
  The Clan Crusader is a rear-engined fibreglass sports car, which shares the Rootes Group Imp Sport engine and much of the suspension and running gear with Smith’s car. Production started in September 1971, but lasted only two years before new UK tax laws and engine supply issues caused the company's closure after building around 350 cars. Early motorsport successes in 1972 included Andy Dawson’s second in the Manx Rally to the works Ford Escort of Roger Clark and Alan Conley’s win on the Tour of Mull.
  Gibson’s car is based on a competition shell built by Brian Luff, who helped create the original cars, with a 105bhp 1-litre engine from Imp engine guru Alan Jones; it is prepared by Gibson and Blowing House Garage from Falmouth in Cornwall. Sitting with Gibson for the first time, the co-driver is rally car builder and mechanic Dan Morefield, who also lives in the West Country, in Exeter, and has been co-driving since 2018.
  Morefield has had Rally Barbados on his ‘bucket list’ for a while, as he has been co-driving in the Ford Escort MkI formerly rallied in the island by Paul Horton of the Turks & Caicos Rally Team; attempts to persuade the current owner to return have so far failed.
  For his third visit, Smith will have his third different co-driver, Charlotte Mcglashan, who celebrates her 18th birthday two days after BCIC RB25. Having sat in stepfather Mark Chandler’s Ford Escort MkII last year, she has gained further experience in the UK, including sitting with Smith’s close friend Ian Barclay, who is also returning to compete.
  Smith’s choice of co-driver falls in line with a new scheme launched this week by the London Irish Motor Club, of which he is chairman, to encourage more youngsters into the sport, particularly girls. In a rallying career lasting 40 years, in a Sunbeam Ti, Hillman Avengers and the Rover Metro GTi Challenge, he has an impressive list of championship, overall and class wins to his credit and will drive the Imp this weekend on the demonstration stage at RaceRetro at Stoneleigh in the British Midlands.

Rally Barbados 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; the previous Sunday’s King of the Hill ‘shakedown’, 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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