Irish R5s boost class to record number for BCIC RB25

With a five-car team of newcomers from Ireland already confirmed last month to participate in BCIC Rally Barbados 2025, more first-time entries from the ‘Emerald Isle’ announced today (April 11) bring the total now listed in the FIA R5 class to 17, surpassing the previous record of 15 entered in 2022 and last year.
  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).
  In addition to the Ford Fiesta R5 of Paul O’Brien and Sean Coffey and the Hyundai i20 R5 of Kevin and Katie Wilson, Australia-based Co Mayo man and fellow newcomer to Barbados James Culliney will compete in his recently completed Ford Escort MkII with Niall Morley in the co-driver’s seat on only its third event.
  O’Brien started rallying in 2002, first in a Talbot Sunbeam, then Ford Escort, before campaigning Honda Civics for nearly a decade, winning his class in the Irish National Rally Championship in 2017. Among his co-drivers that year was Lorcan Moore, who competed in Barbados for the first time in BCIC RB24, co-driving for Gary Smith in a Honda Civic VTec, finishing fourth in Modified 2. Smith and Moore will also return this year but move up to SuperModified 2 in a BMW M3.
  After a couple of quiet years, O’Brien acquired his Fiesta R5 in early 2022. His co-driver in Barbados will be Sean Coffey, who was the regular co-driver in the USA in the early 2000s for Martin Donnelly, who returned to the island last year for his fourth visit. Donnelly will also be back for BCIC RB25, again driving the Ford Escort MkII in which he finished fourth in M3 last year with co-driver Liam Ryan.
  Wilson is a relative newcomer to the sport, having first competed in 2020 in a Ford Fiesta R2, switching to a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, in which he had a few class wins and podium places. Prepared by BDM Motorsport, the KWP Hyundai has competed in more than 30 events, mostly in Wilson’s hands, although previous drivers include current Ford World Rally Team member Josh McErlean, who finished 17th in Rally Portugal in 2021.
  Daughter Katie has already enjoyed rallying success, having won the Northern Ireland Junior Championship in 2023 with brother Conor in their Ford Fiesta Rally4, along with the FIA 2wd title. She also sat with her father in last year’s Donegal International Rally, run on roads close to their home, when she was 18 years old, although the outing didn’t go quite to plan on day one, so they started the second day under SupeRally rules.
  For Culliney, this year marks his return to the sport for the first time in 14 years; the last event he did in 2011 was in also a MkII Escort with Morley on the notes. After trying Autocross and finding he had a talent for loose surfaces, Culliney drove a Toyota Corolla in the 2003 Galway Summer Rally, then a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III the following year in his home event, the Mayo Stages Rally. Then he began what he calls his "Love Hate relationship with the Ford Escort MkII; I loved it when I was in it but I think the MkII hated me behind the wheel. I can be very exuberant behind the wheel!"
  He took in many Irish National events on tarmac and gravel, plus Internationals like Donegal and Galway, and also took on the role of safety car driver. This new 240bhp 2-litre Escort, built by Damien Toner Motorsport, is backed by PCH Civil, Vipeq Ireland, Culmac Plant Hire Australia, TAMS OZ and Ronan’s Bar Bekan.
  On two consecutive weekends in March, he contested the Bishopscourt Rally as a shakedown, then the West Cork Rally, with Andrew Grennan, another co-driver from his past. Morley, who will be on the notes in Barbados, said: “He won class 12 by over a minute. It was an outrageous drive . . . and he brought the car home 33rd overall!”
  Adding these new and returning teams to the group of 40 already confirmed from the five-car Carrick-on-Suir Motor Club brings the number of visiting Irish competitors, friends and family to approaching 100 and, as Culliney says: “We’re just doing it for the absolute craic!”

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.

For media information only. No regulatory value.

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