British driver Kevin Procter, at the iconic Kendal Duck Pond, competed in Rally Barbados for the 17th time in 2024
The Barbados Rally Club (BRC) has announced the dates for the 35th edition of its premier event. Subject to final ratification by the Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF), BCIC Rally Barbados 2025 will run from Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1, with The Rally Show and King of the Hill, the final shakedown and seeding event, on May 24 and 25.
Event Director Neil Barnard said: “We know that the traditional relationship between our dates and the summer half-term holidays is important locally and for our loyal participants from the UK and Ireland, which remains our biggest source market for international entries. We wanted to have our date for next year out early so anyone thinking of travelling to Barbados for the event has plenty of time to plan.”
Following the confirmation of a three-year deal with new title sponsor BCIC, a record 100 crews started BCIC RB24 under floodlights at Bushy Park Barbados on Friday, May 31. Despite a passing weather system’s frequent and unpredictable rain showers creating unusually challenging conditions, 67 crews – another record – were classified as finishers back at Bushy Park on Sunday, June 2, including 27 of 36 overseas crews.
The event was won by Stuart Maloney and Kristian Yearwood (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2), Maloney becoming the first participant to win as both driver and co-driver, having shared victory in 2007 with the late Paul Bourne. Also driving a Skoda, Jamaica’s Jeff Panton, a five-time winner of the BRC’s premier event, finished just under 14secs behind, with his fellow-countryman Kyle Gregg (Ford Fiesta Rally2) third.
Against the background of a record-breaking event, Barnard added: “The BRC has navigated its way through a few challenging years, primarily because of the global pandemic, but we truly feel we have now turned the corner with regards to stabilizing the Club’s operations and our blue riband event, BCIC Rally Barbados.”
Since the BRC, which marked its 65th Anniversary in 2022, first ran the International All-Stage Rally in 1990, the event has grown into the Caribbean’s biggest annual motor sport International and a key National Event on ‘Motorsport Island’s sports-tourism calendar. It has regularly contributed more than Bds $4 million to the economy, much of it in valuable foreign exchange and accounted for as many as 4,000 visitor nights at a traditionally quiet time of the year for tourism.
Since then, the event has hosted more than 600 participants from 33 countries, who have racked up well over 1,300 visits between them; Britain’s Martin Stockdale has competed 22 times, Jamaica’s Jeff Panton 20. While the main source market remains the United Kingdom and Ireland, as it is for tourist visitors to Barbados in general, crews have come from as far afield as Japan, Kenya and New Zealand.
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 and 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.
(PR)
