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BRC Rally Barbados 2003,
Island Wide,
June 7 & 8, 2003
 
Index
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News From The Barbados Rally Club.
 

Bourne & Venezia Win Rally Barbados
Minister of Sport presents awards

Paul Bourne, Hon Reginald Farley & Louis Venezia

Paul 'Surfer' Bourne and Louis Venezia received their trophies as winners of Rally Barbados 2003 from the country's Minister of Sport, the Hon Reginald Farley, at a packed prize-giving ceremony at The Boatyard, on the outskirts of the capital, Bridgetown, yesterday (Monday).

Driving his Banks/Pirelli/Texaco/ Williams Industries-supported Subaru Impreza WRC (right), Bourne had led the event from the start and survived a couple of scares on Sunday afternoon to win by 1min 8.14sec after two hard days of rallying; he had recorded the fastest time on more than half the stages run in what he described afterwards as "a very tough rally".

Roger Hill and Graham Gittens

Second were Roger Hill and Graham Gittens (above) (Mobil 1/ Nassco/ Michelin/Motormac Toyota Celica GT4), just eight seconds ahead of Barry Gale and Ryan Rodriguez (NP/Sunbeach/Kerridge/Simpson Motors Rally Team), who repeated their Group N victory of 2002. Gale (right) also became the inaugural winner of the Andrew Phillips Memorial Trophy, awarded to the 'King of the Carnival', for his performance over the two weekends of the Barbados Rally Carnival - he had won his Group in the previous weekend's Sunbeach International RallySprint.

Fourth, claiming the Highest Visiting Crew trophy, were Gary Greg and Hugh Hutchinson from Jamaica in their Mitsubishi Evo VI (right), while Sean Dowding and Logan Watson finished a delighted fifth in the Globe Finance/ProPac Mitsubishi Evo V. The highest-placed two-wheel-drive car - sixth place overall - was the Automotive Art/Shell Helix Toyota Starlet of the impressive young Barry Mayers, who had arrived in Barbados from his studies in England only a little over an hour before the Saturday start, after travelling for nearly 24 hours.

More than half the 30 European competitors stayed the course, the highest-placed of which was the Austrian pairing of Willi Polesznig and Peter Stark, whose Mitsubishi Evo VI (right) finished 13th overall and fourth in class. Many of the overseas visitors ran strongly in their Group, but Martin Stockdale/Anders Howard were the only crew to beat local drivers to victory, winning Group B in the Plasterland/Drive-a-Matic/Sand Acres BMW M3. Of the 91 starters, only 40 completed the entire route in a rally notable for a very high attrition rate, particularly among the established front-runners. Among the first of the high-profile retirements - early on Saturday - was nine-times winner Roger Skeete; the Texaco/Michelin/McEnearney Quality/Consolidated Finance/Carib Ford Escort WRC he shares with Dave Crawford suffered a major drive-shaft failure, for which spare parts were not available.

Shortly before that, England's Terry Pankhurst had crashed heavily on the first stage of the day, Canefield, seriously damaging the Dimma Peugeot 206 WRC Replica; co-driver Amanda Craven was badly shaken, but suffered no permanent injuries.

Rising young star Roger Mayers, who had finished second to Skeete last year, was another in trouble early on; after the Automotive Art/Shell crew had repaired a leak in the fuel tank of the Ford Focus WRC, a problem then developed in the braking system, which could not be satisfactorily resolved, causing retirement.

The final blow for local fans came with the retirement of crowd favourite Trevor 'Electric Micey' Manning, whose NP/Sunbeach/ Kerridge/Simpson Motors Rally Team; he was running in second place, around 10secs adrift of Bourne, early afternoon on Saturday when he crashed into a retaining wall near the end of the Canefield stage, damaging the car beyond repair.

Despite the early retirements of many local heroes, and the counter-attraction of two one-day cricket internationals between the West Indies and Sri Lanka at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, the crowds again turned out in their thousands to watch Rally Barbados.

The Minister of Sport had also officiated at the start, flagging away all 91 starters from the Simpson Motors complex at Warrens.

 
 
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