Bourne & Venezia Win Rally Barbados
Minister of Sport presents awards
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".
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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