M&M Racing Rally Barbados 2010 Team Report
By Barry Mayers

The entire team had a very busy week of preparation leading up to Rally Barbados. Even though our racing engine expired on the way to scrutineering, we were able to change it to a standard road car engine which was down about 35 – 40 BHP over the racing engine. Despite all of this, the BMW was at the start of the Rally on Saturday & Sunday.

On Saturday we started cautiously, as we got to know the car and the stages. The steepest learning curve for both Roger and me was navigating and getting used to calling notes and calculating transit times.

After the 6th stage of the Rally, we were 17th overall, even though the car had very little drivability and power below 5000 RPM. We were ahead of some of our rivals including Brian Gill, Martin Stockdale & Josh Read and we were closely following Mark Hamilton.

Some bad luck struck on the 7th stage, as the car broke an axle at the start line. We had to wait until all 90 cars cleared the stage before we could start working on the car, and this instantly put us out of the overall running in the rally. The axle was shortly repaired and after missing two stages we continued our rally.

Since we were out of the overall standings for Saturday, we were eligible for the "Sunday Cup". This was another challenge for us, with our major competition coming from Brett Clarke & Sammy Cumberbatch.

The first stage on Sunday started out well, as we were 6th overall and fastest 2WD car and we were ahead of all the Sunday Cup drivers. During the day we continued setting stage times in the top 15, but Sammy Cumberbatch was extremely quick as his car was very suited to the long stages. In the end, he was able to come out as the winner of the Sunday Cup, and we closely followed in second position.

Rally Barbados 2010 was an extremely fun rally for Roger and me. Without all of the small problems, we are confident that a top 15 overall result and first in class would have been very achievable!! We are now in FULL rally mode, and are trying to get some ideas of how we can make a full time comeback to rallying. Hopefully we can secure some sponsorship and be back for Rally Barbados 2011!

Lastly, I would like to say THANK YOU to all of our sponsors - Terra Caribbean, Delaware Dispensary, Illusion Graphic, Redline Fuels and Quality Tyre. Without you all, Rally Barbados 2010 would not have been possible for the M & M Racing Team.