Overseas National Champions target Bajan crews

[Red Dawg]

Four ex-factory World Rally Cars - two Fords, a Subaru and a Toyota - head the entry list for Rally Barbados 2006 issued today (May 12) by the organising Barbados Rally Club (BRC); and, with current or former National Champions arriving from Britain, Jamaica and Trinidad, the challenge for local crews will be among the strongest in the 17-year history of the event.

In the absence of last year's winner Roger Mayers, the Bajan crew Paul Bourne and Louis Venezia, winners in 2003, in the Warrens Motors Subaru Impreza WRC is seeded at number one for RB'06. Although this car is older than those coming from overseas, it certainly still has pace. In Rally Barbados last year, after missing a couple of stages on Saturday, the Impreza was fastest over Sunday's stages by more than 10 seconds.

But Bourne may need to look over his shoulder from early, with Jamaicans Gary Gregg and John Powell, plus Britain's Steve Perez breathing down his neck.

Powell, the 2003 Trinidad Champion and Gregg last year's Jamaican Champion finished second and third respectively in RB'05, Powell in his 1998 Toyota Corolla WRC and Gregg in a 2001-spec Ford Focus WRC, both cars formerly driven on World Championship events by Spain's Carlos Sainz.

Powell is now armed with a second-generation Corolla campaigned by former World Champion Didier Auriol, while Gregg has a new engine from Ford works team M Sport in his Focus.

But it is Englishman Steve Perez who links Rally Barbados most closely with the World Rally Championship - his car, originally built in 2004, was driven to victory in Corsica and Catalunya that year in the hands of Markko Martin, then upgraded to 2005 spec for last season, during which Roman Kresta and Henning Solberg each claimed a pair of top 10 finishes.

Rally Barbados (June 3/4) is the second of two International events in the sixth Barbados Rally Carnival.

Each day is a separate round of the Texaco BRC Rally Championship and the Virgin Atlantic BRC Driver's Championship.

The first event of the Barbados Rally Carnival's is the Red Bull International Rally Sprint at the Vaucluse Raceway in St Thomas on Saturday, May 27.
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Livng life one day at a time
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[Yeo]

It's going to be great!
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www.ttonline.org

[worksux101]

Any idea of the trini contention?
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Eating meh Zauce doubles...

[Red Dawg]

One of the final pieces of the jigsaw that is the sixth Barbados Rally Carnival fell into place yesterday (Wednesday, May 24), with the arrival at Grantley Adams International Airport of the most advanced and most successful World Rally Car ever to compete in the region, the ex-works Ford Focus WRC of Steve Perez.
The car was air-lifted in to Barbados in the same Virgin Atlantic 747-400 that carried the bulk of the European competitors, the first time in the history of Rally Carnival that air freight, rather than sea freight, has been used.
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Livng life one day at a time
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