Celebration time for overseas crews at BCIC RB25

As BCIC Rally Barbados 2025 approaches, some overseas teams are making final preparations to combine their participation in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) premier event with the celebration of personal milestones, such as landmark birthdays. This tradition has already seen marriage proposals, weddings and honeymoons timed to coincide with the serious business of rallying in the Caribbean.
  BCIC RB25, the Caribbean’s biggest motor sport international, will run from Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1. The Auto & Rally Show, where every car entered is on display in an annual celebration of island rallying, and the final shakedown and seeding event, First Citizens King of the Hill, fill the previous weekend (May 24/25).
  First-time Irish visitors Martin Quirke and John Hurley are arriving with a group of 22 friends and family, as co-driver Hurley and wife Tracy are set to renew their wedding vows during their stay. The couple were married on the beach at Bougainvillea Beach Resort in January 2008, just five days after he surprised her by proposing the night they arrived in the island.
  Theatre lighting and projection designer Hurley explains: “There will be 18 adults and four kids travelling to Barbados: driver, navigator, service manager, four crew, wives, children and partners . . . and the grand kids.”
  Hurley and tyre centre owner Quirke, both from Tralee in County Kerry, will compete in SuperModified 1 in a Talbot Sunbeam powered by a 1.6-litre Toyota 16-valve engine. With a strong record of podium finishes, Quirke won his class in the West Coast Championship in 2003. Son Kenneth also claimed class wins in the Cork 20 International last year and the Rally of the Lakes in 2023 in the Sunbeam, backed by Kingdom Fast Fit, InFocus Lighting & Projection Design, Glenco Contracting, Quirke’s Garage, McKenna Motorsport, Griffin Crash Repair and Nexus Building & Civil Engineering.
  Celebrating his 50th birthday, Welsh co-driver Steve Herbert travels to the island for the first time with Brandon Smith, who competed in 2017 and ‘18, finishing Rally Barbados both times with co-driver Dylan Thomas, first in a Volkswagen Polo, then in a Darrian T90. They will compete in a Modified 4 BCS Autos Subaru Impreza bought by Smith from fellow-returnee Rupert Lomax specifically to contest BCIC RB25.
  Herbert, who started rallying in the 1990s co-driving a Subaru estate car with Smith, says: “Being in the Impreza, we have come full circle. I'm 50 this year, which is why I am coming.” An active member of Welsh Border Car Club, Herbert is busy as Course Car, Clerk of the Course or Chief Marshal but has not competed regularly since 2016.
  Scottish wind turbine technician Euan Mackay finished 49th overall and seventh in SM10 in his Ford Anglia back in 2013, competing alongside the Anglia ‘WRC’ (Well-Run Car) of his father Allan on the fourth of his eight visits. "I always wanted to come back, and I was 40 last year so thought I'm definitely going", says Mackay Junior.
  Since he started in 2002, the bulk of Mackay’s rallying has been in Peugeots, this 106 Rallye being a Peugeot Sport Cup car bought from Ireland, which will run in Modified 1, backed by Macbeth Joinery, Viking Offshore, Gunn Mechanical Services, TG Motorphoto, Highland Environmental Solutions and EAL Electrical. With major upgrades from its original spec, he won his class in the Kinloss Stages in 2022 and '23, finishing 13th and 19th overall. In his previous car, he was a regular finisher in the Tour of Mull.
  Co-driver Stuart McLaren grew up in Lanark, hometown of the McRae rallying dynasty and learned the art of gravel rallying in his early 20s from five-time British Champion Jimmy McRae. After taking a break from the sport, he was the Scottish Rally Championship Newcomer of the Year in 1997, a trophy previously won by Jimmy, Colin and Alister McRae, but a big accident the following year resulted in a further hiatus.
  Now a military flying instructor and the Royal Air Force’s oldest triathlete, he returned to historic rallying in 2021 with an Opel Kadett and has finished the challenging Roger Albert Clark Rally twice. He also finished BCIC RB24 co-driving for Harold Morley.
  Also from Scotland, Robin and Vanessa Hamilton return with the Ford Escort MkI they debuted last year, winning Historic 1 and keeping their 100 per cent finishing record intact. It was the fourth different car they have shipped since 2017, following a Talbot Sunbeam, MG Metro 6R4 and Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, and is arguably the fifth this year, as Hamilton has sourced a new Sherwood 2-litre engine, moving it into H2.

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, 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.

For media information only. No regulatory value.

For further media information: e-mail - robin@bradfax.com
www.rallybarbados.net; www.barbadosrallyclub.com
Facebook/BarbadosRallyClub; instagram/@barbadosrallyclub