Thursday, March 28, 2024

Bird back for Sol Rally ’18

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It’s official. Two-time winner of the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Sol Rally Barbados Paul Bird will contest this year’s event slated for June 1 to 3, with The Rally Show and Flow King Of The Hill on May 26 and 27 in the Dom Buckley Motorsport/IRS-prepared Frank Bird Poultry/Be Wiser Insurance/Hager/Fuchs Titan Race/Loco Energy Drink Ford Focus WRC08.

Bird won the prestigious event in 2012 and 2013, and the former UK National Rally champion confirmed on Friday that he will enter Rally Barbados 2018, after scoring maximum points in last Saturday’s Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally in the forests of North Wales to take an early lead in the British Trials and Rally Drivers Association (BTRDA) Rally Championship, with new co-driver Jack Morton. It is the first big result for Bird and Morton and bodes well for the new season.

The first previous winner to enter online, Bird will campaign the familiar Dom Buckley Motorsport/IRS-prepared Frank Bird Poultry/Be Wiser Insurance/Hager/Fuchs Titan Race/Loco Energy Drink Ford Focus WRC08.

With five more podium finishes to his credit, Bird has the best record of any of the regular international visitors to the event. His record is eclipsed only by regional ace Jeff Panton of Jamaica, who is a four-time winner.

And he is eager to add to that record, after a disappointing trip across the Atlantic last November, when victory in the first weekend’s RallySprint was followed by retirement from the BRC’s Winter Rally.

“There’s nothing like Rally Barbados anywhere else. I like the camaraderie and the fans are just amazing. Birdman is back! And I’m not coming to finish second,” he added.

But before he and Morton come to Barbados they will have to settle three more rounds of the Jordan Road Surfacing BTRDA Rally Series, the first on March 3; the Cockermouth-based Malcolm Wilson Stages, Bird’s local event, which he has won a record-equalling four times since 2004, and in which he is hoping to move one clear of fellow-Cumbrian Bill Dobie.

The pair are also entered for the April 22 ground-breaking Corbeau Seats Rally Tendring & Clacton where they will be part of a capacity field of 120 starters making rallying history by contesting the first closed-road rally in mainland Britain to be run under new legislation, passed last year. (TT)

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