Rally

As entries for Sol Rally Barbados 2012 (June 9/10) closed this week, the final drivers from around the region who will be participating in the Caribbean’s biggest annual motor sport International have been confirmed. They are first-timer Stan Hartling, representing the Turks & Caicos Islands, and Trinidad’s Vishal Dhanraj, who returns for his fifth consecutive year.

As entries for Sol Rally Barbados 2012 (June 9/10) closed today (May 14), the last first-timers from Ireland were confirmed as Matt Shinnors and Catherine Levis.

Ireland’s Ronan Curley nearly missed Tuesday’s (May 8) trans-Atlantic Geest Line voyage from Portsmouth, as a last-minute gearbox problem threatened to ruin his plans to compete in Sol Rally Barbados 2012 (June 9/10) . . . and he has fellow-competitor Samuel Kelso and Ford Escort specialists Den Motorsport to thank that it didn’t.   Having followed the event in recent years, Curley and close friend Conor McMeel both decided to enter their Vauxhall-engined MkII Ford Escorts in the Caribbean’s biggest annual motor sport International.

Kenyans Rommy Bamrah and Harvey Jutley are shortly to make the 17,000-mile round trip from hometown Nairobi to Sol Rally Barbados 2012 (June 9/10) for their first-ever tarmac rally together, and the driver’s first event outside Kenya. They will miss two local events, but were not going to turn down the chance to replace Harvey’s UK-based brother Raj, whose work commitments mean he now can’t take up his entry.