QUALITY ENTRY FOR BRC TARMAC STAGE RALLY

The largest four-wheel-drive contingent of the season so far is preparing to contest the second round of the new-for-2005 Texaco Barbados Rally Club (BRC) Rally Championship; the BRC Tarmac Stage Rally is slated for this Sunday (April 17), starting from the premises of McEnearney Quality in Wildey at 9.00am.
Entries will close on Wednesday night (April 13) at the briefing meeting, being held at Kendal Sporting at 7.30pm. Among others, the event is expected to include the return of Roger Skeete, who will debut his new Ford Focus.
BRC competition secretary Barry Gale said: "We are expecting a high-quality entry, as drivers look ahead to Rally Barbados 2005 at the end of May. We're hoping for up to 10 cars in the four-wheel-drive categories, while more and more drivers are taking an interest in the trophy for the highest-placed two-wheel-drive car."
Twelve stages are planned for the BRC Tarmac Stage Rally, which will use three venues in the south-east of the island: the first stage (Three Houses) is scheduled for 9.30am and runs to Stewarts Hill; the second stage (Cliff) runs to Woodland, the third (Redland) runs from Andrews Factory to Claybury. These stages will be repeated, bringing the total to six before the lunch break, scheduled for around noon at Colleton Plantation.
In the afternoon, Redland will be run twice again - in the same direction - while the other stages will run twice each in the opposite direction, titled Woodland and Stewarts Hill respectively. The afternoon session is scheduled to start at around 12.50pm, with the first car expected at the finish at Kendall Sporting a little after 3.30pm.
As last year, the BRC's April event is being used as a shakedown for some of the systems that will be adopted in Rally Barbados, which forms rounds three and four of the Texaco BRC Rally Championship; most of the senior officials on this weekend's event will be officiating next month - Rally Barbados 2005 will run on May 28/29 - and the Club is using Sunday's event to check that all systems are 'go' for May.
Leader of the Texaco Championship after the opening round in March is Trevor Manning, who drove the Shell/Courts/Automotive Art/Garbage Master Simpson Motors Rally Team Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII to a dominant victory. Co-driven by Ryan Rodriguez, 'Micey' won by a margin of just under 25 seconds, but he can expect to be under greater pressure this weekend.
Second last month were Roger Hill and Graham Gittens, who were enduring some problems with the anti-lag on the Mobil 1/Nassco/Michelin/Motormac Toyota Celica GT4. Third, in his first appearance of the season, was Geoffrey Noel, co-driven on this occasion by Kreigg Yearwood in the Canada House/Mix 96.9/Automotive Art/ESSCO Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI.
In addition to rewarding drivers for top 10 finishes, the Texaco series includes a trophy for the highest-placed two-wheel-drive car, which went the way of Manning's team-mate Sean Gill, co-driven in the remarkable Suzuki Ignis JWRC of by Michael Cummins.
A full entry list for Sunday's BRC Tarmac Stage Rally will be published after Wednesday's briefing meeting.

For further information, robin@bradfax.com