British crew Tom Preston and Carl Williamson, who won Group A and finished ninth overall in Sol Rally Barbados 2018, are the first confirmed entry for the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) new FIA R5 category as the cub prepares for this year’s 30th running of its premier event.
He will drive the Hippo Motor group Skoda Fabia R5 in which he lies seventh in the British Rally Championship after last Saturday’s opening round, the Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally in North Wales.
Preston has enjoyed an encouraging start to his 2019 season in the UK, where his regular co-driver is Andrew Roughead, another Barbados connection, having finished third in Rally Barbados 2017 and fourth last year with Kevin Procter.
Preston is upbeat about his first two outings this year in the Fabia, which continues to be run by Martin Wilkinson’s team at Carlisle-based CA1 Sport.
After last weekend’s Cambrian, which attracted a quality entry, Preston said: “I was fairly happy with our result, given the entry; we did our own notes, which is something I have only done a few times before, and the first pass was ‘interesting’. I think I must have taken some brave pills on the recce, as the corners were much tighter at speed, which then didn’t give me the confidence to attack them afterwards, but this improved on the second run,” he said.
Preston’s trip to Rally Barbados 2019 will be his third, having first competed in a Group N Subaru Impreza in 2003, the year that the event was renamed Rally Barbados.
Sol Rally Barbados 2019 will run from May 31 to June 2, with the Rally Show on the previous Saturday followed by Flow King Of The Hill at its new Stewarts Hill location on the Sunday. (PR)