Paul Bird was flying high yesterday.
Then suddenly, the popular British driver was grounded.
And now the sheriff is about to rule the rally town again.
The second day of the Sol Rally Barbados turned out to be the huge adrenalin rush expected by motoring fans, and today’s climax could be even more exciting.
Bird, last weekend’s winner of the King Of The Hill event, and an odds-on favourite to win the Caribbean’s most prestigious rally again this year, crashed out of the event spectacularly last night, leaving local favourite Roger “The Sheriff” Skeete in the lead at press time.
Bird had set the pace yesterday morning after dominating the second stage which started at Sailor Gully in St Peter, and he finished that section more than four minutes ahead of Skeete.
But the British driver was forced to call it quits after severely damaging the left front wheel of his Rubis/Cockspur-sponsored Ford Focus after running off course during stage 11 in the same area.
The curtain comes down on the rally with a power stage at Bushy Park this afternoon.
Skeete and his passenger partner Louis Venezia owe their good position to the crash by Bird and co-driver Aled Davies who at the time had a 25-second lead over Skeete and Venezia in their Subaru Impreza S12.
Bird and Davies had developed a stranglehold on the rally since the start at Bushy Park on Friday night, when they returned the fastest time in a special sprint, 1 minute 17.27 seconds ahead of Skeete and Venezia.
The two pairs were then locked in a ding dong battle all day yesterday, with the British combination holding the upper hand most of the way, picking good lines on all the stages before their spectacular crash.
There had also been a very competitive battle for third position by the pair of Rob Swann and Darren Garrod, who at the end of special stage nine, had a time of 27 minutes, 59 seconds, and had moved up to second after the crash.
Behind them in third at press time was the pair of John Powell and Hugh Hutchinson, and rounding out the top four was local boy Paul “The Surfer” Bourne and his Scottish co-driver Stuart Loudon, who is competing in Barbados for the first time.
When the action resumes at 9 this morning, the competitors will dispose of special stage No. 14, laid out from PadmoreVillage to Bushy Park, both in St Philip, a five-and-a-half kilometre stage, before heading to the iconic Kendal Stage, popularly known as the Duck Pond.
Twenty-one cars were forced out of the starter’s list due to mechanical problems of various kinds, and crashes.
Eighty-two cars had started the event.
