Sporting Days SOL RALLY BARBADOS
By Mark Wheeler
M
otor sport in Barbados is widely acknowledged, not just by insiders, as the most popular spectator sport in the island. Around 12,000 spectators annually pay to attend the Digicel Williams Seaboard Marine International Race Meet at Bushy Park, while more than twice that number – some estimates put it as high as 10 per cent of the population – turn out for the free show that is Sol Rally Barbados. Special stage rallying in Barbados is, err, different. More than 200 competitors from Europe and further afield have rallied in the island in recent years, none of whom have been quite prepared for the experience . . . not so much the driving, lots of them have been rather good at that bit, but everything else that surrounds the Caribbean’s biggest annual motor sport International. Sound-bites like “there’s nothing quite like it in the world”, “look at Scrutineering, it’s fantastic, just one big circus,” “I’ve been to World Championship rallies where there are less spectators”, are coined each year, as regular visitors – some have competed here more than 10 89