Island motor sport celebrates record season
Motor sport in Barbados is in good health, and making a growing contribution to the island’s sports-tourism product. Last year, for the first time since the Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF) was established in 2000, more than 400 local competitors took part in BMF-sanctioned events, a total boosted to nearly 500 by a record number of overseas competitors, bringing with them worldwide publicity and valuable foreign exchange.
Affiliated to the FIA, which rules the sport worldwide, the BMF is the island’s governing body for motor sport; it also represents the interests of its six sporting member clubs in discussions with Government departments which facilitate the sport in the island, in particular the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.
Announcing the provisional calendar for 2012, which ratified the already-published dates for Sol RB12 and its associated events, BMF President Andrew Mallalieu noted: “Despite the prevailing financial climate, interest in motor sport from participants and spectators alike continues to rise. For the last two years, Barbados has hosted three International motor sport events, which not only help motor sport make an important contribution to the island’s economy, much of it in valuable foreign exchange, but are also the key to massively-increased worldwide television coverage.”
The BMF issued 415 competition licences, nearly three times the total issued in 2011 by Jamaica’s governing body, the Jamaica Millennium Motoring Club (JMMC), and more than twice the number issued by the BMF in 2006. The record total of 85 overseas competitors – the previous highest was 81 in 2007 – included 25 from the
wider Caribbean and 60 from 12 more countries as far afield as Australia and South Africa.
Sol Rally Barbados and Shell V-Power King of the Hill are organised by the Barbados Rally Club, which celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007; Sol RB12 is the 23rd running of the Club’s annual International All-Stage Rally and marks the fifth year of title sponsorship by the Sol Group, the Caribbean’s largest independent oil company.
