[1]Fan favourite Jonathan Still heads back to the stages!
British and European Rallycross Championship front-runner Andy Scott will join fellow Rx race-winner Kevin Procter on the entry list for Sol Rally Barbados 2017, as Procter makes his 12th appearance. Confirmation of the 2009 Fuchs Lubricants Rallycross Open Champion’s participation brings to a record eight the number of Scottish drivers travelling to compete in the Caribbean’s biggest annual motor sport International.
In the year that the Barbados Rally Club (BRC) marks its 60th Anniversary, the Club’s premier event will run from Friday to Sunday, June 2-4, with the all-new Simpson Motors Rally Show and Flow King of the Hill the previous weekend. Entries closed on April 27, with a total of 34 cars currently in transit from Europe and New Zealand scheduled to emerge from the Bridgetown Port in the coming days.
For his Caribbean debut, Scott will drive the Ford Escort MkI in which Paul Horton of the Turks & Caicos Islands has three times finished second in class, with a best overall result of 14th in 2014. Scott is sponsored by Motis and Rock Oil, and will have experienced local co-driver Rashid Phillips on the notes.
Scott told rallybarbados.net: “I’m very excited about returning to the driving seat to compete on Rally Barbados. It’s been on my bucket list for a few years, having listened to the stories from Kevin Procter. During a holiday in Barbados in February I got chatting to Mark Hamilton and decided that as I celebrated my 60th birthday this year, now was a good time to do it. Previously it’s clashed with a rallycross event, but as Albatec is not competing at Lydden this year, I thought it was an ideal opportunity to return to competition in a country I really like, and where I very much like the culture. I’ve done a couple of rallies before, but I’ll be relying heavily on my co-driver Rashid Phillips. He has a tough job ahead of him!
“The biggest challenge is likely to be getting to grips with rear-wheel drive (again). While I want to be competitive, this first time in the event is very much a learning exercise, a chance to have some fun, and to share it with some friends and family. My aim is to enjoy it, get to the finish and bring the car home in one piece.”
Scott has also twice been British Rallycross Vice-Champion, in 2011 and 2015, losing the second title in the final round, having run neck-and-neck with eventual Champion Julian Godfrey all season after winning the opening two rounds. His European Championship results include a podium in Holland, while he has also won the stand-alone Rallycross de Lohéac in France, the MSA British Rallycross Grand Prix and British Championship events at Croft and Knockhill. He is also Team Principal of Albatec Racing, based in Dumfries in Scotland; the only team to have successfully competed in British, French, European and World RX, former European RX Champion Tommy Rustad is the lead driver this season.
Fan favourite Jonathan Still heads back to the stages!
Four-time Rally Barbados class-winner Jonathan Still is returning to the event for the first time in eight years to campaign a newly-built Quality Tyre/Markham Construction BMW M3 with long-term friend and co-driver Heath Hazell, with whom he shared his earlier event and championship wins.
The year after his fourth consecutive SuperModified class win in Sol RB09, ‘Stillo’ retired from motor sport to concentrate his efforts elsewhere, but admits that he has increasingly felt like “a fish out of water”, despite driving Zero Car a couple of years back. Between 1999 and 2008, he had seven top 10 finishes – his best overall result was fifth in RB06 – initially in a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI, then a BMW M3. His last class win, in Sol RB09, also earned an entry in the event’s record books – winning SM11, he finished 12th overall, marking the only time the history of the Barbados Rally Club’s premier event that there has been no two-wheel-drive car in the top 10.
As he claimed year-end Class titles in the Barbados Rally Club Championship and Vaucluse Raceway Motorsport Club RallySprint Cup, his flamboyant driving style and open personality made ‘Stillo’ and the BMW firm crowd favourites, not only in Barbados, but also around the region, following his visits to Rally Jamaica. While his cars have gone on to further success, and many more titles, in the hands of Logan and Rhett Watson, Still’s name often comes up in those ‘who-do-you-miss-most?’ chats on social media.
And that is a key driver behind his return: “This is going to be a drive from the heart, this one is for the fans. No pressure, just pure BMW glory. I have built 90 per cent of this car with my own two hands, so it is special. I am so looking forward to being back. This one is for the love of the sport – I have entered Group B, as I don’t want to get in the way of the BMW guys chasing their class and championship points. Being reunited in a car with Heath will be special . . . the whole experience should be epic.”
Sol Rally Barbados (June 2-4, 2017) and Flow King of the Hill (May 28) are organised by the Barbados Rally Club, which celebrates its 60th Anniversary in 2017; Sol RB17 marks the 10th year of title sponsorship by the Sol Group, the Caribbean’s largest independent oil company, and the second by communications provider Flow.
