HE has done it again, after a gruelling two days of the Sol Rally Barbados 2009, Northern Ireland’s Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle have defended their title successfully.
At the helm of the S9 Subaru Impreza WRC, Meeke fought hard in the initial stages of the first day and then was able to maintain his lead as he finished with a provisional time of 55 minutes 11.84 seconds.
With the hard part over, he gave a the crowd a taste of the much loved ‘donut’ at the Super Special Stage held at the Bushy Park Racing Circuit in St. Philip.
As he whipped the S9 around at different section of the track the crowd gave a resounding sound of approval for what has been an excellent display of driving talent over the weekend.
First his battle with Roger Skeete which Meeke said that he has never had to push so hard consistently for such a long period of time in a rally to keep up.
Though he was here to have fun and enjoy himself, the competitive edge of Meeke comes out as soon as he puts on the helmet and all the fun and games disappears until he crosses the finish line.
Speaking after the provisional results were published later in the evening on Sunday, Meeke said he was very happy to win.
“It is an incredible rally and the enthusiasm is spectacular”.
One thing he said he has noticed from last year was that there was even more spectators out there than last year and it is an incredible atmosphere.
After a clutch problem the weekend before the rally, Meeke said that the car worked fantastic during the Rally, “Maybe it is not as fast in a straight line but we tried to keep the throttle down around the corners and that may have been the difference”.
He now flies off for the next round of the IRC championships in Belgium which he currently leads.
Though he did not know if he was going to do this year’s rally until two weeks before, Meeke said he loves this place (Barbados) and loves coming back so he has not ruled out coming back next year.
Second place went to Paul Bird and Ian Windress in the Ford Focus WRC07. This pair was just over 16 second off the winners.
Paul Bourne and Stuart Maloney overcame suspension problems on the first day to finish third but were about one minute and 13 seconds off the pace set by Meeke.
Kevin Procter and Dave Bellerby were fourth in the S7 Subaru Impreza WRC, while Roger Hill and Graham Manning rounded off the top five finishers in the gruelling rally which claimed about 20 crews.
Neil Armstrong and Barry Ward won Modified 8A in the Mitsubishi Evolution 6.
The highest place two wheel drive crew was Jonathan Still and Heath Hazel in the BMW M3, while 10th place finishers Geoffrey Noel and Kreigg Yearwood won Production 4.
Ian Warren and Robert Warren in the Suzuki Swift finished just behind Still after a mishap cost them a top 10 finish. However, Warren still carried of Super Modified 10 group honours.
An intense battle for Super Modified 9, between Josh Read and Mark Jordan and James Betts and Josh Delmas ended with only four second separating the two.
It was Read in the Toyota Starlet that won the group.
