Living Barbados Magazine November 2014 Edition April 2014 edition | Page 26

gi ng
C h an
G e ar
AND
T H E H ISTO R Y
TURE
E X C IT IN G F U
ARK
OF BUSHY P

By Mark Wheeler

Photos by The Barbados Rally Club and Himal Reece

Circuit racing in the Caribbean began in 1956 on a disused USAF base at Atkinson Field (aka South Dakota) in
the former British Guiana, now Guyana. While it took Barbados more than 15 years to catch up back in the day
- Bushy Park did not open until Independence Day 1971 – the island is set to lead its regional neighbours into
a new era when the redeveloped facility is launched at Top Gear Festival Barbados.
The first circuit was a dirt track carved out by Ralph ‘Bizzy’ Williams in a former onion field next to his
home in the island’s south-eastern parish of St Philip, with fellow motor sport enthusiasts Heinz Meyer and
Pat Gonsalves riding shotgun on his Volkswagen-based racing special called ‘Foolishness’. Despite seeming
a haphazard way to ‘design’ a racetrack, it remained unchanged for 40-plus years, and now lives on in the
new layout.
Bushy Park’s journey from dirt track to world-class facility has been a chequered one, forced into closure
twice by worldwide economic downturns. It is testament to the determination and vision of those involved
that this new chapter is being written in equally difficult times, with the two-fold aim of finally building a

Escorted by Barbados Rally Club Chairman Trevor Gale, Prime Minister the Rt. Hon Errol Barrow chats with
drivers Willie Hassell, famous for racing with no shirt, and Joe Bradshaw.

24

LIVING BARBADOS APRIL - AUGUST 2014