Living Barbados Magazine November 2014 Edition April 2014 edition | Page 29

Wheel-to-wheel saloon car action 1974

permament home for island motor sport and providing
a massive boost for sports-tourism.
After the runaway success of its opening fixture, the track
was given the full Barber-Green asphalt treatment in time for the
Action ’72 Easter Motor Race Meeting. The crowd was huge
– period estimates suggest 20,000 – and Prime Minister Errol
Barrow arrived by helicopter, not so much a publicity stunt, more a
necessity, such was the weight of traffic.
Over the next three seasons, Bushy Park was a pioneer in
sports-tourism, as racers from Europe and North America flew
in once or twice a year to take on the cream of the Caribbean,
Barbados joined by Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and other
territories; drivers such as Gabriel Konig and Gordon Spice from
the UK developed life-time friendships, while visiting race cars
often failed to make the boat home, as locals snapped them up
to supplement the regional inventory.
With events for karts, circuit and dirt track motorcycles as well
as cars, each of the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) four race meets a
year attracted 70 or so entries. Race-winners included Williams and
team-mate Mike Atwell (twice the Formula Caribbean
Champion), Michael Gill, Doug Maloney, Andrew Phillips, Peter
Ullyett and Harry Watkins – most of those surnames are heard in
island motor sport circles to this day.
Just as the sport was really taking off came the first blip in
Bushy Park’s history - a casualty of the global oil crisis, it did not
reopen in 1976 and fell into disrepair. A decade later, plans were
drawn up for the redevelopment of the site as a combined facility

for two types of horsepower a 2.8-mile Grand Prix circuit enclosed within a horse racing
track up to 1.5 miles long, taking in a large tract of land to the
south. Despite guarded commitment from Formula 1 boss Bernie
Ecclestone and the enthusiasm of legendary racehorse trainer Bill
Marshall, however, the plan was abandoned, although the circuit
continued to be used for occasional speed events.
Under new management, but with the BRC still the organiser,
the track reopened on United Nations Day 1992. Minister of
Sport Hon Wes Hall arrived by helicopter, as Prime Minister Barrow
had 20 years earlier, while St Philip North MP, Hon Warwick
Franklyn, described the re-opening as “a further expression of the
sports-tourism fusion”... a phrase we hear often, two decades later!
With no more single-seater racing cars, local rally drivers like
Raymond and Sean Gill, Richard Roett and Roger Skeete came to
the fore in the saloon car classes, while familiar names from the
‘70s returned, including Michael Gill and Doug Maloney. Another
global recession was looming and there were few long-haul
visitors; there was significant regional interest, however,
Guyanese brothers Jad and Ray Rahaman, in particular, earning
an enthusiastic local following.
Above, from left: Mark Maloney, Bizzy Williams, FIA President Jean Todt,
St Philip North MP, Hon Michael Lashley, BMF President Andrew Mallalieu
at the ground breaking ceremony of Bushy Park Circuit, August 2012.

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