Stuart Maloney (right) meets Brands Hatch Winter Stages sponsor Mick Johnson, who will enter BCIC RB26Mick Johnson will drive this Ford Fiesta R5 in BCIC RB26
BCIC Rally Barbados 2024 winners Stuart Maloney and Kristian Yearwood finished an impressive second in Saturday’s (January 17) MGJ Engineering Brands Hatch Winter Stages (BHWS) in their first outing since retiring from BCIC RB25. Maloney’s brother Mark finished sixth and George Sherman ninth in a brilliant weekend for the visitors.
Before the action started in typically cold and damp January weather, Maloney shook hands with Mick Johnson to welcome him to the Rally Barbados family. Johnson, whose company has sponsored the UK event since 2013, will enter BCIC RB26 in his Ford Fiesta R5 with co-driver Peter Pears, bringing to 16 the entries confirmed in the FIA R5 class.
Since Paul Horton entered the BHWS in 2023, there has been a steady increase in Rally Barbados regulars heading north for some pre-season seat time. This was Stuart Maloney’s second visit, American Sherman’s third, but the first for Mark Maloney – these three all drove Skoda Fabia RS Rally2s – and Brian Gill, in a Fiesta Rally2.
Eager to soak up advice from Maloney about everything from road surfaces to weather, Johnson said: “Rally Barbados has been in my mind for years, my old mate Peter Rayner went many times and kept urging me to go. With more of your drivers coming over to do our event, it is time to return the favour . . . and we’re really looking forward to it.”
Early morning rain made the tarmac very slippery at the former home of the British GP, where action started at 9.00am with the first of eight roughly four-mile stages. There was lengthy stoppage after around 25 cars in SS1 to clear a Fiesta R5 from the Paddock Hill Bend gravel trap, where it had struck a Ford Escort already beached.
Stuart Maloney was sixth after SS1, slowed a little by another competitor – splits and merges allowing more than one lap of each stage mean ‘traffic’ can be an issue – while his brother Mark was 11th after a cautious start, with Sherman 12th and Gill 30th following a slight brush with the scenery.
As conditions improved, Maloney kept up the pace, in the top four times all day, with a switch to slick tyres after lunch helping him on to the podium by SS6; he inherited second place from Richard Weatherley and Shaun Layland, who retired on the final stage with an under-bonnet fire in their Citroen C3 Rally2.
Co-driven by island regular Steve McNulty, who sat with Stuart to finish sixth last year, Mark Maloney grew steadily faster as the day wore on, with seven top 10 stage times on his way sixth place. As the top three finishers collect only overall trophies, he won the award for third in Class 1.
Hoping to improve on last year’s 10th place, Sherman was 11th at lunch, but suffering with some downshift issues; despite some disappointing times on the day’s final two stages, he and co-driver Neil Colman held on to finish ninth. Gill and Jordan Joines had a second mishap on SS2, then missed two stages, but rejoined after the lunch break.
Only 56 of 74 starters finished the fourth round of the UK’s Protyre Circuit Rally Championship (CRC), which was won by last year’s winners and two-time CRC Champions Michael Igoe and Will Atkins (Citroen C3 Rally 2).
BCIC Rally Barbados (May 29-31, 2026) is a tarmac rally with around 20 special stages run on the island’s intricate network of public roads, under road closure orders granted by the Ministry of Transport, Works & Water Resources; King of the Hill (May 24), run under a similar arrangement, features four timed runs on a roughly four-kilometre stage, with the results used to seed the running order for the main event.