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Bird flies to Barbados podium on farewell |
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Monday, 02 June 2008 |
On his final event in a rally car, VK Vent Axia rally
driver Paul Bird bowed out in style with a superb runner up position on this
weekend's SOL Rally Barbados.
Driving the Subaru WRC, the
Penrith driver had enlisted his 2005 ANCRO Championship winning co-driver Ian
Windress for the two-day event and after a cautious start, the pair were soon
inside the top ten on the opening day, ending up third overall behind Kris Meeke
(Toyota WRC) and Gary Gregg (Ford Focus WRC), despite losing the spotlights on
the latter stages.
With typical style, Bird - who was keeping one eye on his World Superbike team's
exploits in the USA at the same time - continued his charge and after setting an
unprecedented fastest time on the Kendal South stage (SS15), he set about
reeling Ulsterman Meeke in.
Nearly a minute adrift at the final service,
Bird ended up less than thirty seconds behind the eventual winners after the
twenty-two stages around the Caribbean island and declared at the finish that
he'd thoroughly enjoyed himself:
"What a fantastic event and a great
result for us, I'm delighted to have finished second behind a world class driver
such as Kris Meeke but I'm even more thrilled that I beat my old mate Steve
Perez, especially seeing as though I used his old tyres! We got some serious air
over the jump on the Superspecial and I could hear the crowd cheering, it was
superb. The only downer is I forgot to take my phone out of my pocket when I
went swimming in the sea earlier in the week but despite that, the champagne
will taste even better tonight, seeing as though Steve is buying yet
again!"
2008 SOL Rally Barbados
- Results
1 K Meeke/P Nagle (Toyota Corolla WRC) -
0:57:02.56
2 P Bird/ I Windress (Subaru WRC) -
0:57:23.83
3 G Gregg/H Hutchinson (Ford Focus WRC) - 0:57:41.01
4
S Perez/H Davies (Ford Focus WRC) - 0:58:11.23
5 S Gill/M Cummins (Suzuki
Swift) - 0:58:38.43
6 T Manning/D Edwards (Mitsubishi Evo 8) -
0:58:49.17
7 R Hill/J Gittens (Toyota Celica) - 0:59:21.99
8 R Champion/C
Thorley (Mitsubishi Evo 8) 0:59:59.97
9 G Noel/K Yearwood (Mitsubishi Evo 9)
1:00:11.07
10 J Still/H Hazell (BMW) - 1:00:56.39
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