Martin Quirke and John Hurley Barbados-bound with 22-strong Tralee supporters club

Martin Quirke and John Hurley Barbados-bound with 22-strong Tralee supporters club

As BCIC Rally Barbados 2025 approaches, some overseas teams are making final preparations to combine their participation in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) premier event

First-time Irish visitors Martin Quirke and John Hurley are arriving with a group of 22 friends and family, as co-driver Hurley and wife Tracy are set to renew their wedding vows during their stay.
The couple were married on the beach at Bougainvillea Beach Resort in January 2008, just five days after he surprised her by proposing the night they arrived in the island.

Theatre lighting and projection designer Hurley explains: “There will be 18 adults and four kids travelling to Barbados: driver, navigator, service manager, four crew, wives, children and partners . . . and the grand kids.”

Hurley and tyre centre owner Quirke, will compete in SuperModified 1 in a Talbot Sunbeam powered by a 1.6-litre Toyota 16-valve engine. With a strong record of podium finishes, Quirke won his class in the West Coast Championship in 2003. Son Kenneth also claimed class wins in the Cork 20 International last year and the Rally of the Lakes in 2023 in the Sunbeam, backed by Kingdom Fast Fit, InFocus Lighting & Projection Design, Glenco Contracting, Quirke’s Garage, McKenna Motorsport, Griffin Crash Repair and Nexus Building & Civil Engineering.

BCIC RB25, the Caribbean’s biggest motor sport international, will run from Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1. The Auto & Rally Show, where every car entered is on display in an annual celebration of island rallying, and the final shakedown and seeding event, First Citizens King of the Hill, fill the previous weekend (May 24/25).
Rally Barbados 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; the previous Sunday’s King of the Hill ‘shakedown’, run under a similar arrangement, features four timed runs on a roughly four-kilometre stage, the results of which are used to seed the running order for the main event.

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