Motorsports officials still waiting word on when they can restart

The Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF) is awaiting the green light from the government after sending a proposal three weeks ago to the Attorney General’s office indicating measures they intend to put in place once permission is granted for the sport to recommence. Andrew Mallalieu, president of the BMF, revealed that they wrote a comprehensive document on how they would proceed during phase one of the proposal sent to the Attorney General’s office.

During a telephone interview with Barbados TODAY, Mallalieu explained that motorsports compared to other sports was a lot easier to practise social distancing.

The BMF boss indicated they continued to wait patiently because they didn’t want to ‘step on the toes’ of the Minister of Health, the Attorney General or the Minister of Sports. Therefore, Mallalieu is hoping that by Sunday, June 14, the Attorney General or Prime Minister would grant permission for the BMF to implement the plan.

In fact, the BMF which has the largest spectatorship on the island is prepared not to involve enthusiast fans and just live stream its events once permission is granted soon by the government.

“Obviously motorsports is most often practised by one person in a car, that is easy, there is no problem with that. If you think of cycling on the road with three, four people together or road tennis somebody is holding the ball, the next person is holding the ball, they are close together. Motorsport is a lot easier to practise social distancing because you have one person close to a car and they are not close to anybody else.

“The problem with motorsport is that a lot of people like to watch it. So we may have to run motorsport without the spectators and the only way to do that in the first instance is at Vaucluse or Bushy Park, where you can run the sport and broadcast it live on social media but don’t allow spectators in.

“I don’t know what the Caribbean Premier League is doing for their cricket. Will they play cricket without spectators and just have it broadcast? We can do that. We can run motorsport up Bushy Park and just have it broadcast. But if they allow 500 people into Kensington Oval, would they allow 500 people into Bushy Park? We just don’t know,” Mallalieu said.

He added: “If you think about it if you put it (motorsport) into a facility like Bushy Park or Vaucluse you could enforce social distancing. You have 30 acres of land that people could spread out in the same way they spread out at the beach. Whereas if you put them at Kensington Oval in the seats, you could do a similar thing there. But if you go and run an event on the road and people are standing together (motorsport) that is nearly impossible for us to enforce it (social distancing).”

The BMF’s executive body remains hopeful that Rally Barbados which is normally planned for May would take place later this year in October. That, however, is subject to the sponsors, the clubs and several other factors that must be taken into consideration.

Providing the government gives the all clear for motoring to start, testing of BFM will begin this month. Karting and speed events would start in July, racing would start in August and rallying would begin September.

“Obviously, the biggest one (factor) being at this point is what is the government’s restriction? Because Rally Barbados attracts a lot of people and it runs on public roads. Whereas we can control people in enclosed facilities, we can’t control them in the open public road.

“So we are in the hands of COVID still in trying to plan but we are planning. From August onwards our planning is to have competitive events on the road running. But we are completely in the hands of the government and government is in the hands of the health people to say when that would be allowed,” Mallalieu said.

The BMF might not take a similar approach to Australia where drivers are on their own instead of having a co-driver or navigator.

“In Australia, they intend to run rallies without a co-driver. I don’t think that is necessary when you consider that in rallying, even before most people were wearing masks they were wearing Balaclavas in the car together. And they were already wearing gloves, so I don’t think it would be a problem to have two people in a car. Especially when we are talking about August, September, October. If we still can’t get two people by then, we get all kinds of other problems.

“If you think of how many people are travelling on the minibuses today who are strangers, having two people in a car to run Rally Barbados or to run any rally I don’t think is going to be an issue frankly. But we do have a plan that runs speed events, racing and karting, the autocross, before we run rallying. So rallying would not start back before September in our plans,” Mallalieu explained.

He also assured that the marshals would be in good hands. “If you think about it, construction workers have been back to work now for six to eight weeks and the idea there was if you are working in the open and you are following good protocols and wearing your mask then there is a very low risk of transmission.

“Our marshals are in a very similar situation, they do not have to stand right next to each other, they are out in the open, they can wear a mask. So they can stay in a safe environment, so we have a very good plan for that as well. The FIA (International Automobile Federation) has also helped us by supplying PPE (personal protective equipment) for all of our people. So, we will have the right PPE for all the marshals and all the ambulance workers.”

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb