The Barry Robinson Memorial Rally.
The Barry Robinson Memorial Rally has grown out of the demise of the Catlins Rally and is our Club's tribute to a New Zealand Champion Rally Driver who just happens to have been a valuable member and supporter of the Eastern Southland Car Club (OUR CLUB).
Other high profile competitors of his time were;
- Tony Teesdale
- Neil Allport
The Barry Robinson Memorial Rally is an annual one day event with 6 rally stages on gravel roads in the Wyndham area. For the next 3 years (2026, 2027 and 2028) the rally is to be extended to 7 stages and form Round 3 of the New Zealand Rally Championship.
BARRY ROBINSON
BARRY ROBINSON, who passed away in March 2022, was a South Island rally legend. He led the 1983 New Zealand Rally Championship into the final
round only to suffer an engine failure which cost him the title and left him the championship runner-up. He won the Otago Rally in
1981, 82, 83 and 91 and the Southland Rally in 1983 and 95. He also won a Canterbury Rally and was a fan favourite at the Ashley Forest Rallysprint
through his exploits in Vauxhall Chevette’s over the years. Locally he won the Wyndham Rally multiple times including a hat trick in 1988,
1989 and 1990 as well as the inaugural Catlins Coast Rally in 1991 with his daughter Anna alongside in the co-driver seat for that event.
He farmed in the Mokoreta area near Wyndham during the height of his rallying career.
Over the years, he drove several cars:
- a Vitesse,
- a Viva GT,
- a Chevette,
- a Nissan Pulsar
- and a special hillclimb version.
Barry competing in an early Ashley Forest event in his distinctive Chevette.
He once gave a drawn-out lesson on how to drive a rally car.
“The gear lever is the speed controller. To go faster you put it in a higher number, To go slower you use a lower number.
The right pedal is to be hard down at all times; right down! The only time to not have it right down is when the wheels are above your head.
The middle pedal – we’ll come back to that one.
The left pedal is for controlling the speed controller.”
That was Barry; a true character and a very talented driver.He spoke so slowly but drove so fast it was bewildering.
He didn’t crash often, the Chevette would let him down from time to time but it was normally mechanical, and in the Canterbury Rally one year he hit a bank.
“There goes another bloody mirror.” He had a box of mirrors and he used the whole lot.”
The old adage in motorsport is that if you look spectacular you are actually going slowly, but Barry was blindingly quick yet still looked spectacular.
He had an amazing, very deliberate way of communicating, If you were on the phone, you often wondered if you had been disconnected such was the length of a pause
– it was like an elephant pregnancy.
He spoke to everyone. He was well respected and well liked.