Barker
Land Rover Racing
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You'd be hard pressed to find two more friendly and enthusiastic
individuals than Dad Cliff and son Sean Barker. Lively banter about all
things Landy related is what you will hear in the Barker Performance
workshop on the East Rand. Diffs, chassis, engines and various other
Defender parts fill the workshop where even on a Saturday morning you
find them at work.
At a glance you would not say that
Cliff
races a Defender 110 at speeds of up to 200km/h over terrain that you and
I would normally be in 2nd or third for. But true it is, and he has been
at it for a few years now. For the pure love of it they endure the
hardships of preparation and maintenance of a racing vehicle in pursuit of the finish line.
Privately financed and run, their BMW powered Defender 110 is a
formidable force on the MSA off road car racing circuit. With a
championship title under the belt and numerous victories they continue
to modify and improve the Defender 110 racer. Mechanic Pierre
prepares the vehicle and is in charge of maintaining it during the race
events. Cliff is very hands on and is always looking for and thinking of
new things to squeeze out more performance of the suspension, drive
train
and engine of the vehicle. He has overcome the production weaknesses of
the vehicle in terms of racing, and now concentrates on the high
performance issues.
 It is this first hand knowledge of
pushing a Land Rover beyond its limits that has allowed the Barkers to
develop some serious performance accessories for Land Rovers. Both Cliff
and Sean drive Land Rovers as their daily vehicles. Sean has a ruggedly
kitted out Defender 130 Tdi, which is a test vehicle for many of the
accessories that they have developed. Sean's 130 still carried a battle
scare of a side swiped 130 load bed, evidence of a near miss on a narrow
African highway on his most recent expedition. Cliff travels in more
comfort with the Defender CSW 110 Tdi, and is a regular visitor to the
more remote areas of our continent.
Their accessories range comprises built
for purpose and to last bullbars, fender plates, diff protectors,
steering protectors, suspension upgrades and a variety of engine
modifications. They have also done a lot of work on fixing broken game
viewing Defenders and making significant improvements to design and
longevity of these game viewers.
Bowler Racing
Land Rover Defender |
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Land Rover Racing
Gearbox
failure at Barberspan 500
 The yellow Defender failed to
reach the finish line after the gearbox failed, putting an
end to their challenge.
Another mishap occurred while
they were lying in 3rd place, with not many tracks to show
the way. Cliff says, "Doing 160km down the side of
the fence we missed the turn-off (a cut gate in the fence),
and followed the turn in the road. We couldn't stop in time
and ended up sliding into the fence"
They were doing fine while
the going was good though. But the Nissan driven by Hannes
Grobler ... was
faster on the straights which made it difficult to keep up.
Right now the Land Rover is
completely stripped down and getting some serious
modifications which have been comming for a while now. The
new shocks have arrived, the gearbox is getting a make over,
and they are looking to get another 15% more power out of
the BMW engine.
Barker wins in Lichtenburg
 The privately entered ‘Barker Performance Products’ Land Rover
of Cliff Barker and Malcolm Joubert took the overall Production Category
and class win in the opening round of the Off-Road Championship in
Lichtenburg at the weekend, completing the course in a time of 5h39,30s"We
lost our brakes in the beginning due
to barbed wire pulling off the rear brake pipes, later on we lost drive
on our front wheels, but never the less we pushed hard until the end to
finish a great first.” said Cliff Barker.
They ran out worthy
class T winners of the Lichtenburg 400 in their BMW
M3-engined Barker Performance Products Land Rover. In
the process they beat the highly rated works entries from
Mitsubishi (former Special Vehicle champion Buks Carolin and
Hennie ter Steege in an ex-Dakar Pajero), Nissan (former
champions Hannes Grobler and Richard Leeke and multiple
touring car champion Giniel de Villiers and Francois Jordaan
in V6 Hardbody Double Cabs) and Toyota (former champions
Apie Reyneke and Robin Houghton in their Castrol Land
Cruiser).
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Toyota Desert 1000 race, June 2000 Botswana
The Land Rover 110
below, number E4
is a Std Defender TdI with roll cage, cut out switch, two racing seats, a couple
of extra shocks, a nav computer and a COMS system, its probably one of
the most standard vehicles in the race. Note it also runs on general SAG
radials.
Pics by Alex Colquhoun |
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