[1]Record R5 class for Rally Club season-opener
Jamaica’s Jeff Panton is the number one seed for tomorrow’s (Saturday) Barbados Rally Club (BRC) Double-Header Sprint at Bushy Park, St Philip, which will run behind closed doors, in line with current Covid-19 directives. Driving the Ford Fiesta WRC in which he finished third in Sol Rally Barbados 2020, he heads the 30-strong running order, with a record-breaking entry of nine in the FIA R5 class including Zane Maloney, on a break from his Formula Regional campaign in Europe.
Sol Rally Barbados 2019 winner Dane Skeete starts at 2 in his Subaru Impreza WRC S12, ahead of multiple circuit racing Champion Mark Maloney in a Skoda Fabia R5, sharing with nephew Zane, who will start further down the order. Andrew Mallalieu is seeded at 4, sharing his Ford Fiesta R5 with son Adam, while Roger Hill (Fabia R5) starts at 5, ahead of Stuart Maloney, who will debut his new Fabia Rally2 Evo.
The Turks & Caicos Rally Team will be represented by Paul Horton (Fiesta R5) and Stan Hartling, who will finally get chance to compete in his Fiesta R5, which arrived in the island last year but sat unused as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. Ahmed Esuf will complete the R5 class, driving brother Suleman’s Fiesta in competition for the first time.
Sandwiched between Horton and Hartling are the top three 2wd seeds, set to rekindle the battle for SuperModified 2 honours, led by Barry Mayers (Ford Fiesta) and Josh Read (Toyota Starlet) – no strangers to Bushy Park – with reigning 2wd and SM2 Champion Andrew Jones (Ford Escort MkII) keen to start his title defence.
Other news of note includes the debut of the BMW 1M recently added to the Esuf family stable, with Sol driving, and newly-confirmed Rally Club Chairman and former Champion Driver Geoff Noel returning to BRC action with a Toyota Corolla. Other circuit racers familiar with Bushy Park include former BPMSI Class Champions Ross Callender and Tremaine Forde-Catwell, each driving a Daihatsu Charmant, while all-rounder Derek Edwards, who won BPMSI Group 1/Class 2 in 2017 and then the Caribbean BimmaCup the following year, heads no fewer than six of the BMW hatchbacks in Clubman 2, including last year’s class Champion Jason Downey.
With strict Covid-19 protocols in place and only essential personnel permitted entry, scrutineering is scheduled for this evening (Friday) in the Pits at Bushy Park, with a two-hour test session starting at 8.00am tomorrow on the International Circuit, after which an hour has been set aside for the organisers to set up the stage. Event One is slated for an 11.30am sharp from the north-west corner of the facility, close to the start pad used by the Barbados Association of Dragsters & Drifters (BADD), and covering around three kilometres, using sections of the International Circuit, the kart links and the Rallycross Bridge, then finishing in the pit lane. Event Two is scheduled to start at 3.00pm, with the course reversed, but a few hundred metres shorter. There will be four runs in each direction, with BRC Championship points awarded separately for each.
BRC Double-Header - Saturday, June 5
Final running order at June 4:
1 Jeffrey Panton – JAM (WRC Sandals Resorts/Rubis/Bushy Park Barbados KIG Ford Fiesta WRC)
2 Dane Skeete (WRC Sol/CO Williams Sand & Lime/Automotive Art Subaru Impreza WRC S12)
3 Mark Maloney (FIA R5 Rock Hard Cement/Bushy Park Barbados/VP Fuels/Chevron/Maloney Racing Skoda Fabia R5)
4 Andrew Mallalieu (FIA R5 Terra Caribbean Ford Fiesta R5)
5 Roger Hill (FIA R5 Esso/MaxMeyer Paints/MotorMac Skoda Fabia R5)
6 Stuart Maloney (FIA R5 Rock Hard Cement/Bushy Park Barbados/VP Fuels/Chevron/Maloney Racing Skoda Fabia R5)
7 Paul Horton - TCI (FIA R5 Java Island/HO2 Construction/Sky Motorsport Ford Fiesta R5)
8 Barry Mayers (SM2 Chefette/Rubis/Quality Tyre/Sign Depot Ford Fiesta)
9 Josh Read (SM2 Weetabix Toyota Starlet)
10 Andrew Jones (SM2 Gale’s Agro/A P Jones Pharmacy/Southern Surf Beach Apartments Ford Escort MkII)
11 Stan Hartling - TCI (FIA R5 Bambarra Rum Ford Fiesta R5)
12 Ahmed Esuf (FIA R5 Express Imports/SY Adams & Son/Prosales/Seema’s Grill Ford Fiesta R5)
14 Suleman Esuf (SM2 BMW 1M)
15 Adrian Linton (SM2 Ravensden/JAD Performance/Helping Hands Foundation Vauxhall Astra VXR)
16 Jamal Brathwaite (M2 Consumers Guarantee Insurance/Stylez Auto Spa/TEC Barbados/Caribbean Auto Glass Honda Civic Type-R)
17 Neil Corbin (SM1 Nassco/Jason Jones/Auto Solutions/Emtage Electric/Pressout Performance Toyota Starlet)
18 Tremaine Forde-Catwell (SM1 Cheese Autoglass/MIPA Autocolor Daihatsu Charmant)
19 Ross Callender (M1 Crane & Equipment/Indulge with Anna/Empire Building & Construction/Percy King Auto/Cheese Auto Glass Daihatsu Charmant)
20 Stuart Garcia (C3 Guava Tech/Smith’s Engineering Works/Kirba Inc BimmaCup Too)
21 Zane Maloney (FIA R5 Rock Hard Cement/Bushy Park Barbados/VP Fuels/Chevron/Maloney Racing Skoda Fabia R5)
22 Adam Mallalieu (FIA R5 Terra Caribbean Ford Fiesta R5)
23 Geoffrey Noel (M1 Toyota Corolla)
24 Derek Edwards (C2 BimmaCup)
25 Chris Hoad (C2 Subway/Dasani Water/Guava Tech BimmaCup)
26 Jason Downey (C2 BimmaCup)
27 Wayne Archer (C2 BimmaCup)
28 Natya Soodeen (C2 BimmaCup)
29 Harold Morley - ENG (C2 Spectrum Antimicrobials BimmaCup)
30 Jason Tull (C1 Jay-T’s Auto Services/SRG Engineering/SP Imports/Redline Performance Imports/BG Prod/CA Autobody Repairs Peugeot 106 Rallye S2)
31 Neil Barnard (C1 Suzuki Swift Sport)
For media information only. No regulatory value.
For further media information, robin@bradfax.com [2]
Web site: www.barbadosrallyclub.com [3]
