[1]Class action on the cards for British Clubmen
The Barbados Rally Club confirmed today (Friday) that King of the Hill, the sprint event used since 2008 to seed the running order for Sol Rally Barbados, will be staged at a new location and with a new title sponsor. First Citizens King of the Hill on Sunday, May 29, will run on a 4.5-kilometre course from Content via Fortress Hill and Dukes to finish at the Vaucluse Raceway in St Thomas.
The First Citizens Group, which has a wide footprint across the Eastern Caribbean in Barbados, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Costa Rica and its flagship location, Trinidad and Tobago, is already title sponsor of the Barbados Motoring Federations’s (BMF) R5 Rally Championship, of which KotH will be the sixth round.
The CEO of First Citizens, Cheryl-Ann La Roche said: “As the title sponsor of King of the Hill, we at First Citizens look forward to the passion, thrills and the engagement of competitors and fans at one of the premier events on the local rally calendar. This is our second partnership in motor sports, the first being our title sponsorship of this year’s R5 Rally Championship. As the excitement mounts, we look forward to a successful rallying series and we are confident that this partnership with the Rally Club will serve to benefit all stakeholders, through a sense of camaraderie, family and community.”
Rally Club PRO Neil Barnard welcomed the bank’s decision to expand its involvement: “King of The Hill is the event that turns the ‘rally hype’ volume up to full and the Barbados Rally Club are thrilled that First Citizens will be sponsoring the 2022 edition.”
After the inaugural event in 2008 at Turners Hall in St Andrew, KotH moved venues, first to Stewarts Hill in St Philip, then Sailor Gully in St Peter, before finding a more permanent home on Hangmans Hill in St Thomas, where it ran from 2011 to 2018, apart from 2013, when it moved to Luke Hill in St Lucy. For the past two years, the event returned to the south-east corner of the island and Stewarts Hill, where Dane Skeete was the most recent winner in 2020.
Jamaica's Jeff Panton has won a record four times, back-to-back between 2016, when he tied with Simon Jean-Joseph after a rain-affected final run, and 2019, with Roger Skeete a three-time winner (2009, '11 & '15). Paul Bourne (2008 & '10) and England's Paul Bird (2012 & '14) have each won twice, while Neil Armstrong has the distinction of being the only driver to have won overall (2013) and been Top 2wd (2011). Roger Mayers has won 2wd four times, his brother Barry, Neil Armstrong, Josh Read and Ian Warren twice each, with single victories claimed by Sean Gill and Rhett Watson.
Class action on the cards for British Clubmen
Four clubman crews from the UK will complete the line-up in SuperModified 1 and Modified 2 for Sol RB22. Although this will be his first Sol Rally Barbados, Ian ‘Pip’ Coulson and his Talbot Sunbeam have won their class in the Barbados Historic Rally which he has contested four times. The three-time Northern Historic Championship class-winner said: “After coming out to watch Sol RB19, I just knew I had to enter!” His 2002 Ford Focus, one of nine built to this spec by M-Sport, will run in M2, sponsored by JD Haynes Car Sales, co-driver Jonathan’s business.
Both driver and co-driver have been regular visitors, Haynes since the early 2000s. Having been 20 times on holiday, he started spectating at Sol RB, then helping Graham Haigh, who lives nearby in Yorkshire, on the event. Haynes got engaged to wife Joanne in the island, while Coulson and Pauline were married there.
Haigh first entered his Haigh & Sons/Tanfield Engineering Service Ford Escort MkII in RB18, returning the following year. With long-standing co-driver Kari Bates and the car in striking British Airways livery, they finished the event on both occasions. They contested the inaugural East Riding Stages closed-road rally in Yorkshire in February, Bates remarking that one of the stages reminded her of Padmore Village in St Philip!
For North Lincolnshire couple Marcel Freling and Karen Robinson, Sol RB22 will be only their second rally in the Honda VTec-powered MG ZR in which they finished third in SuperModified 1 in RB18 and only their third event since RB16, the first trip they made to compete in the island. Freling’s competition history dates back to 1992, initially in a Suzuki Swift Gti, before taking a break and returning in 2002 in the BTRDA 1400 Championship with a Nissan Micra. Over the next six years, with Robinson as co-driver, the couple won Class A5 three times and finished second twice, with Robinson the Overall Lady Co-driver Champion four times.
Conversely, Liverpool Civil Engineering Consultant John Carroll has been very active in the Honda Civic Type-R in which he has finished third and fourth in Modified 2 on his previous two visits in 2018 & '19. Having first rallied an Opel Manta in the 1980s, he returned after a long lay-off concentrating in 2016 in the Motorsport News MSVR Circuit Rally Championship. He is reunited this year with Kareem Gaskin, co-driver in Sol RB18.
Sol Rally Barbados and First Citizens King of the Hill are organised by the Barbados Rally Club, which celebrates its 65th Anniversary in 2022; Sol RB22 marks the 15th year of title sponsorship by the Sol Group, the Caribbean’s largest independent oil company.
For media information only. No regulatory value.
For further media information: e-mail - robin@bradfax.com [2]
web sites: www.rallybarbados.net [3]; www.barbadosrallyclub.com [4]
Sol RB22-15a: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 6, 2022
King of the Hill – Roll of Honour 2008 to 2021
2021 no event (coronavirus pandemic)
2020 (SH) Dane Skeete/Tyler Mayhew (Subaru Impreza WRC S12)
2wd: Barry Mayers/Ben Norris (Ford Fiesta), 6th overall
2019 (SH) Jeffrey Panton – JAM/Michael Fennell Jnr – JAM (Ford Focus WRC06)
2wd: Roger Mayers/Sean Corbin (Toyota WR Starlet), 5th o/a
2018 (H) Jeffrey Panton – JAM/Michael Fennell Jnr – JAM (Ford Focus WRC06)
2wd: Barry Mayers/Ben Norris (Ford Fiesta), 9th o/a
2017 (H) Jeffrey Panton – JAM/Michael Fennell Jnr – JAM (Ford Focus WRC06)
2wd: Rhett Watson/James Hutchinson (BMW M3), 7th o/a
2016 (H) * Simon Jean-Joseph – FRA/Jack Boyere – FRA (Ford Focus WRC08)
* Jeffrey Panton – JAM/Michael Fennell Jnr – JAM (Ford Focus WRC06)
2wd: Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Toyota Starlet), 6th o/a
* joint winners, final run cancelled
2015 (H) Roger Skeete/Louis Venezia (Subaru Impreza WRC S12)
2wd: Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Toyota Starlet), 7th o/a
2014 (H) Paul Bird - ENG/Aled Davies – WAL (Ford Focus WRC08)
2wd: Roger Mayers/Sean Corbin (Toyota WR Starlet), 8th o/a
2013 (L) Neil Armstrong/Barry Ward (Suzuki SX4 WRC)
2wd: Roger Mayers/Barry Mayers (Toyota WR Starlet), 6th o/a
2012 (H) Paul Bird - ENG/Kirsty Riddick – SCO (Ford Focus WRC08)
2wd: Neil Armstrong/Barry Ward (Toyota Starlet), 8th o/a
2011 (H) Roger Skeete/Louis Venezia (Subaru Impreza WRC S12)
2wd: Neil Armstrong/Barry Ward (Toyota Starlet), 9th o/a
2010 (SG) Paul Bourne/Stuart Maloney (Ford Focus WRC 07)
2wd: Ian Warren/Robert Warren (Suzuki Swift), 5th o/a
2009 (SH) Roger Skeete/Louis Venezia (Subaru Impreza WRC S12)
2wd: Ian Warren/Robert Warren (Suzuki Swift), 9th o/a
2008 (T) Paul Bourne/Stuart Maloney (Subaru Impreza WRC S9)
2wd: Sean Gill/Michael Cummins (Suzuki Swift), 6th o/a
Key to locations: H – Hangman’s Hill; L – Luke Hill; SG – Sailor Gully; SH – Stewarts Hill; T – Turner’s Hall
For media information only. No regulatory value.
For further media information: e-mail - robin@bradfax.com [2]
web sites: www.rallybarbados.net [3]; www.barbadosrallyclub.com [4]
