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Dane Skeete and Tyler Mayhew in their Subaru Impreza WRC S12 won First Citizens King of the Hill (KotH) on Sunday (May 26), the final shakedown before next weekend’s BCIC Rally Barbados (May 31-June 2). It was their second KotH victory – they also won in 2020 – while Roger Mayers and Barry Ward (Toyota WR Starlet) became the first crew to finish top 2wd three years in a row since the event first ran in 2008.
Despite heavy early morning showers, fans arrived in their numbers well before the 11.00am start, occupying favourite spots along the 4.1-kilometre course from Palmers in St Philip to Colleton in St John. Although largely the same as last year, the start was moved forward and the finish extended by around 300 yards to include the tricky hairpin left after Colleton Plantation, which created a few issues early in the day with standing water. VIP hospitality, now dubbed The Rally Experience, returned for the first time since the pandemic, with a packed stand at Society Plantation, mid-way through the stage.
Skeete set the pace on the first run, 1.8secs ahead of Jamaica’s Kyle Gregg in his Ford Fiesta Rally2, with fellow countryman and four-time KotH winner Jeff Panton third, another 1sec back in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo. Mayers was an impressive fourth overall, three-hundredths of a second quicker than Stuart Maloney (Fabia RS Rally2), who led five more cars from the FIA R5 class covered by just over 3secs, three Skodas (Rob Swann from the UK, Mark Maloney, Roger Hall) and the Fiesta Rs of Adam Mallalieu and father Andrew, who completed the top 10.
Thanks to incidents early in the second run, Gregg and the younger Mallalieu took no further part in the day’s activities; although both drivers and co-drivers were OK, their cars were not. As the stage had been blocked, Skeete, Panton, Mark Maloney and Josh Read (Fiesta R5) did not record a time, so were given a re-run ahead of the day’s fourth and final run, which slightly skewed the published times after run two.
Fastest now was Stuart Maloney, around 4secs up on Skeete, ahead of Britain’s Kevin Procter, who had failed to finish the first run in his WRC class Fiesta S2000T when, as he put it: “I got ambition and capability mixed up on the last corner as I didn't heed a warning about water on the course.” Swann was next up, with Skeete, Mayers, Gregg (from his first run), Paul Horton from the Turks & Caicos Rally Team in his Citroen C3 R5, Hill, Logan Watson, despite clouting the Society chicane a mighty blow in his Fabia Rally2 evo, and Read now completing the top 10.
Skeete fought back on his final run, lowering the best time by another 2secs to 2m 11.31s for victory. With three runs within one-tenth of one another, an extremely consistent Stuart Maloney was second (2:13.45) with a big effort from brother Mark on the final run (2:13.98) placing him third, ahead of Panton, Read and Procter, competing for the 17th time, who said: “I'm so happy to be the highest-placed European. It's a long three days, so I need to get to the end - I don't mind where I finish, as long as I finish.”
Looking for a third Rally Barbados win to add to 2019 & ‘22, Skeete was happy: “We had some ups and downs with the stage itself with some delays due to incidents which didn't help the rhythm. Stuart definitely pushed me today so we had to put 100 per cent everything on the table. We would prefer not to be Car 1 but I definitely like winning King of the Hill, so I'll sweep the road for the others next weekend.”
Stuart Maloney said: “I am very happy with the finish and I know I left some time in. I have a lot of confidence going into next weekend and believe I can take the fight to Dane.” His brother Mark added: “Today was mixed conditions and I was conservative at the start. When I saw that the times were competitive I tried to be more consistent and every corner to take a bit more out of it. I kept chipping away at it today and hopefully we can carry that into the next weekend.”
Ahead of his 20th entry in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) premier event, Panton said: “King of the Hill is always very competitive where the times are close and any mistakes or hesitation are punished. We are on pace and know where we lost the time. Attrition rate will be a factor next week, so the plan is to be on pace early, be at the end and to manage the weather that is forecast.”
Mayers was in the overall top 10 all day, winning top 2wd for the sixth time since 2013. He also led SuperModified 2 all day, chased first by brother Barry (Fiesta), before Rhett Watson (BMW M3) split the siblings, 2.9s behind Roger and 2s ahead of Barry. Mayers said: “Everything was according to plan today. There was some stress for the last run with the starter motor and we barely made the start. I'm so thankful it didn't rain at all and I told my Navi Barry I was out to all for the last stage, not even a half second to spare on that one.”
An intense SM2 battle is in prospect next weekend, as just half-a-second covered the next three finishers: Daryl Clarke made a triumphant return to competition for the first time since 2018 in his Suzuki Swift RS, ahead of Andrew Jones (Ford Escort MkII) and another returnee Brian Gill (BMW M3), who recorded equal times.
Apart from the FIA R5 class, the closest margin of victory came in SM1, where Edward Corbin and Tremaine Forde-Catwell fought hard all day in their Daihatsu Charades, the latter claiming his second consecutive KotH class win by seven-tenths of a second; back after a long absence from Rally Barbados, Carlos Edwards finished third in his Citroen C2R2 MAX. In Modified 3, early leader Justin Campbell, who was suffering with shock absorber issues, eventually finished fourth behind Suleman Esuf, David St Hill and Jonathan Still, all driving BMW M3s, while Neil Corbin (Toyota GT86 CS-R3) had to fight Chris Ullyett (Escort RS2000) hard to win M2.
In Clubman 2, Chris Hoad and Ryan Wood swapped the lead in their BimmaCup cars, Hoad the eventual winner, taking the class by 1.1s from David-Anthony Balgobin who improved by 3secs on his final run when Wood failed to better his time. Kyle Gill (Mitsubishi Mirage RS Clone) led C1 throughout, beating Wayne Tasker (Opel Corsa B) by the day’s biggest margin of 13.6s. Finishing 12th overall, two places higher than last year, Mark Thompson (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX) also claimed a relatively easy victory over brother Kurt’s similar car in M4 by 5.28s, with siblings Kyle and Kayleigh Catwell another 2secs behind in their Audi TT-R, but 10s closer to the class-winner than they had been on the car’s debut last year.
Three classes were won by British visitors. On the debut of his new BMW 3V6 Compact, Tom Stockdale beat father Martin (BMW 1M Coupe) in Group B, with the impressive local Toyota Starlet of Chadane Holder third. Chris Shooter claimed his third consecutive Historic 2 win in his Escort MkII, beating Dick Mauger (Escort MkII RS1800) and Harold Morley (Porsche 911RS), while Ireland’s Mick Smith was not alone in H1 this year in his immaculate Sunbeam Imp, losing out to Scotland’s Robin Hamilton (Escort MkI).
BCIC Rally Barbados (May 31-June 2) is a tarmac rally with around 20 special stages run on the island’s intricate network of public roads, under road closure orders granted by the Ministry of Transport, Works & Water Resources; the previous Sunday’s (May 26) First Citizens King of the Hill sprint, run under a similar arrangement, features four timed runs on a roughly four-kilometre stage, the results of which are used to seed the running order for the main event.
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