With the MCBI’s season concluded on Saturday, the Barbados Rally Club’s Winter Rally brought its Driver’s and Class Championships to a close the following day at venues in St Peter and St Andrew. With Matt Edwards back in the co-driver’s seat of Paul Horton’s Fiesta, there were nine R5s, with Champion elect Stuart Maloney (Fabia) seeded ahead of Josh Read (Fiesta), Mark Maloney (Fabia) and Rob Swann (Fiesta), whose co-driver Darren Garrod shares two British Rally Championship titles with Edwards.

Maloney was fastest on the first of the scheduled 10 stages, Upper Parks to Haggatts, even heading the Subaru Impreza WRC S12 of eventual rally winner Dane Skeete by nearly 2secs, with Read, Swann, Mark Maloney and Roger Hill (Fabia) completing the top six. Mark Maloney ran wide on the first run through Swanns to Rock Hall, climbing the embankment and smashing a wheel, but he returned after lunch, while brother Stuart was lucky to escape unharmed when he left the road just after the Rock Hall jump on the second stage after lunch: “From the first pass, I committed to the jump and went at it 100 per cent and did the same each time, but for the third pass we carried way more speed in as I had a good run through the previous corners. We had a nose-heavy landing which put us on the embankment and I really thought it was going to roll, but it darted over to the other side of the road and despite there being a wide field we found the pole which hit in the middle of the car; I was a passenger for much of it and we are fortunate to come out unscathed and with only cosmetic damage as well.”

With the pole blocking the road, the stage was cancelled, the time lost also resulting in the cancellation of the final stage, which would have run after sunset. Maloney continued for the last two stages “at 80 per cent”, with a sufficient buffer to keep the rest of the R5s at bay. Read beat him on SS6 and SS9 and finished second, 8secs adrift, moving up to third in the standings at Mark Maloney’s expense, with Hill third and Swann fourth, while Horton enjoyed his best run of the season to finish fifth.

Round 14 – BRC Winter Rally (Barbados Rally Club)

St Peter & St Andrew – October 16

Results

1st Stuart Maloney/Kristian Yearwood (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo), 15m 42.46s

2nd Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Ford Fiesta R5), + 08.61s

3rd Roger Hill/Graham Gittens (Skoda Fabia R5), + 24.23s

4th Rob Swann/Darren Garrod (Ford Fiesta Rally2), + 26.71s

5th Paul Horton/Matt Edwards (Ford Fiesta R5), + 34.30s

6th Andrew Mallalieu/Geoff Goddard (Ford Fiesta R5) + 40.27s

7th Ben Hartling/Mark Kinch (Ford Fiesta R5), + 1:03.42s

8th Stan Hartling/Jeremy Croney (Ford Fiesta R5), + 1:04.38s

dnf Mark Maloney/Kreigg Yearwood (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)

Championship points

After round 14

1st Stuart Maloney 278

2nd Roger Hill 184

3rd Josh Read 181

4th Mark Maloney 162

5th Rob Swann 161

6th Paul Horton 100

= 7th Jeff Panton 89

= 7th Andrew Mallalieu 89

9th Stan Hartling 41

10th Suleman Esuf 36

11th Ben Hartling 25

12th Brian Gill 11