RALLY CLUB WRAPS UP THE SEASON ON SUNDAY

The Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) 2003 season draws to a close on Sunday (November 16) with the BRC Loose Stages Rally, to be fought out over 11 stages at three venues in the parishes of St Thomas and St Peter.
The action starts at 8.00 am at the Vaucluse Raceway in St Thomas, which will also host the service area, lunch halt and finish.
The event will use some of the stages scheduled to have been contested in the cancelled August event, including 40 Acres, situated between Vaucluse and the Hopewell Plantation. In the morning, the route will alternate between 40 Acres (stages 1, 3 and 5) and the Vaucluse Raceway itself (stages 2, 4 and 6); after the lunch halt – drinks and food will be on sale at the Raceway – there will be two further runs through the Vaucluse stage (stages 7 and 11), between which the event will shift to the Black Bess Plantation for stages 8, 9 and 10.
With proposed redevelopment of some areas of Black Bess set to get under way early in the New Year, this will almost certainly be the last time this popular venue will be used for a motor sport event, so is likely to attract a large crowd.
With regular co-driver Max Ferri, Roger Mayers heads the entry list in the Automotive Art Shell Felix Ford Focus WRC, a car that is rarely seen in action at Vaucluse and is expected to pull a sizeable crowd of supporters. A number of the club’s faster cars will be absent from Sunday’s event, as they are already in transit to Jamaica to contest that country’s international event in two weeks’ time, but the competition is still expected to be tough.
The on-form Sean Dowding will be fielding his regular Mitsubishi Evo V, while Geoffrey Noel is slated to return to action for the first time since Rally Barbados in June, from which he retired in a damaging accident on Saturday evening. Driving his Citgo-backed Mitsubishi Evo VI, Noel will enjoy some stiff Group N competition from Mikie Hassell’s Subaru Impreza.
Fireworks are promised in the Open Modified class, in which the battling Toyota Starlets of Barry Mayers and Cliff Roett go head to head once again; the mighty BMW M3 of Jonathan Still will be mixing it with them, too, in what promises to be the most hotly-contested class on the day.

For further information: robin@bradfax.com
BRC web site: www.rallyclub.com

BRC Drivers’ Championship, round 7
BRC Loose Stages Rally, November 16

Entry list (in alphabetical order of driver, by group)

Modified 9
Roger Mayers/Max Ferri (Automotive Art/Shell Helix Ford Focus WRC)

Modified 8
Sean Dowding/Logan Watson (Pro Pac/Globe Finance/NPK Construction Mitsubishi Evo V)

Production 4
Mikie Hassell/Bruce Wilkie (Willie’s Diving & Marine/Citgo/Details Car Cleaning Subaru Impreza)
Geoff Noel/Wayne King (Citgo/AutoZone Mitsubishi Evo VI)

Modified Open
Lindsay Farmer/Chad Hadley Nassco/Phillips Lighting/St James Travel/Mobil 1 Toyota Starlet Turbo)
Nicholas Gill/tba (McEnearney Quality/Genuine Mazda Parts/Toyo Tyres/Carib Mazda 323 4 x 4)
Barry Mayers/Adam Hart (Automotive Art/Shell Helix Toyota Starlet)
Cliff Roett/Rhett Watson (Michelin/Nassco/Lucky Horseshoe/Roett’s Garage Toyota Starlet)
Jonathan Still/Heath Hazell (Nescafe/Phillips Lighting/Sikkens Paints BMW M3)

Modified 7
Edward Corbin/Mark Perkins (Automotive Art/Corbin's Garage/Klark-Odio Toyota Corolla SR)
John Corbin/Shreef Walcott (Automotive Art/Corbin's Garage/Klark-Odio Toyota Corolla)
Wayne Manning/Willie Hinds (Castrol Black Bess Peugeot 205XS)

Modified 6
Neil Armstrong/Ben Armstrong (Nassco/Bridgestone/ProAuto Toyota Starlet)
Kirk Watkins/Josh Read (Abacus Builders/Castrol/Sikkens Toyota Corolla GTi)

Modified 5
Neil Barnard/Chris Hoyos (NP/Sunbeach/Kerridge/Simpson Motors Rally Team Opel Corsa)
Roger Marshall/Bruce Lambert (Photo Finish One Hour Photo/Agfa Film Toyota Starlet)

group tba
James Betts/Adam Alleyne (Champion Auto Toyota Corolla GTi)