BOURNE, HILL, MANNING AND SKEETE LET LOOSE!

Posted on October 15th, 2009.

Many an internet forum argument will be settled – and a few more started, no doubt - when the island’s four leading car and driver combinations go head-to-head on Sunday (October 18) in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Autumn Gravel Stages, penultimate round of the Virgin Atlantic BRC Driver’s and Class Championships.
The eight-stage rally, slated for a 9.00am start from Ocean Park, offers fans their first chance since the past year’s seemingly never-ending round of equipment changes to see Paul Bourne, Roger Hill, Trevor Manning and Roger Skeete face off on the loose, the surface acknowledged by most to be the sport’s best leveller of man and machine.
The car park at Ocean Park in Christ Church will be the service area for Sunday’s action, which has attracted 29 crews, all fighting for points in the Virgin Atlantic Championship. There will be four stages in the morning, running from Yorkshire to Searles, with a further four in the reverse direction after the lunch halt, and scheduled to start at 13.10pm. A social and Prizegiving will follow the event, at the nearby Barbados Clay Target Shooting Association Clubhouse.
Bourne won the Championship’s first two rounds, on gravel, in his Banks/LIME/Virgin Atlantic Subaru Impreza WRC S9, and is hoping he can repeat those results with his recently-acquired Ford Focus WRC07.
Driving the Esso/Nassco/Motormac Toyota Corolla WRC, Hill finished second to Bourne in the opening round, shared with the first half of the Motoring Club of Barbados Inc’s (MCBI) double-header in March; on his first appearance in his ex-Skeete All Terrain Plus/Cellate Caribbean/Garbage Master/Bess Block Ford Escort WRC, Manning split Bourne and Hill in the second round, at Searles two weeks later.
The only one of the four not to have seen gravel action this year is Skeete; that should not phase him, however - he finished second to Bourne on the equivalent event last year, then won the inaugural BRC Winter Rally, which were his first two gravel events in his recently-acquired ex-John Powell Subaru Impreza S9. His loyal fans have little doubt that he can perform at least as well in his Michelin/Da Costa Mannings Auto Centre/Warrens Motors S12, for which a replacement engine arrived during the week, following problems during the recent MCBI double-header.
Add in to the mix the likes of Neil Armstrong and Barry Gale, both Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI-mounted, the two-wheel-drive battle between Nick Gill (Mazda 3), Jonathan Still (BMW M3) and Ian Warren (Suzuki Swift) and the fight for overall supremacy in the Virgin Atlantic Class Championship, and there will be action aplenty for the many hundreds of fans who are expected to turn out. Their final chance for a fix of rally action before the 2010 season will come with the BRC Winter Rally, over the weekend of October 31/November 1.

BRC Autumn Gravel Stages – Sunday, October 18
Provisional running order

1 Paul Bourne/Stuart Maloney (M8-WRC Banks/LIME/Virgin Atlantic Ford Focus WRC07)
2 Roger Skeete/Louis Venezia (M8-WRC Michelin/Da Costa Mannings Auto Centre/Warrens Motors Subaru Impreza WRC S12)
3 Roger Hill/Graham Gittens (M8-WRC Esso/Nassco/Motormac Toyota Corolla WRC)
4 Trevor Manning/Derek Edwards (M8-WRC All Terrain Plus/Cellate Caribbean/Garbage Master/Bess Block Ford Escort WRC)
5 Barry Gale/Cherie Edghill (M8-WRC Autolink/VP Racing/Bella Beauty Supply/Pro Pac Dog Food Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI)
6 Neil Armstrong/Alan Bayne (M8-A Simpson Motors/Hankook Tyres/Shell V-Power/Gunk Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI)
7 Geoffrey Noel/Kreigg Yearwood (P4 Globe Finance/DeWalt Tools/Essco/Sunbeach/Automotive Art Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX)
8 Harold Morley/Geoff Goddard (P4 Subaru Impreza N14)
9 Dean Serrao/Michael Worme (P4 Amalgamated Security/Coconut Car Rentals/Lucky Games Inc Subaru Impreza N12)
10 Nicholas Gill/Sue Rogers (SM11 SDRR/Glassfibre Products/Castrol/Barb's Bikinis Mazda 3)
11 Graham Manning/Ryan Farmer (SM11 Ford Escort MkII)
12 Jonathan Still/Matthew Staffner (SM11 Hitachi Power Tools/Ocean Spray/Philips Lighting/Crane & Equipments/Little Switzerland BMW M3)
13 Ian Warren/Robert Warren (SM10 Shell V-Power/Simpson Motors/Automotive Art Suzuki Swift)
14 Rhett Watson/Logan Watson (SM10 The Unknown Entity/MQI Collision Repair Centre/Toshiba/Office Solutions & Supplies/Corbz Workz/Castrol Ford Escort MkI)
15 Eric Allamby/Zach Heaselgrave (SM10 Shelbury Construction/Container Services/Castrol/ACT Sandblasting Mitsubishi Lancer)
16 Josh Read/Mark Jordan (SM9 Automotive Art Toyota Starlet)
17 James Betts/Johnathan Gonsalves (SM9 All Terrain Plus/Cellate Caribbean/Makita/Black Bess/Yamaha/Champion Auto/Quik Start Auto/Kendal Sporting Opel Corsa)
18 Jeremy Gonsalves/Amanda Corbin (SM9 Makita/All Terrain Plus/Cellate Caribbean/Star Products/Champion Auto/Kendal Sporting Suzuki Swift GTi)
19 Neil Corbin/Aaron Kirton (SM9 Nassco/Jason Jones/Auto Solutions Toyota Starlet)
20 Stuart White/Jason O’Neil (SM9 3W’s Racing Team/Propac/Crane & Equipments/Flyin’ Fish/Aqua Pur/Catch Chocolates Toyota Starlet)
21 George Gabriel/Leslie Evanson (SM9 my11plus.com/El Tigre Catamaran Cruises/Poonketeers Toyota Starlet)
22 John Corbin/Owen Proverbs (M7 Corbins Garage/Klark-Odio/Automotive Art Toyota Corolla)
23 Freddie Gale/Kyle Proverbs (M7 Gale’s Hatcheries/Nassco/VP Racing/Workz Mechanical Services Toyota Corolla RunX)
24 Jamal Brathwaite/Ziad Kazan (M6 AM Electrical Solutions/Arthur Construction/Arthur Lifting and Freighting/Ellesmere Quarries/Chicken Pen Racing/D2 Racing Suspension Mitsubishi Mirage)
25 Edward Corbin/Rodney Clarke (M6 Automotive Art/Klark-Odio/Corbins Garage/JVM Signage Daihatsu Charmant)
26 Chris Williams/Reuben Nelson (M6 Chris’s Workshop/Sunbury Plantation House/Barbados Paragliding Association Ford Fiesta)
27 Sean Cox/Adam Cox (M5 Simpson Motors Suzuki Swift)
28 Dane Skeete/Tyler Mayhew (P2 Peugeot 106)
29 Allan Maynard/Bradley Weekes (SM9 Gliptone/Johnsons/El Tigre Catamaran Cruises/Marshal Trading/Lubriguard/SDRR/Woodworks Toyota Starlet)