BRITISH DRIVER Rob Swann will give today’s Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Winter Rally at Black Bess, St Peter an international flavour.
He is among 19 entries for the eight-stage event which is scheduled to start at 9 a.m.
Swann, who won Group N in Sol Rally Barbados 2010, repeated the feat in Rally Jamaica the same year and finished seventh in this year’s event with regular co-driver Darren Garrod. He will be at the wheel of Andrew Mallalieu’s Group N Subaru Impreza N10 with Barbadian co-driver Geoff Goddard.
While the front-runners in the race for the BRC’s Virgin Atlantic Championship fight their last battle of the season, Swann, who is on holiday, will be using the event as a warm-up for his next outing in England, next weekend’s Tempest Rally.
“It’s my first time on gravel in Barbados, so it will be interesting,” he said.
But while Swann’s performance against the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IXs of Group N regulars Mark Hamilton and Geoff Noel will interest some, most attention will focus on the battle between the three drivers still in with a realistic chance of becoming champion driver.
Of the three, Modified 7 leader Daryl Clarke, in the Honda Civic, is still favoured to win the title, which is based on each driver’s class total, minus the season’s lowest score. However, there is still a threat from Neil Corbin (M6 Toyota Starlet) and Logan Watson (SuperModfied 11 BMW M3).
Clarke has 156 points, while Corbin and Watson have 153 and 150, respectively. However, when dropped scores are taken into account, Clarke has 143 and Corbin and Watson 140 each.
This has all of the ingredients to make it a final event to remember as the prestigious title is contested.
Competitors are expected to arrive for scrutineering by 8 a.m., with the event slated for an hour later after a short drivers’ briefing.
As before, service will be on the grassy area under the trees on the western approach to Mangrove Plantation.
BRC competition secretary Neil Corbin said that although the club was limited in its options, without major work it had been able to change the configuration of the course slightly from previous events and he was hoping that spectators turned out in their numbers.
