Neil Armstrong and Barry Ward have been declared winners of the Rally of the Sun and Stars contested last Saturday.
Driving the Suzuki SX4 WRC, the pair posted the fastest time of 18 minutes, 32.34 seconds to win the Motoring Club Barbados Inc. event. They were also the fastest pair on seven of the ten stages contested.
A strong performance from Roger “The Sheriff” Skeete and Louis Venezia in a Subaru Impreza WRC S12 was good enough for second spot with a time of 18 minutes, 37.60 seconds.
Josh Read and Mark Jordan, in a Toyota Starlet, won SM10 and grabbed third spot overall, with a time of 19 minutes, 10.30 seconds and along with it, the two-wheel drive honours.
Read went into the event tied at the top of the overall drivers’ standings with Rhett Watson on 143 points and also shared a similar position in the race for the two-wheel drive title with the same driver.
Problems with the timing equipment and protests from competitors presented a headache for officials of the club at the end of what was a competitive event.
President David Williams, in confirming that there were problems, said that on re-checking the times it appeared that something was wrong.
He said: “We could not do anything until we got the matter sorted out and we had to cancel Stages 7 and 10; Diamond Corner to Gays as those were the areas of concern and we took the decision to drop the stages as those were where our challenges were, and where the timing system appeared to be off.”
Everything else went well, the president said.
“It was a good rally and brought the curtain down on the club’s 2013 season.”
Dean Serrao, with new co-driver Mike Worme in a Subaru Impreza WRC S9, continued his fine form taking fourth spot with a time of 19 minutes, 10.80 seconds.
The Warren brothers, Ian and Robert, made sure that there was no clean sweep of the top six by four-wheel drive cars by grabbing fifth place in a Suzuki Swift with a time of 19 minutes, 11.80 seconds.
The pair of Roger “The Ninja” Hill and Graham Gittens in a Toyota Corolla WRC, who clocked 19 minutes, 37.08 seconds, placed sixth.
The top ten was rounded out by Dane Skeete and Michael Worme in a Peugeot 306 Maxi with a time of 19 minutes 50.85 seconds; Rhett Watson and Sean Corbin in a BMW M3 with a time of 20 minutes, 08.81 seconds; Mark Thompson and Kurt Seabra in a Mitsubishi Evo. IX with a time of 20 minutes, 11.21 seconds and Andrew Jones and Kurt Ward in a Ford Escort MkII with a time of 20 minutes, 25.62 seconds.
During the day/night event, the pair of Paul “The Surfer” Bourne and Jermin Pope, in a Ford Focus WRC07, crashed on the fifth stage. The two were unhurt but the car was damaged.
Of the 33 cars entered, only four failed to finish.
