LOCAL PAIRS will have to battle with their regional counterparts in today’s EZ Pave Motoring Club Barbados Inc. (MCBI) Rally Of The Sun And Stars, Round 3 of the club’s 2012 drivers’ championship.
Top Jamaican driver Jeff Panton and Paul Horton of the Turks and Caicos Islands were among the 32 entries received at last Thursday night’s briefing meeting at The Boatyard, Bay Street, Bridgetown.
Panton will team up with Barbados’ Jean-Marc Cozier in the ex-Marcus Gronholm Ford Focus WRC06 in which he finished second in Rally Trinidad and third in Sol Rally Barbados earlier this year.
Panton is the only driver to have won the three regional rallies: the gravel events in Jamaica and Trinidad and the closed-road tarmac event in Barbados.
He told SATURDAY SPORTS he was looking forward to the event, as things had been quiet in Jamaica and it would be his first event since competing in Sol Rally Barbados last June. It was also an opportunity for him to stay in shape for Rally Jamaica in December.
However, he admitted that he was on a learning curve with the Focus and would be without his regular co-driver Mike Fennell Jr who is on international duty with another top Caribbean driver, John “Penti” Powell in the NACAM series.
Horton will have Kristian Yearwood as his co-driver in the Sky Motor Sport/H Racing/Java Island Ford Escort MkI.
Like Panton, Horton is no stranger, having made his third visit to Barbados earlier this year to contest the Caribbean’s premier motor rally.
He comes with much experience after making his debut in 2010, when he finished 55th overall and sixth in Modified 6 in Shell V-Power King Of The Hill, but retired with mechanical problems.
He fared better last year, finishing 42nd overall and fourth in M6 in King Of The Hill, but gearbox problems from the opening stage forced him and Yearwood out of the rally.
A keen fight is expected among defending champion Paul “The Surfer” Bourne and Mark Kinch in the Chefette/LIME/Slam 101/
MQI/Banks/Castrol Ford Focus WRC07 and Roger “The Sheriff” Skeete and Louis Venezia (M8-WRC Sol/Michelin/ DaCosta Mannings Auto Centre/Simpson Motors Subaru Impreza WRC S12) in the race for valuable points which count toward the overall drivers’ title, as well as Andrew Mallalieu and Jeremy Foster in the Terra Caribbean Subaru Impreza N10.
Attention will also be centred on the race for two-wheel drive honours, with Neil Armstrong and Barry Ward in the Lubriguard/
Hankook Tyres/Nassco/Redline Fuels/ARMAG Rentals Toyota Starlet; Josh Read and Mark Jordan in the Stihl/Gliptone/
Hankook/EZone/Weetabix/SDRR/Royal Purple Toyota Starlet and John Corbin and Owen Proverbs in the Valvoline/
Automotive Art Toyota Corolla in the spotlight.
Father-and-son combinations such as Adrian and Dominic Linton in the Ravensden Vauxhall Astra, Jeremy and Justin Sisnett in a Ford Fiesta, St Elmo Cumberbatch and Kevin Cumberbatch in the Carib Supply/F Taylor Associates BMW E36, and outsiders Rommell Martin and Alex Kellman in the M5 VV&K Rentals/B3 Imagining/Shine Auto Care/Leroy Body Workshop Toyota Starlet, will also help to heighten the level of the competition expected during the day/night affair.
The rally will start at 12:01 p.m. at the EZ Pave Complex, Lower Greys, Christ Church with the stopover at 5:30 p.m., at the same spot. It will finish around 10:30 p.m. at the starting point.
