SKEETE WINS VIRGIN ATLANTIC RALLYSPORT TITLE

Posted on November 2nd, 2008.

The Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Virgin Atlantic RallySport Championship finished in dramatic style at the weekend, as competitors grasped their last chance to score points. With three Group titles and the overall Championship still up for grabs, contenders drove the BRC Winter Rally in committed fashion, spectators enjoying some heart-stopping high-speed action on the loose.
Roger Skeete emerged victorious on a day when nearly every crew suffered some mechanical challenge, not least Paul Bourne, who saw his advantage disappear when a high-speed trip into the canes damaged his power steering system, the time taken for the repair putting him out of the overall running.
This new event on the calendar attracted 26 crews, tackling four stages in Searles on Saturday evening, four in Guinea on Sunday morning, followed by four in the reverse direction at Searles. While dust posed visibility problems on Saturday - start intervals were extended to two minutes - Sunday morning’s run presented occasional stretches of mud to vary the challenge.
With regular co-driver Stuart Maloney racing in Guyana, Bourne’s co-driver in the Banks/Texaco/B-Mobile/Pirelli/New-Tech Subaru Impreza WRC S9 was karting ace Orry Hunte; fastest on stage one, three-tenths up of Skeete, they looked set for a good run.
But Skeete, co-driven in the Michelin/FB Batteries Subaru Impreza WRC S9 by Robert Simmons, had other ideas; he fought back, fastest on stage two, only for Bourne to retaliate on the two remaining stages, leading by a little over one second overnight.
Although he admits to losing out on night stages, Roger Hill was only nine seconds adrift of the leading pair, holding third place with Graham Gittens in the Mobil 1/Nassco/MotorMac Toyota Corolla WRC; fourth were Neil Armstrong/Barry Ward, despite a driveshaft failure on the Shell/Hankook Tyres/Gunk/Odyssey Batteries Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI, with Trevor Manning and Derek Edwards (Shell V-Power/Simpson Motors/Garbage Master Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) fifth.
Light overnight rain served to dampen down the dust, but also to maintain those mud patches that already existed. Bourne rocketed through the first Guinea stage 1.7secs faster than Skeete, but disaster struck second time through - having misjudged his approach speed, he slid off a right-hander into the canes at high speed. While he was able to rejoin – and be faster than on his first run - the off-track excursion left a legacy.
Bourne explained: “I don’t know why I misjudged the corner, but I did. I went down through the gears, selected second - I realised how far into the cane we were going, and needed the drive to get back out.” The impact craked the power steering fluid cooler; as Bourne returned to service, he felt the steering stiffen up. Bourne’s crew did not have the right part to bypass the cooler, so checked with Skeete and Hill, neither of whom could help, only for one of Skeete’s crew to find a perfect replacement in a wood-chipper left in Bourne’s yard by a contractor. Bourne then suffered his own ‘Felipe Massa moment’, elation at finding the part quickly replaced by the realisation that the repair had taken him over the time limit allowed for service and out of the overall running.
While he had lost his chance to win the Virgin Atlantic title outright, he continued to swap fastest times with Skeete, claiming Group second, enough to win the Modified 8-WRC title by seven points from Skeete. Hill finished second overall at the weekend, with Armstrong an impressive third.
Skeete’s victory earned him the overall Virgin Atlantic RallySport Championship, based on the best five results from each of the Rally and Sprint Championships; Hill’s second place on the BRC Winter Rally also moved him ahead of former points-leader Bourne – Skeete ended the year with 111 points, with Hill 107 and Bourne 105.
The two other Groups left to settle were SuperModified 11 and SM9. In the former, Nick Gill (Castrol Syntec/Lysol/Listerine/Vita Malt/Hennessy/McEnearney Quality Inc Mazda 3) enjoyed a five-point lead over Jonathan Still (Hitachi Power Tools/Ocean Spray/Philips Lighting/Crane & Equipments/Castrol Oils BMW M3), with all to play for . . . 15 points for a Group win, plus three route bonus points, meant the result could go either way.
Gill and Sue Rogers were ahead on Friday night, the stages suiting the front-drive Mazda, but a lead of less than 12 seconds could easily be lost; not entirely comfortable with the handling of his M3, Still and co-driver Heath Hazell finally decided the rear shock aborbers were the problem, as the car was bottoming out. The change of shocks came too late; while Still was fastest on route three, it was the morning stages which would have suited the M3, so Gill won the Group by nine points.
In SM9, Josh Read and Mark Jordan (Automotive Art Toyota Starlet) led overnight, but another gearbox drama meant Sunday would be a struggle. Challenger James Betts (Makita/All Terrain Plus/Star Products/Champion Auto Wrecker/Kendal Sporting/Quik Start Auto Opel Corsa) was faster on all but one of Sunday’s stages, but he wasn’t having an easy time of it, either, an electrical problem meaning the battery needed recharging between each stage.
Betts won the Group at the weekend, but Read clinched the Group title by 10 points, finishing third behind Neil Corbin and Adam Alleyne (Nassco Ltd/Jason Jones/Auto Solutions Toyota Starlet), another crew to have overcome mechanical problems.

BRC Winter Rally – November 1/2
2008 BRC Rally Championship, round six
Overall results
1st Roger Skeete/Robert Simmons (M8-WRC Michelin/FB Batteries Subaru Impreza WRC S9), 23m 51.77s
2nd Roger Hill/Graham Gittens (M8-WRC Mobil 1/Nassco/MotorMac Toyota Corolla WRC), 24m 14.68s
3rd Neil Armstrong/Barry Ward (M8-A Shell/Hankook Tyres/Gunk/Odyssey Batteries Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI), 24m 45.51s
4th Trevor Manning/Derek Edwards (M8-WRC Shell V-Power/Simpson Motors/Garbage Master Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII), 25m 02.06s
5th Geoff Noel/Kreigg Yearwood (P4 Globe Finance/Ezone/DeWalt/Automotive Art/Sunbeach Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX), 25m 36.64s
6th Sean Gill/Michael Cummins (SM10 Simpson Motors/Automotive Art/Shell V-Power/Yokohama Suzuki Swift), 25m 49.21s
7th Sean Dowding/Jason Cozier (M8-WRC Subaru Impreza WRX STi), 25m 53.11s
8th Nick Gill/Sue Rogers (SM11 Castrol Syntec/Lysol/Listerine/Vita Malt/Hennessy/McEnearney Quality Inc Mazda 3), 26m 34.27s
9th Mark Hamilton/Clive Howell (SM10 McEnearney Quality Inc/Consolidated Finance/Automotive Art/Dunlop Ford Escort MkII), 26m 38.32s
10th Jonathan Still/Heath Hazell (SM11 Hitachi Power Tools/Ocean Spray/Philips Lighting/Crane & Equipments/Castrol Oils BMW M3), 27m 00.24s
etc
Group results
Modified 8-WRC 1st Skeete/Simmons; 2nd Paul Bourne/Orry Hunte (Banks/Texaco/B-Mobile/Pirelli/New-Tech Subaru Impreza WRC S9), 23m 54.94s; 3rd Hill/Gittens; etc
Modified 8-A 1st Armstrong/Ward
Production 4 1st Noel/Yearwood; 2nd Michael Worme/Brian Gibson (Cot Media Group/Details Car Valet Subaru Impreza WRX STi), 27m 11.78s
SuperModified 11 1st Gill/Rogers; Still/Heath; 3rd Jason Clermont/Mario Clermont (Linda’s Disco BMW M3), 34m 27.86s
SM10 1st Gill/Cummins; 2nd Hamilton/Howell
SM9 1st James Betts/Jeremy Gonsalves (Makita/All Terrain Plus/Star Products/Champion Auto Wrecker/Kendal Sporting/Quik Start Auto Opel Corsa), 27m 34.28s; 2nd Neil Corbin/Adam Alleyne (Nassco Ltd/Jason Jones/Auto Solutions Toyota Starlet), 27m 58.16s; 3rd Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Automotive Art Toyota Starlet), 27m 59.13s; etc
Modified 7 1st Adrian Linton/Alecia Linton (Ravensden/Crane and Equipment/Garbage Gobbler/Morris Straker Construction/Subzero Vauxhall Astra GSi), 27m 57.45s; 2nd Freddie Gale/Kyle Proverbs (Gale’s Hatcheries/Nassco/Trident White/VP Racing Toyota Corolla RunX), 29m 00.20s; 3rd John Corbin/Owen Proverbs (Corbins Garage/Klark-Odio Toyota Corolla), 30m 43.57s
M6 1st Edward Corbin/Rodney Clarke (Rezults Autoshop/Klark-Odio/Corbins Garage Daihatsu Charmant), 28m 23.50s
P2 1st Neil Barnard/Lindsay Farmer (Simpson Motors/Automotive Art/Shell V-Power/Yokohama Suzuki Ignis Sport), 29m 15.04s