Six drivers and co-drivers from around the region, Britain and the United States are heading to the island for this weekend’s seventh round of the 2024 Barbados Rally2 Championship sponsored by CIBC Caribbean and Ace H & B Hardware and administered by the Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF). The talent-studded FIA R5 class in the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Winter Rally on Sunday (November 17) will include all but one of the championship’s points-scorers.
 Returning to action, having missed last month’s Rally of the Sun & Stars, is Britain’s Rob Swann, fresh from victory on November 3 in the inaugural closed-road running of the Island Stages Rally on the Isle of Wight in his Ford Fiesta WRC. His co-driver was Steve McNulty, another regular in Barbados, who will this weekend sit with Adam Mallalieu, also returning to the Rally2 ranks for the first time since BCIC Rally Barbados 2024; Swann has Geoff Goddard on the notes on Sunday in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo.
 While neither Swann nor former Karting Champion Mallalieu are in contention for the Rally2 title, they are both formidable competitors: Swann has finished second and third twice each in earlier rounds, while Mallalieu (Fiesta R5) was the dominant winner of round four of the Championship, which encompassed the action on the Friday night and Saturday of BCIC RB24. The only absentee from the drivers who have scored this season is Mallalieu’s father Andrew, who is at the Macau Grand Prix as an FIA Steward.
 Evenly-matched since the start of the year, the Barbadian crew of Josh Read and Mark Jordan (Fiesta R5) and first-round winner Kyle Gregg of Jamaica (Fiesta Rally2) with local co-driver Orry Hunte have been the front-runners; with three wins ahead of the Rally of the Sun & Stars, Read by a slender four points, but Gregg was forced to miss that event when his car did not return in time from a trip to the UK for repairs after his huge accident at First Citizens King of the Hill. That gap has now extended to 21 points, although once a dropped score is taken into consideration, the margin shortens to 15.
 The situation would have been worse for Gregg if Read had won last month, but that honour went to Logan Watson and Kreigg Yearwood (Fabia Rally2 evo), the first win since the island driver switched to four-wheel drive at the start of the year. He moved into third place in the standings, within 23 points of Read and just two behind Gregg, so all eyes will be on the 4wd rookie in Sunday’s event.
 Watson’s victory enabled him to leapfrog Roger Hill and Graham Gittens (Fabia R5), although they are only four points behind him in fourth. America’s George Sherman (Fiesta Rally2), with Trinidad & Tobago co-driver Scott Pinheiro, and Paul Horton of the Turks & Caicos Island Rally Team are the remaining Rally2 Championship entries. Horton is joined in his Citroen C3 Rally2 for this event by Leslie Evanson, Women in Motorsport representative for the BMF, the island’s governing body of motorsport.
 Sunday’s BRC Winter Rally comprises nine three-kilometre stages at two venues, starting from the central Service Park at Colleton Plantation in St John at 10.30am. In the morning, three stages from Malvern to Wilson Hill will alternate with two from Stewart’s Hill to Society; in the afternoon, which is scheduled to start after the lunch break at 2.00pm, the Stewart’s Hill stage will run twice in the same direction, alternating with a reversed Wilson Hill to Malvern. The organisers expect the event to finish at around 5.30pm, with a Prizegiving to follow.

Barbados Rally2 Championship, round 7
BRC Winter Rally, November 17
Provisional entry list (in alphabetical order of driver)
Kyle Gregg – JAM/Orry Hunte (Ford Fiesta Rally2)
Roger Hill/Graham Gittens (Skoda Fabia R5)
Paul Horton - TCI/Leslie Evanson (F) (Citroen C3 Rally2)
Adam Mallalieu/Steve McNulty - ENG (Ford Fiesta R5)
Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Ford Fiesta R5)
George Sherman - USA/Scott Pinheiro – T&T (Ford Fiesta Rally2)
Rob Swann – ENG/Geoff Goddard (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)
Logan Watson/Barry Ward (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)

Barbados Rally2 Championship
Points after round 6
1st Josh Read, 117 points
2nd Kyle Gregg – JAM, 96pts
3rd Logan Watson, 94pts
4th Roger Hill, 90pts
5th Rob Swann – ENG, 82pts
6th Andrew Mallalieu, 64pts
7th George Sherman – USA, 59pts
8th Adam Mallalieu, 41pts
9th Paul Horton – TCI, 28pts

For media information only. No regulatory value.

For further information:
please contact BMF Vice-President, David Williams - e-mail: vicepresident@bmf-fia.com
web site: https://bmf-fia.com/