MUDDOGS ACES ALLEYNE AND CLARKE PAIR UP

Nassco November Safari brings the season to a close

The Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) most accomplished navigational rallying experts will team up for the first time as Driver and Navigator when the Club’s 2018 Chefette MudDogs Safari Championship reaches its climax on Sunday (November 11). Leslie Alleyne and Wayne Clarke, who share nine Championship titles and 15 victories in the iconic June Rally between them, are entered for the Nassco November Safari in the former’s regular Simpson Motors/Shell Spirax/Shell Rimula/Maxxis Isuzu D-Max.

Their regular partners - Alleyne’s Navigator Chris O’Neal and Clarke’s Driver Chris Armstrong - are both unavailable this weekend, which resulted in the one-off outing, as Alleyne explains: “Wayne called me and we decided to team up. We will probably never get an opportunity like this again and we are both interested to combine our experience and see what happens! We are quite excited for Sunday and look forward to having a good day. The joke between us is that we always each want to finish ahead of the other - in this case, we will have to adjust the seat positions!”

The long-standing rivalry between these two has centered around ‘The June’, the first running of which in 1957 resulted in the establishment of the BRC. Clarke had already won it twice, as Navigator to Don Hunte in 1991 & ’93, before Alleyne’s first victory, navigating for Geoff Noel in 1996, to which he added two more, in 2003 & ’06 as Driver for wife Anna-Lee. Further success, with Chris Armstrong in 2000 & ’01, moved Clarke on to four June wins, drawing level with the then record-holders, his former Driver Hunte, Sean Gill, Andrew Mallalieu, and Richard Rose.

But Clarke broke the mold in 2010 with his fifth win (again with Armstrong), kick-starting an even more serious rivalry: Alleyne claimed consecutive victories in 2011, as Navigator to Trevor Manning, and 2012, early in what is now his established partnership with O’Neal, drawing level on five. Alleyne also won the second of his seven Champion Driver titles in 2011, the same year Clarke won the first of his back-to-back Champion Navigator crowns. Clarke moved ahead on the June Roll of Honour again in 2013, before Alleyne returned the compliment in 2014, bringing the two-level once again; since then, however, three further June triumphs have carried Alleyne to a new record total of nine.

With dropped scores taken into account, Alleyne is currently second in the Driver standings, four points behind Ryan Corbin (Corbins Catering Services/Mahogany Ridge Toyota Hilux), with Armstrong third, a further four points back. The Navigator standings are even more closely fought, with Corbin’s Navigator Dustin Edwards heading the table, two points ahead of Andrew Croney, who is, in turn, two points ahead of O’Neal. Despite missing the final round, Armstrong and O’Neal remain very much in the title chase, as the dropped-score rule will play its part in the year-end totals.

MudDogs Chairman Ricky Holder is looking forward to Sunday’s event: “First, a big hand for our long-term sponsor of the season’s last showdown, Nassco, back to support us for the 11th straight year. And it looks set to be a great event . . . the Championship remains undecided and I’m pleased to say we have eight participants this weekend who have not been out on a MudDogs event this year, some of them never. So, let’s hope this enthusiasm carries through into 2019.”

Sunday’s final Safari of the season has been set by Willie Hinds and Wayne Manning, who finished fourth in March and September this year in the Black Bess Group Suzuki Samurai. From the 7.30am start at Edgecumbe Plantation in St Philip, route 1 will lead crews towards the Lunch Halt at Chefette Charles Rowe Bridge, St George, at around 12.30pm; the afternoon route will be concentrated on the center of the island, heading for the Finish at the Country View Bar & Grill, Market Hill in the same parish, at 5.30pm.

There will be two Driver Challenges, affording crews their final chance to score points towards the Shelbury Construction Trophy. The first, at around 11.15am, will be at Hanson Hill Quarry, located on the left of Highway 5, just before South District village when heading east from the Bussa roundabout towards Boarded Hall; the second will be shortly after the Lunch Break, at about 1.30pm at Lower Estate Quarry.

Chefette MudDogs Safari Championship
Round 5 – November 11 – Nassco November Safari
Class B
1 Richard Hinkson/Kevin-Jon Manning (Windforce Tyres Suzuki Samurai)
2 Zeko Springer/Kerry Renne (Suzuki Vitara)
6 Dave Lowe/Vaughndeen Harper (Suzuki Vitara)
7 John Pinto/Adam Hunte (Structural Systems/Amsoil GMC Sonoma)
6 Kemar Walcott/Marlon Lavia (Suzuki Vitara)
12 Kai Prescod/Kristina Pinto (Ford Ranger)
13 Yosuf Patel/Musab Patel (Aquarius Faucets/ToolCraft/Goodyear Tyres Mitsubishi L200)

Class A
3 David Armstrong/Andrew Croney (Shelbury Construction Toyota Hilux)
4 Stephen Mayers/David Reece (Toyota Hilux)
5 Ryan Corbin/Dustin Edwards (Corbins Catering Services/Mahogany Ridge Toyota Hilux)
8 Dean Springer/Bridget Garity (Toyo Tires/Eastern Vet Clinic Ford Ranger)
10 Leslie Alleyne/Wayne Clarke (Simpson Motors/Shell Spirax/Shell Rimula/Maxxis Isuzu D-Max)
11 Christopher King/Warrick Eastmond (Nissan Frontier)
Chefette MudDogs Safari Championship
Points, after round 4 (with lowest score dropped)
Overall (Driver): 1st Corbin, 178 points; 2nd Alleyne, 174pts; 3rd Chris Armstrong (Toyota Hilux), 170pts; 4th Jean-Marc Cozier (Country View Bar/Market Hill Farms/Westside Security Services Honda Pioneer), 164pts; 5th Willie Hinds (Black Bess Group Suzuki Samurai), 158pts; 6th Damien Johnson (Dre Tuned Toyota Hilux), 152pts; 7th Mayers, 144pts; 8th Hinkson, 140pts; 9th Y Patel, 132pts; 10th J Pinto, 128pts; etc

(Navigator): 1st Edwards, 178 points; 2nd Andrew Croney (Country View Bar/Market Hill Farms/Westside Security Services Honda Pioneer), 176pts; 3rd Chris O'Neal (Simpson Motors/Shell Spirax/Shell Rimula/Maxxis Isuzu D-Max), 174pts; 4th Clarke (Toyota Hilux), 170pts; 5th Wayne Manning (Black Bess Group Suzuki Samurai), 158pts; 6th Justin Lynch (Dre Tuned Toyota Hilux), 152pts; 7th Reece, 144pts; 8th K-J Manning, 140pts; 9th Eastmond, 113pts; 10th Kirk Watkins (Toyota Land Cruiser), 111pts; etc

Class B (Driver): 1st Johnson, 178 points; 2nd Hinkson, 172pts; 3rd Y Patel, 170pts; 4th J Pinto, 166pts (Navigator): 1st Lynch, 178pts; 2nd K-J Manning, 172pts; 3rd Abdullah Patel (Aquarius Faucets/ToolCraft/Goodyear Tyres Mitsubishi L200), 113pts

For media information only. No regulatory value.

For further media information, robin@bradfax.com
Websites: www.barbadosrallyclub.com, www.muddogsbarbados.com