Panton’s challenges for SOL Rally Barbados 2020

Despite winning Sol Rally Barbados four times in the last five years, Jamaica’s Jeff Panton is approaching this year’s 31st running of the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) premier event in a less than confident mood. In a year in which coronavirus has created unprecedented global upheaval, the continuing social distancing and travel restrictions under Covid-19 protocols mean planning for the event has been anything but simple.

Following its postponement as a result of the pandemic, the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) premier event will now run over the weekend of October 31/November 1, with the Prizegiving on the Sunday evening. The previous Saturday, Bushy Park will host Scrutineering, while King of the Hill on the Sunday will return to Stewarts Hill, running on a similar course to last year and once again the basis for seeding the main event.

Panton, Mayers set for return of closed-road action

Motor sport fans across the island are promised a bumper weekend of action when closed road events return for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March. The non-championship Barbados Rally Club (BRC) Test Stage in St Peter on Saturday, August 22, will be followed on the Sunday by the Motoring Club of Barbados Inc’s (MCBI) ‘Hammer Time 20’ in St John, shared for the first championship points of the season by members of both clubs.

With entries already open at Motorsport Services – most drivers so far have registered for both events – a quality entry is being assembled, including Jamaican Jeff Panton and Barry Mayers, both competing in the island for the first time since retiring from Sol Rally Barbados 2019. Now fully recovered from the accident he and co-driver Mike Fennell Jnr suffered in his hugely-successful Ford Focus WRC, five-time winner of the island’s premier event Panton will debut his recently-acquired Ford Fiesta WRC, in which Britain’s Damian Cole claimed the sixth of his UK Tarmac Championship titles in 2016.

Duckworth confirms SOL Rally Barbados return

Former UK National Rally Champion Roger Duckworth, a podium finisher on his last two visits to Sol Rally Barbados, has confirmed he will return for the ninth time for Sol RB20 (May 29-31), although he will miss the previous Sunday’s Flow King of the Hill. He and co-driver Mark Broomfield kicked off their 30th season as a rallying partnership at Cadwell Park in the east of England last Sunday (February 2), when they finished 10th in the TJS Self Drive Alan Healy Memorial Stages.

Panton & Fennell’s foruth Flow King of the Hill

Jamaica’s Jeff Panton and Mike Fennell re-wrote the record books again yesterday (Sunday) with their fourth straight victory in Flow King of the Hill, the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) annual Sol Rally Barbados shakedown. Having trailed England’s Rob Swann for the first three runs, Panton made the final run count, to win by a margin of 12 hundredths of a second in the Rubis/Sandals Barbados/KIG Ford Focus WRC06.

With the car undergoing a total rebuild, Panton has seen no action since last year, as he explained at the finish: “The times today reflect how much I had to catch back up. All day I really thought Rob had it, right up to the last run when we put on a set of fresh tyres and just went for it. To come out on top is a major confidence boost for next weekend, when we need to be driving more like we did in the last run.”

Panton ready for ‘Amazing’ SOL Rally Barbados

Four-time winner of the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) blue riband event, Jamaica’s Jeff Panton today (April 12) confirmed his participation in Sol Rally Barbados 2018, after a successful return to island competition last weekend. The Club’s 2017 Champion Driver is looking forward to “another amazing Rally Barbados” and taking on whatever the opposition can offer, following his hat-trick of victories since 2015.

Sol RB18 will run from Friday to Sunday, June 1-3, with The Rally Show and Flow King of the Hill (KotH) the previous weekend, May 26/27. With the entry closing date just two weeks away, more than 70 crews are now shown in the on-line entry list on the official web site, rallybarbados.net. Rally Trinidad 2018 winner Ryan Pinheiro is also confirmed today, along with UK newcomer Geoff Phelps, boosting the 4wd entry to 22.