Skeete uses his local knowledge for glory
Local driver Dane Skeete won Rally Barbados for the second time in his career ahead of Josh Read and Britain’s Robert Swann.
Skeete, driving a Subaru Impreza S12B WRC, was embroiled in a three-way fight for honours against
Stuart Maloney and his nephew, Formula 3 racer Zane Maloney, in a pair of Skoda Fabia Rally2s.
It was Stuart Maloney who led after the first leg of nine stages, but Skeete hit the front on Sunday as his two rivals faltered. Zane was first to fall, messing up his line on approach to a sweeping left-hander and running off the road into a telegraph pole. Stuart was out by the very next stage, landing heavily on a compression and losing a wheel against a high kerb.
That eased the pressure on Skeete to romp home and claim his second win on the island, but behind him Frank Bird – contesting his first Rally Barbados – was a man on a mission. Slowed on the first day by two driveshaft failures, a lingering electrical problem and co-driver Jack Morton feeling rather unwell, the GT racer was down in ninth overnight.
But some epic pace on Sunday allowed him to climb all the way up to second spot by the end of the rally – or so he thought. Bird had gone OTL after stopping to fix a rear-right wheel sustained at the end of the stage (that he somehow managed to win) and was therefore not classified in the final results.
Swann, who was supposed to drive an Impreza S12B WRC but didn’t because its engine blew a week prior, brought his Fiesta Rally2 home in third overall ahead of Kevin Proctor who survived a hairy spin on the third-to-last stage. “I thought I was dead,” he said. “That’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me in rallying.”
Proctor had set himself a target to beat Andy Scott – joking that “there may as well be nobody else in the rally” – and he ultimately succeeded as Scott came home fifth. However it was close between the three Brits as Swann edged Proctor by just 1.3 seconds and Proctor beat Scott by 3s. Tom Preston was also in the top 10, placing his Fiesta ninth.