Stuart Maloney is the early leader of the 2022 BMF R5 Rally Championship, presented by First Citizens, after claiming maximum points in last month’s first three rounds – all speed events – in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo. Next weekend (April 23/24), the multi-discipline title fight continues, as competitors go drag racing on Saturday, then tackle their first rally of the season on Sunday.

The new championship’s fourth round will be hosted by the Barbados Association of Dragsters & Drifters (BADD) during its Versuz 2 event at Bushy Park, which is scheduled for 2.00pm to 6.00pm next Saturday (April 23). Each driver will have two qualifying runs, the better time deciding his position in the Knockout, which will be seeded fastest against slowest for each round; as the Knockout progresses to arrive at the winner, the semi-final losers will go head-to-head to settle third place, with the remaining positions decided on each driver’s best time.

On Sunday, the Barbados Rally Club (BRC) will be staging its Shakedown Double Header between Wilson Hill and Malvern in St John, with a scheduled start of 11.30 from Pool Plantation. There will be four runs in each direction, first from Malvern to Wilson Hill, then in the reverse after the lunch break allowing the stage crews to prepare for the change of direction. Although this is speed event, the BMF will be calculating it as a rally for the purposes of the R5 Championship, on cumulative times for the eight runs, rather than on the single fastest stage time in each direction.

Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF) Vice-President David Williams, who is also the R5 Rally Championship Manager, said: “Most of our drivers will be taking to the Bushy Park drag strip for the first time, so we are looking forward to seeing whether that shakes up the points. Since we launched the championship last month, there has been a real uptick in interest and it looks as though we’ll have some interesting announcements to make in the near future.”