Despite finishing second on Saturday with mum Robyn as Navigator, Charles Clarke lost the Class B Champion Driver title to a tie-break with George Mendes, while his sister Chelsea navigated Alexander Gill to third overall.

Tie-breaks needed to settle MudDogs Championship

Tie-breaks needed to settle MudDogs Championship

Despite finishing second on Saturday with mum Robyn as Navigator, Charles Clarke lost the Class B Champion Driver title to a tie-break with George Mendes, while his sister Chelsea navigated Alexander Gill to third overall.

Heavy rain last Friday night created ideal conditions to test the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) off-road 4×4 navigational fraternity in the final round of the Chefette MudDogs Safari Championship, while close competition season-long required the tie-break rules to settle the final standings.

Victory for father and son crew Stephen and Ben Moore in Saturday's (November 9) Savvy on the Bay November Safari clinched the 2024 Champion Navigator title for Ben, while Simon Parravicino, who missed the weekend's finale, is Champion Driver.
Victory for father and son crew Stephen and Ben Moore in Saturday’s (November 9) Savvy on the Bay November Safari clinched the 2024 Champion Navigator title for Ben, while Simon Parravicino, who missed the weekend’s finale, is Champion Driver.

In an impressive showing, two of the less experienced crews from Class B completed the overall podium. Despite finishing second on Saturday with mum Robyn as Navigator, Charles Clarke lost the Class B Champion Driver title to a tie-break with George Mendes, while his sister Chelsea navigated Alexander Gill to third overall. Leslie Evanson, who has partnered Mendes all season, is Class B Champion Navigator.

The event started at 2.01pm from Country View Bar, Market Hill, St George, with Ben Norris and Kirk Watkins (Jeep Rubicon) ahead by 22 penalty points at the end of route one, which took crews across some very muddy terrain in the centre of the island back to the starting point around four hours later. Winning Class B, Gill and Chelsea Clarke (Isuzu D-Max) were second overall, eight points ahead of the Moores in a similar truck.

Despite finishing second on Saturday with mum Robyn as Navigator, Charles Clarke lost the Class B Champion Driver title to a tie-break with George Mendes, while his sister Chelsea navigated Alexander Gill to third overall.
Despite finishing second on Saturday with mum Robyn as Navigator, Charles Clarke lost the Class B Champion Driver title to a tie-break with George Mendes, while his sister Chelsea navigated Alexander Gill to third overall.

The first route claimed a big scalp, when multiple champions Leslie Alleyne and Chris O’Neal, winners of the year’s first three Safaris hit big trouble in their Suzuki Jimny, as Alleyne recounts: “In the very first cart road, we realised we had no 4wd and got stuck. After being pulled out, we spent about 40 minutes re-routing some vacuum lines to engage the front hubs. We then had permanent 4wd and off we went. We gave it our all but incurred some 900 penalties for missed controls while we were fixing the 4wd. We still had a ball and thoroughly enjoyed the mud!”

As Ben Moore explains, the second route was somewhat easier, running south-east, then east, to finish at event sponsor Savvy on the Bay premises at around midnight: “The night route wasn’t as muddy, with more solid cart roads, and we had sorted our tyre pressures after struggling a bit with some of the hills earlier. It was a very interesting and fun event, a good way to finish the season.”

With their Jimny fixed, Alleyne and O’Neal won the second route, but only by a narrow margin of six points from Charles and Robyn Clarke, who took their turn as Class B winners in the family’s Mitsubishi Shogun, with the consistent Moores third again.

After the declaration of results and Prizegiving at Savvy on the Bay last evening (Tuesday), MudDogs Chairman Ricky Holder, who had set Saturday’s event with John Pinto and Mike Ward, said: “From all accounts, everyone seems to have enjoyed the event, with lots of mud making it very challenging. Thanks to Savvy on the Bay for sponsoring the final, our Championship sponsor Chefette and All Terrain and KG Enterprises for supporting the earlier rounds. Finally, a big thank-you from all our competitors to our marshals, who have worked in some very tricky conditions.”

Although they missed the final, Parravicino and navigator Andrew Croney were front-runners all year in their Jeep Wrangler; third in May, second in April and June, then winners in September, they scored 232 points, giving Parravicino the driver’s title. Alleyne and Stephen Moore scored 228 each, the former getting the nod in the tie-break for second place, based on the number of penalties incurred in common events. In the navigator standings, Ben Moore scored 234, with Croney on 232 and O’Neal on 228.

Tied on 236 points in the Class B driver standings, Mendes (Suzuki Vitara) prevailed over Charles Clarke with fewer penalties in common events, while Clarke’s sister Rebecca (Mitsubishi Pajero iO) finished third on 218, the only other driver to have completed the four events required to qualify for end-of-season position. In the navigator table, Evanson finished on 236, with Robyn Clarke and Nynoka King second and third on 232 and 210 points respectively.

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