by CLIFTON HENRY PAUL "THE SURFER" BOURNE is on course to become the double-crown champion in the 2007 Barbados Rally Club (BRC) and the Motoring Club Barbados Incorporated (MCBI) racing season, barring no major problems for the remainder of the year. Last Sunday Bourne drove flawlessly to cement himself as clear favourite for both titles when he dismissed the opposition to take full points in the fourth consecutive Motoring Club PowerAde-sponsored event which came off on the Mapps to Stewart Hill, St John course. Last Sunday's event saw the largest field of competitors - 29 - begin the event after the usual very late start. Surely something can be done to avoid these late starts which are sometimes by as much as two hours. Bourne's victory was however made even easier after the mechanical problems encountered by Jamaican John "Penti" Powell and Roger Skeete robbed spectators of a more exciting finish. These were the two who posed the stiffest opposition to Bourne all season. Skeete, in a Ford Escort, and Powell, in a WRC Toyota Corolla, both developed mechanical problems during their first official qualifying run that kept them out of contention for the remainder of the event. It was all left up to Roger "The Ninja" Hill in his WRC Toyota GT4 Celica, nicknamed the "Tank", to see if he could have stopped the rampaging Bourne from his advance, but that was to no avail as Bourne's time of 1:55.87 seconds in group MC-M8 WRC was about three seconds faster than Hill who was clocked at one minute 58.97 seconds for second place overall. Third was Barry Gale in his Mitsubishi Evo V1 in a time of two minutes 91 seconds, Neil Armstrong in an Evo V1 was fourth in a time of two minutes, 1.75 seconds in group MC-M8 and in fifth place was Cliff Roett in a Toyota Starlet with a time of two minutes, 3.28 seconds in group MC-B10 to round off the top five. There were several other good performances from the lower groups. The young sensation Daryl Clarke in a Honda Civic was again in ripping form. Continuing from where he left off in the just concluded Barbados Auto Racing League Sol International race meet at Bushy Park, Clarke dominated group MC-M6 to take top honours beating second-placed Justin Campbell and third-placed Danny Williams by nine and 20 seconds respectively. Adrian Linton took the honours in group MC-M7. His time of two minutes, 08.23 seconds was over three seconds faster than second-placed Freddie Gale and third-placed John Corbin with 2: 1.99 and 2: 17.33 seconds respectively. Josh Reid took care of MC-B9 competitors with a fastest time of 2:10.49 seconds, Cliff Roett was back to his old form taking care of the Logan brothers by as many as 11 seconds between the two in group MC-B10. Jonathan Still in the M3 BMW got the better of Nicholas Gill in his Mazda 3 and Mark Hamilton in a Ford Escort.
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