Hoad chases BimmaCup hat-trick this weekend

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Multiple BimmaCup Champion Chris Hoad faces strong challenges from home and overseas

this weekend (November 29/30) as he fights for a hat-trick of back-to-back local and

regional BimmaCup titles in two days of non-stop action at the Vaucluse Raceway.

While he currently leads the Westlake Tires BimmaCup BB standings by a comfortable

margin from Antigua’s Stewart Gordon, he trails fellow-Bajan Allan Kinch in the Tropical

Shipping BimmaCup Caribbean title chase by a handful of points. Also to be settled this

weekend is the BimmaCup BB Junior Championship, led by David-Anthony Balgobin.

The scheduled start time for Saturday’s head-to-head RallySprint competition is 1.00pm,

with Sunday’s Rallycross event, with up to six cars in each race, due to start at 10.00am.

There is free entry for spectators through the Pit Gate at the St Thomas facility, where

major track and infrastructure improvements have been ongoing for the past month; food

and drink will be on sale at the Pig & Likka Bar.

The 12-round Caribbean competition has so far had four points-scoring rounds each in

Antigua (RallySprint and Rallycross in February) and at the Martinique Rallye Tour in July.

Championship rules allow for four dropped scores out of 12, which has created a potential

five-way fight for the title this weekend.

Kinch, Hoad and third-placed Spencer Hutchinson have 109, 103 and 90 points respectively,

but once you knock off their lowest four scores so far, then all three fall behind Antiguan

brothers Stewart and Michael Gordon, a pair of fierce competitors, who shared the wins on

home soil in February. And that leaves a spread of just 12 points across the five, with a

maximum possible over the weekend of 76 – action!

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Hoad’s task in the Westlake Tires BimmaCup BB is less challenging, as he leads Stewart

Gordon by 28 points, with Junior points-leader David-Anthony Balgobin a further nine adrift

after 12 of 16 rounds, which started with the Motorsport Island Stages in March.

Cancellation of the Motoring Club Barbados Inc’s (MCBI) Rally of the Sun & Stars in

September means two rounds were lost, but championship rules allow that as a drop score,

which makes the calculations less complicated.

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its third year, the BimmaCup BB Junior Championship for drivers aged between 14

and 21 also has a drop-score rule: the highest eight of 10 scores count from qualifying and

racing at three RallySprint and two Rallycross events, all at VRW. Since Savio Walcott won

the inaugural title, the class has grown steadily and, while Walcott has moved on, last

year’s Champion Axel Goodridge and Balgobin are both back, the only two to have

contested all three seasons.

Balgobin has the upper hand coming into the finals, leading last year’s runner-up Callum

Kirton and Daniel Ullyett, a spread of 24 points across the three. If you drop their two

lowest scores, however, that closes to just 13 and moves Ullyett into second, which makes

the DU-CK Racing acronym work far better. While anything could happen this weekend, it

would take a major disaster for one of these three to see anyone else win the title.

Championship positions

Tropical Shipping BimmaCup Caribbean (after eight rounds): 1st Allan Kinch 109 points;

2nd Chris Hoad 103pts; 3rd Spencer Hutchinson 90pts; equal 4th Michael Gordon (ANT) &

Stewart Gordon (ANT) 70pts; etc

Westlake Tires BimmaCup BB (after 12 rounds): 1st Chris Hoad 154pts; 2nd Stewart

Gordon (ANT) 126pts; 3rd David-Anthony Balgobin 117pts; 4th Allan Kinch 94pts; 5th Greg

Cozier 73 pts; etc

BimmaCup BB Junior Championship (after six rounds): 1st David-Anthony Balgobin 111pts;

2nd Callum Kirton 92pts; 3rd Daniel Ullyett 87pts; 4th Jayden Thompson 44pts; 5th Axel

Goodridge 43pts; etc