Chefette MudDogs June Safari Makes History with Record-Breaking Performances and Youngest Crew Victory
Leslie Alleyne and Chris O’Neal make history at Chefette MudDogs June Safari with first hat-trick of victories. Youngest crew, Charles Clarke and Austin Barber, win Class B. Barbados Rally Club's oldest event.
Records were broken at the Chefette MudDogs June Safari last weekend (June 29/30). Leslie Alleyne and Chris O’Neal claimed the first hat-trick of victories in the 67-year history of the event, and did so by one of the smallest-ever margins, while the youngest crew to participate in decades, Charles Clarke and Austin Barber, won Class B.
‘The June’, as it is fondly known, is the longest-established motor sport event in the region with a continuous history, interrupted only by the pandemic in 2021, and honours the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) roots in navigational rallying; weeks after the first June Rally was run for road cars in 1957, the organisers and participants gathered to form the BRC, which is now the oldest organisation in the island devoted to a sport not played with a ball and the oldest motor sport club in the region still bearing its original name.
Alleyne and O’Neal incurred 1934 penalties in their POD Store/Maxxis/Lucky Locks Suzuki Jimny, beating Simon Parravicino and Andrew Croney (Realtors Ltd/Serenity Pest Control Jeep Wrangler) by a margin of just four points over the 10-hour, 130-kilometre event. Damien Johnson and Ben Moore (Moore & Moore Services/Maxxis Isuzu DMax) finished third with 2386, while 17-year-old Clarke and 16-year-old navigator Barber (Lubriguard/Gunk/First Step Security Mitsubishi Pajero) were confirmed as fourth overall on 2582 when results were declared at yesterday evening’s (Wednesday) Prizegiving at Savvy on the Bay, Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown.
Only once since the MudDogs Championship began 20 years ago, shifting the emphasis of The June to off-road events, has the margin of victory been recorded in single figures; Alleyne was also involved then, as navigator to Trevor Manning, when they beat Ryan Corbin and Dustin Edwards by seven points in 2011.
Now with 12 wins – two as navigator, 10 as driver – Alleyne sits atop The June’s Roll of Honour, which lists 74 winning drivers and navigators, with navigator O’Neal now adding an eighth victory to his cv. The pair also became the first crew to win The June three times back-to-back; before the weekend they had been tied on two consecutive wins with John Allamby/Michael Mahon (1972-73) and Garry Clarke/Don Hunte (1979-80).
After a weekend in which recent weather patterns had truly put the ‘Mud’ back into MudDogs, Alleyne said: “It is wonderful to see such close competition. Well done to the whole field for getting through a very trying event, which was made more difficult at night with some high average speeds and plenty of mud and rain!”
The event started from Chefette Speightstown, St Peter, at 4.00pm on Saturday. The first route, set by Willie Hinds, led crews through some scenic terrain in the northern parishes of St Lucy, St Andrew, St Peter and St Joseph to the Dinner Halt at Chefette Charles Rowe Bridge, St George, at 8.00pm. Parravicino and Croney were ahead with 252 penalties, compared with 366 for Johnson/Moore and 390 for Alleyne/O’Neal.
A combination of strong showers at the start of route two in St George and St John and one crew getting stuck in the Locust Hall gully set the event back by around half an hour, but the last crew still reached the finish at Chefette Six Roads, St Philip, at just after 1.15 on Sunday morning. The second route was set by Mike Ward, who won The June in 2016 as driver with Warrick Eastmond, who ironically was the only non-finisher this last weekend, navigating with son Jared in their Ford Ranger after being plagued with overheating for the entire event.
Clarke and Austin have navigational rallying in their blood: the former is the son of Wayne Clarke, who was winning navigator in The June six times between 1991 and 2013, while Austin’s grandmother ‘Biddy’ Barber’s association with the Rally Club dates back to the 1960s. Clarke was also competing against his sisters: Chelsea finished sixth, navigating for Alexander Gill (Isuzu D-Max), with Rebecca the family’s second driver, finishing eighth with Nynoka King in a Mitsubishi Pajero iO, the only all-female crew.
Surprised and delighted in equal measure by their Class B win, Clarke said: “During the event, we didn’t expect to do so well, especially in route one; we got about 100 metres from the start before we made a wrong turn. For the rest of the time, one minute we were feeling quite good and everything is working out how it should; next minute we were stopped on the side of the road as nothing seems to work out anymore.”
Alleyne added: “It is great to see the progress of the youngsters and the Class B crews in general, they all deserve congratulations, especially given the conditions. Charles and Austin were very consistent and showed great potential.”
1st Alleyne/O’Neal, 1544pens; 2nd Parravicino/Croney, 1686pens; 3rd C Clarke/Barber, 1832pens; 4th Johnson/Moore, 2020pens; 5th A Patel/B Patel, 2104pens; etc
Class B
1st C Clarke/Barber; 2nd A Patel/B Patel; 3rd Gill/C Clarke (F); 4th Mendes/Evanson (F); 5th R Clarke (F)/N King (F)
Route 1:
1st C Clarke/Barber, 750 pens; 2nd Mendes/Evanson (F), 1356pens; 3rd Gill/C Clarke (F), 1700pens; 4th R Clarke (F)/N King (F), 1762pens; 5th A Patel/B Patel, 1800pens
Route 2:
1st C Clarke/Barber, 1832pens; 2nd A Patel/B Patel, 2104pens; 3rd Gill/C Clarke (F), 2560pens; 4th Mendes/Evanson (F), 2998pens; 5th R Clarke (F)/N King (F), 3050pens
Chefette MudDogs Safari Championship – remaining rounds: Round 4 – Sep 15, KG Enterprises MudDogs September Safari; Round 5 – Nov 9, Savvy on the Bay MudDogs November Safari
