Competitors from across the region are making ready to head to the South Dakota circuit in Guyana for the final round of the Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) next weekend (November 14/15). The finale of the CMRC’s first four-round season promises to be hard-fought, with four of the five championship titles, on two and four wheels, going down to the wire.
Trinidad and Tobago leads the chase for the coveted Country Championship with 658 points; Barbados (533) moved into second place with a huge score of 441 when it hosted round three in September, while Guyana is third, only 22 points behind (511), with Jamaica (369) and the Cayman Islands (138) completing the table.
Reigning Group 4 Champion, Guyana’s Kristian Jeffrey, is already Champion-elect for a second year, while Group 3 leader, Cayman Islander Gary Barrett, has Paul Vieira, representing Trinidad & Tobago, right on his heels; Reigning Group 2 Champion Mark Thompson of Barbados is chasing current leader, T&T’s Marc Gill, while Guyanese cousins Stephen and Elliot Vieira will slug it out on two wheels for the Superstock title.
Since his CMRC debut at Bushy Park Barbados last July, Jeffrey (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX) has an unrivalled record in the series, with 11 race wins in 18 appearances, a total he will be keen to add to on home turf; even the new-for-2015 dropped scores rule cannot help T&T’s Kristian Boodoosingh (Evo VI), who is 82 points behind Jeffrey, which means that the 75 points earned for a hat-trick of wins would still not secure ‘Boodoostig’ a first title, even if Jeffrey failed to score at all.
Barrett (Honda Civic) is the only driver to have raced in all three rounds in Group 3, so the dropped score will affect him, too: he is currently 30 points ahead of T&T’s Vieira (Mazda RX-7) with 75 points on offer at South Dakota, while Guyana’s Danny Persaud (Mazda Miata) still has a slim mathematical chance, although it would take a day of major problems for the others to see him crowned.
Since the Group 2 Championship was introduced in 2010, every winner has been a member of Team Barbados . . . but that could change this year. Reigning Champion Mark Thompson (Civic), also the winner in 2012, is currently second to T&T’s Marc Gill (Civic), the only Gp2 driver to have raced at all three rounds. Consistency has been Gill’s strong suit – he is yet to win a race this year – which has given him a 60-point cushion to Thompson, so the Bajan will need to maximise his chances.
There is no doubt that the CMRC Superstock Championship will be won by one or other of Guyanese cousins Stephen and Elliot Vieira, the former currently the leader by 14 points and the only previous Champion (in 2011 & ‘12). The dropped score rule does not come in to play here, as there was no Superstock round at Wallerfield in June, but no other rider is even close to the Vieiras, who have won all six races between them, Stephen four to Elliot’s two, aboard Suzuki and Kawasaki respectively.
Source: Caribbean News Now
