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Former Caribbean Motor Racing Champion Stuart Maloney made a triumphant return to the Seaboard Marine-sponsored CMRC at South Dakota in Guyana on Sunday (November 16) . . . but even a race win and second place could not help Team Barbados secure the Country Championship, which was won for the third time in five years by Guyana.
Although he had a troubled race day, Mark Thompson won his second CMRC Group 2 title in three years – maintaining the island’s 100 per cent record of Champions since 2010 – while former Champion Kenrick Husbands was a Group 2 race-winner and biker Terrance Ollivierre narrowly missed his first win in Guyana, ending the day with one third and three second-place finishes.
After Qualifying was abandoned, the Guyana Motor Racing & Sports Club (GMR&SC) settled the grid for the first CMRC race of the day by ballot, which lucked Jamaica’s multiple CMRC Champion David Summerbell Jnr (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) into pole position in his first CMRC outing of the year. He shared the front row with Paul Vieira (Mazda RX-7), the former Guyana Group Champion racing for Trinidad & Tobago, with Championship leader Kristian Jeffrey (Evo IX) of Guyana on row two, alongside Jamaica’s Peter Rae (RX-7), with Maloney in his father’s Paints Plus/Maloney Racing Audi A4 quattro and Guyana’s Danny Persaud (Mazda Miata) on row three.
After an unsatisfactory rolling start, which was red-flagged, the restart was also soon stopped, following an incident at Turn One which eliminated Rae and Guyana’s Kevin Jeffrey (Evo IX), with Persaud also a casualty. Shortly after the second restart, Summerbell was side-lined by mechanical issues, depriving the massive crowd of a battle of the former Champions.
At the chequered flag, home-town boy Jeffrey claimed his fourth CMRC win of the year by more than seven seconds from Maloney, who had spent the first couple of laps shaking off the attentions of Guyana’s Mark Vieira (RX-8), with Vieira’s brother Paul fourth and Maloney’s brother Mark (Digicel/RBC/Valvoline/Maloney Racing Mazda RX-3) fifth. With the field already diminishing, Guyana’s Andrew King (RX-7) was sixth and Trinidad’s Kristian Boodoosingh (Evo 6.5) the only other finisher.
The second CMRC race was combined with the local Group 4 category, which saw Trinidad’s Gerard Carrington (Evo VIII) mixing it with Jeffrey and Maloney, with some stunning action in the first couple of laps; Jeffery was the early leader, Carrington right with Maloney, but the 2008 Champion moved ahead on lap three and stayed there to the finish. Carrington was close behind, winning local Group 4 - his car was underweight for CMRC – with Jeffrey, Paul Vieira and Andrew King completing the CMRC field.
By race three, just six cars remained. Jeffrey and Maloney rocketed off the rolling start, locked in battle wheel-to-wheel, until the start of lap four, when a close encounter at the Clubhouse Turn saw Maloney off in the gravel trap and Jeffrey alone at the front, on his way to the 2014 CMRC title. A superb battle for second place ensued between Mark Maloney and Trinidad’s ‘BoodooStig’, who eased past the more experienced driver two laps from home to cement an impressive day for the youngster in the region’s top rank.
With the Country Championship points calculated by combining Group 4 and Group 2 results, each category carries equal importance, and Team Barbados looked strong from the outset. Points leader and 2012 Champion Mark Thompson (Stag Beer/Automotive Art/Glassesco Hardware/NKM Clothing/Bio-Beauty Day Spa/Local Speed Honda Civic) would need a hugely unsuccessful weekend not to claim a second title in three years . . . and so he did, although third place in race one (suffering from a misfire) earned his only points of the day, on-track incidents ruining the other encounters.
Kenrick Husbands (Williams Equipment/Hilti/NP Oils/Ultra Lubricants/Big Gasses Toyota Starlet) was the highest points-scorer for Team Barbados over the weekend; fifth, with fastest lap, in race 1, he was a dominant winner in race 2, then lost out by just three-tenths of a second to Guyana’s Shairaz Roshandin (Honda Civic) in race 3.
Teenager Tremaine Forde-Catwell (Daihatsu Charmant) made an impressive debut for Team Barbados, finishing all three CMRC Group 2 races (eighth, ninth, seventh) and finishing sixth in a local Group 2 race. Kurt Thompson (Monster Energy Drink/Glassesco Hardware/Beacon Insurance/NKM Clothing/Bio-Beauty Day Spa Honda CRX), finished first and second in local Group 3 races, while Quincy Jones (Structural Systems/Castrol/R & F Delivery Services/Creative Designs & Finishes Starlet), Steve King (Automotive Art/Valvoline/Percy King Auto Parts Starlet) and Thompson’s brother Neil (Stag Beer/Automotive Art/Glassesco Hardware/NKM Clothing/Bio-Beauty Day Spa/Local Speed Civic) all collected valuable Country Championship points.
On two wheels, Terrance Ollivierre (Percy King Auto Spares/Belleville Auto Spares Suzuki GSX-R600) finished third once and second three times against some acknowledged South Dakota experts, while Devan McCartney (Zephirin’s Bakery/Belleville Auto Spares Suzuki GSX-R600) claimed a best result of sixth.
For media information only. No regulatory value
For further media information: e-mail secretary@bushyparkmotorsportsinc.com
Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championship
Round 3, South Dakota, Guyana - results
Seaboard Marine CMRC - race 1: 1st Kristian Jeffrey (GUY), Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX; 2nd Stuart Maloney (BAR), Audi A4 quattro; 3rd Mark Vieira (GUY), Mazda RX-8; 4th Paul Vieira (TRI), Mazda RX-7; 5th Mark Maloney (BAR), Mazda RX-3; 6th Andrew King (GUY), Mazda RX-7; 7th Kristian Boodoosingh (TRI), Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6.5; no other finishers
Race 2: 1st S Maloney; 2nd Jeffrey; 3rd P Vieira; 4th King; no other finishers Race 3: 1st Jeffrey; 2nd Boodoosingh; 3rd M Maloney; no other finishers
Seaboard Marine
CMRC Group 2 - race 1: 1st Shairaz Roshandin (GUY), Honda Civic; 2nd Shan Seejattan (GUY), Honda Civic; 3rd Mark Thompson (BAR), Honda Civic; 4th Chet Singh (GUY), Honda Civic; 5th Kenrick Husbands (BAR), Toyota Starlet; 6th Steve King (BAR), Toyota Starlet; 7th Marc Gill (TRI), Honda Civic; 8th Tremaine Forde-Catwell (BAR), Daihatsu Charmant; 9th Quincy Jones (BAR), Toyota Starlet; 10th Keeron Rodrigues (GUY), Honda CRX; 11th Roderick Amar (TRI), Honda Civic; 12th Neil Thompson (BAR), Honda Civic; 13th John Joseph (GUY), Honda Civic; no other finishers
Race 2: 1st Husbands; 2nd Singh; 3rd Roshandin; 4th Seejattan; 5th King; 6th N Thompson; 7th Gill; 8th Haresh Nanan (TRI), Nissan Sentra; 9th Forde-Catwell; 10th Amar; 11th Mootie Maharaj (TRI), Honda Civic; 12th Jones; no other finishers Race 3: 1st Roshandin; 2nd Husbands; 3rd Seejattan; 4th N Thompson; 5th Gill; 6th Nanan; 7th Forde-Catwell; 8th Rainier Amar (TRI), Honda Civic; 9th Joe Mohan (GUY), Toyota Levin; 10th Maharaj; DQ M Thompson; no other finishers
Championship – Group 4: 1st Jeffrey 153 points; 2nd Danny Persaud (GUY), Mazda Miata, 74pts; 3rd P Vieira 70pts; 4th equal M Maloney & S Maloney 43pts; 6th Stuart Williams (BAR), Lotus Elise, 33pts; etc
Championship – Group 2: 1st M Thompson 133pts; 2nd Roshandin 111pts; 3rd Gill 73pts; 4th Kyle Gregg (JAM), Honda Civic, 68pts; 5th Singh 58pts; equal 6th Yazid Ali (TRI), Honda Civic & Husbands, 53pts; etc
Championship - Country: 1st Guyana 541pts; 2nd Barbados 482pts; 3rd Trinidad & Tobago 400pts; 4th Jamaica 151pts
For media information only. No regulatory value
For further media information: e-mail secretary@bushyparkmotorsportsinc.com
