All roads lead to South Dakota for CMRC final leg!

– Kristian Jeffery, Byrce Pince top qualifying rounds

By Akeem Greene

The South Dakota Circuit will be a hive of activity today as the nation’s top drivers and riders will go bumper to bumper to with their Caribbean and International counterparts as this year’s Caribbean Motor Racing Championships (CMRC) come to an end in grand style.

The race meet is expected to be the biggest in recent years in Guyana since not only the Caribbean’s best will battle the locals, the presence of American and British riders will be felt.

Though Guyana are defending champions, they have already surrendered their title to Trinidad and Tobago who have 1151 points while home side are in distant fourth on 358 points; Barbados are second with 504 and Jamaica third with 465 points.

The suspense in the thriller expected lies with the motor bikes since, it is a three-way battle between the Vieira’s.

Matthew currently leads the CMRC Super stock championship with 166 points and is closely followed by Stephen on 122 points while and defending Champion Elliot is in third on 93 points and all three riders have stated that they will be gunning for championship honours. Added to the intense family rivalry expected to the two international riders should make it even more riveting action.

Based on reports emanating from the qualifying rounds on Saturday, Moto America Champion and Team Mohammed’s Enterprise Byrce Prince qualified in P1 clocking 34.304 seconds mark while Elliot recorded a time of 34.590 in second. British rider Matt Truelove was deemed the fastest in the Super sport, though his time was not confirmed.

In the four-wheel drive action defending champion Kristian Jeffrey used his home turf advantage to clock 34.1 seconds and finish in P1 ahead of Jamaican’s Doug Gore Audi TTRS. Gore, who mathematically speaking has already won the championship, clocked a time of 34.4s ahead of Vishok Persaud 34.74s and Mark Maloney 34.87s.

Speaking after the run Jeffrey said, “I’m actually surprised I got pole yesterday, the conditions were bad. The track was very slippery while we ran. I had a lot of break issues and the engine seems to have some issues with low oil pressure. We have to rectify that.”

Meanwhile, Paul Vieira (36.105) will head the group three ahead of Danny Persaud (36.667) and Ravi Singh (36.755) with the battle for battle for the bragging rights still very much alive.

The other attractions on race-day should be local boy Shan Seejatan in quest for group two supremacy while speed queen Sharima Khan though starting at back of the grid should still pose a stiff challenge in group one.

The Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club (GMR&SC) executives stated that all systems are in place for the meet and spectators will be greeted with improved facilities and most importantly all the access road to the circuit have graded to improve access.

Race time is 08:00 hrs.