Reggae Racers off to Guyana for CMRC final leg
UPBEAT and eager, Jamaica’s Reggae Racers left on Wednesday for the final leg of the 2011 Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) to be held in Guyana on Sunday.
Barbados is the current leader of the country championship after two legs (Jamaica and Barbados) with Jamaica in second place.
However, Jamaica’s ace driver, ‘King’ David Summerbell is leading the pack in the CMRC Driver-of-the-Year title race some 13 points ahead of second-place Barbados’ Mark Maloney.
Summerbell, Wednesday, was optimistic about his chances of winning the drivers championship despite a spectacular crash that damaged his Evolution 8 on Heroes Day, the last race day on the local calendar.
“Our chances are good once the car holds up, which is the only if at this point, because of the incident in Jamaica and how quickly we had to put it back together,” Summerbell said.
“The team is all behind us, in fact, Stewart’s Auto Sales provided extra hands to come down to Guyana to help us which we are very appreciated of. Definitely positive, it looks good,” he added.
Jamaica Race Drivers’ Club (JRDC) president Hilary Jardine, who left with the team, was also confident about Summerbell’s chance of winning the individual championship, but held little hope for Jamaica taking the country title.
“I have no doubt [about] the driver championship, we have a good chance of winning that because 44 points over 31 points is a lot,” Jardine said before boarding the flight for Guyana.
“Of course even if David (Summerbell) does not win a race and he gets three thirds, no one can beat him,” Jardine added.
“If Mark Maloney should win all three races he will be at 61 points opposed to David’s 62, so we have a very good chance of David coming out on top,” Jardine concluded.
However, in the country championship Jamaica will be hard-pressed to take the title over Barbados.
Barbados is leading with 102 points to Jamaica’s 66 points and will have as many as five cars competing to Jamaica’s three cars.
“Guyana should also have several cars more than we do,” said Jardine. “I can’t see us winning at all, this is going to be one of the times when we are going to lose the country title.”
Accompanying Summerbell, Peter ‘Zoom Zoom’ Rae and Andre Anderson will also compete in the final leg of the drivers and country championships.
Meanwhile, Jamaica’s number one motorcyclist and lap record holder Stefan Chin, along with local nemeses Adrian Blake and Halquin Rodney are scheduled to compete in the motorcycle races for championship honours.
“I am feeling pretty good right now,” Chin said Wednesday.
“Steven Viera, the local champion for Guyana, is gonna give me a good competition and I am feeling strong to go out there on Sunday. Hopefully I get some good practice tomorrow and Friday and am really feeling good,” he added. “Hopefully the weather holds up though, the weather has been really bad over there with rain but I have rain tyres too so I am prepared to be racing.”
And although not vying for a place in the CMRC, Doug ‘Hollywood’ Gore and his Audi TT DTM is expected to compete in a special race Sunday.
All the cars and motorcycles were shipped previously and should have been made available to the drivers and riders from yesterday for testing and final preparation ahead of Saturday’s qualifying day and Sunday’s race day.