By Emmerson Campbell
Local speed ace Mark Vieira powered his V power Mazda RX 8 to two Group 4 victories yesterday at the South Dakota Circuit. However, it was Jamaica’s David Summerbell Jr. who was crowned overall champion of this year’s Caribbean Motor Racing Championships.
Vieira had a great day at yesterday’s third leg of the championships, winning the first race, placing second in the second one after Summerbell was disqualified and emphatically stormed to victory in the last race to claim the Seaboard Marine title much to the delight of the largest crowd in South Dakota’s history (about 13,000fans).
After Vieira piloted his machine to claim the first Group 4 race, Kevin Jeffrey steered his machine to claim the second Group 4 event to set up a highly anticipated grand finale which was easily won by Vieira after Jeffrey lost control of his car after five laps.
After impressive showings in the first two legs in Jamaica and Barbados and his performances yesterday, Summerbell was crowned overall champion after he tallied a total of 61 points. Fellow Jamaican Peter Rae placed second overall on 46 points while Barbados’ Roger Mayers and Vieira placed third and fourth overall respectfully. Mayers earned 30 points while Vieira tallied 28.
Team Jamaica racked up 137 points and was crowned team champions followed by Guyana on 88 and Barbados on 74 points. The Cayman Islands tallied 37 points.
In an invited Summerbell said that he is proud of his nation and is extremely happy to be overall champion.
“I am extremely happy for Jamaica and the whole team and even the Guyanese guys, they have been so helpful to me, it is always great to be the champion but this one in particular has been a long one in coming, last year we were leading the championships coming to Guyana and we still didn’t win but it is always nice coming to Guyana and it is even better when you win.”
Meanwhile, Steven Vieira repeated as the Superbike champion.
In other results, Barbados’ Mark Thompson was the Group Two overall winner while Stanley Ming Jr. took the top honours in the Go Kart events.
Sponsors for the event included GT&T, Banks DIH Limited, Seaboard Marines, Automotive Art, Jiffy Lubes Sales and Services, Guyoil/ Castrol, Hand in Hand Group and others.
President Donald Ramotar as well as Prime Minister Samuel Hinds was in attendance.
