Guyana fields crack team for Williams Digicel International

 The current Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) points-leaders on two and four wheels, reigning Champion Driver Kristian Jeffrey and double Superbike Champion Stephen Vieira, are leading a strong Guyana Motor Racing & Sports Club (GMR&SC) team to the Williams Industries Digicel International Race Meet at Bushy Park Barbados next month (September 12/13).

  As the cream of the region's motor sport stars head into round three of the CMRC, Guyana is keen to erase its 79-point deficit to Trinidad & Tobago, which hosted round two at the Wallerfield Raceway in June; Jamaica is currently third, ahead of the Cayman Islands and Barbados. Guyana won the Country Championship last year for the third time in five years, with Jeffrey the first Guyanese racer of the modern era to win the Champion Driver title.

  Since 26-year-old Jeffrey made his CMRC debut in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII in last July's opening round in Barbados, where he claimed a hat-trick of wins, he has won nine of the 15 races run, finished on the podium in three more and currently holds the CMRC lap records at three of the four host circuits. He leads this year's title chase by 75 points from T&T Evo racers Kristian Boodoosingh and Gerard Carrington, who are tied in second place, and with whom he shared race wins at Wallerfield.

  His CMRC Group 4 team-mates next month include his father Kevin (Evo VIII), who lost the 2010 CMRC title chase to Jamaica's David Summerbell Jnr by just four points, the smallest margin in recent history, and subsequently finished second to Jamaican Doug Gore in 2013. After last year's final race on their home track, South Dakota, Kristian said: "I know my dad wanted to win this, so I'm dedicating this Championship to him."

  Mark Vieira (Mazda RX-8) and Danny Persaud, who also campaigns his turbocharged Toyota-powered Mazda Miata in Group 3, complete the GMR&SC Group 4 team. Two more drivers hope to make the trip, Rameez Mohammed, who has already scored points in Group 3, and newcomer to the CMRC Nizam Gafoor, who would appear in Group 2.

  Vieira, a regular visitor over the past decade, race-winner and former lap record holder at Old Bushy Park, has gained valuable experience of the new 2.01-kilometre layout this year, competing in the new-for-2015 Suzuki Challenge Series SR3 Cup at the wheel of a Suzuki-powered Radical SR3 RS open-topped sports car. He has already claimed one victory - the only driver so far to beat brothers Mark, Sean and Stuart Maloney to the top step of the podium - with a second and third, plus two fastest laps, also to his credit.

  At last year's July CMRC race meet, he qualified third, although second place in Race 2 was his only result, sandwiched between two retirements. He was also chosen, alongside Kristian Jeffrey, to represent Guyana in the inaugural ROC Caribbean at last December's Race Of Champions at Bushy Park.

  Persaud has been a CMRC regular since 2011, finishing second to Jeffrey last year, helping Guyana to its third Country Championship. With the introduction of Group 3, Persaud has the chance to campaign his Miata in two Groups, which he has done at both Jamwest and Wallerfield already this year - he currently lies third in Group 3, seventh in Group 4. Having qualified 11th at Bushy Park in 2014, he failed to start the first race, but finished seventh and fifth in the others.

  On two wheels, the five-strong squad is led by Stephen Vieira (Suzuki), who won the only CMRC titles yet contested back-to-back in 2011 & '12, a winner and lap record-holder at Old Bushy Park, also last July on the new layout. He and cousin Elliot Vieira (Kawasaki) shared the race wins in this year's opening round at Jamwest in March, where Kevin Persaud (Kawasaki) also scored points. Matthew (son of Mark) Vieira, on his recently acquired Triumph Daytona, and Joel Niblette (Yamaha) complete the team.

  Organised by Bushy Park Motor Sports Inc (BPMSI), the 23-race programme will also include rounds of the Suzuki Challenge Series SR3 Cup and Swift Cup and the Club 2015 Championship, a total of nearly 180 racing laps. Once the circuit sessions end each day, the Barbados Association of Dragsters & Drifters (BADD) will take to the 1/8th-mile drag strip and run into darkness to stage round three of Dragwarz 2015.

Williams Industries Digicel International Race Meet details:

Sunday, September 13 (gates and ticket booths open 7.00am): General Admission Bds $25; Clubhouse (food and drink on sale) Bds $50; VIP (food on sale, drinks free) Bds $125; children 12 and under are free. Hilti 4 x 4 Hammer Zone vehicle pass Bds $25, Cyclone 4 x 4 Zone vehicle pass Bds $40, plus General Admission pass for each occupant

Admission to Testing on Friday, September 11, and Practice and Qualifying (from 11.00am) on Saturday, September 12, is free