Seaboard Marine CMRC Round two…

By Stephan Sookram; complements of Mohamed’s Enterprise, AR Jiwanram Printery, E-Networks, Buy Me Auto Sales and TriniTuner.com

WHEN the dust settled on Sunday at the Frankie Boodhram International Raceway, Wallerfield this weekend, there were two men ahead of the competition by miles.

Mark Vieira and Matt Truelove came, saw and conquered round two of the Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championships Group 4 and superstock classes respectively.

Vieira was unstoppable on Saturday as he showed the Twin Island Republic what they were missing from that 20B powered RX8.

Many were astonished and left in awe, mostly due to the fact that he was able to outdrive even some of the all-wheel drive machines that had last year proven to be unbeatable.

His strategy was simple–stay ahead of the pack and use the sheer corner speed of his Mazda RX8; and he executed it with class.

It carried into the second race of the weekend on Sunday when he started on pole again and made use once again of the clear track ahead and the ability to control the race start from pole.

Race three, however, was different. In wet conditions, his RX8 was no match for the all-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Evolution of Christian Bourne, though that race only made it to six laps of the allotted twelve as the rain pelted down on the track and began flooding the corners, leading to a red flagged race.

When they came back out in the last race of the day, Vieira had a dry track and a full tank to work with and while he was beaten off the line by Bourne, the ‘Trini’ overshot the corner and allowed Vieira to slip by and into the lead.

Not that it mattered, since the race was red flagged for an incident on the very next lap where Jamaican, Doug Gore and Bourne came together in the first corner.

Vieira managed to get ahead of the carnage but another Guyanese, Andrew King was rear-ended by Jamaican, Jamie James, trying to avoid what had happened in front of him.

And while the officials have not determined the points outcome of that race, Vieira, with more wins than anyone else, having picked up the chequered flag twice, was crowned champion driver.

King was able to pick up third and fourth placed finishes.

Sharima Khan, who competed in the group one class, came onto the track despite having engine troubles throughout the weekend and while she did not manage the podium, the experience is what matters to her.

On the superstock end, Matt Truelove was classy to look at. His attention to precision and consistency in closing a seldom gap ahead of him made his work look like Picasso in full stroke. His passes were calculated, and while brute force and power could have done the job, he chose finesse over flare in getting the job done.

If there was a foot placed wrong for the entire weekend, it was the late start in the first race, due to the unfamiliarity with the lights which he later admitted.

Still, he managed to recover from that in three laps and used the remaining nine to hunt a lap record, something he did not manage to break until race two.

A blistering 39.983 seconds, which could have been better in race three had the track not been wet, causing the team to switch out to the wet tires.

Still, Truelove was never always in high spirits, thanking the team for a weekend of good work.

Matthew Vieira was able to pick up valuable country points after a dismal weekend which saw him crash twice.