(By Stephan Sookram in Virginia, Compliments of Mings Products and Services, B.M. Soat, National Sports Commission, Buy Me Auto Sales and Coffee Bean Eatery).
GUYANESE driver,Calvin Ming ,on two occasions was narrowly beaten off the podium at the Virginia International Raceway (VIR), as the Formula 1600 series in the United States winds down.
Round 19 on Friday was the first of the three on this weekend,and Ming’s 1:59.288 was the fastest in the 30 practice sessions until the closing stages when Team K-hill Driver Peter Portante slotted in a 1:59.104 for pole.

The first race of the weekend,which took place at 18:00hrs on Friday,saw Ming’s teammates Phillipe Denes and Kaylen Fredericks,utilise the drafting technique to slingshot ahead from the word go, giving the Mygale/Honda team the top three positions for the first two laps.
However, Ming ran off in the first of the 17 corner track,quarter way through the race but recovered to resume in sixth.
“I made a little mistake off my own. I overshot the brake zone and then I went off. I had to recover from a 10- second gap which I managed to do just on the last lap,so I think that ended up good,” Ming told the media.
Spurred by his earlier error, Ming managed to catch the lead pack in just over six laps before driving pass Portante in a daring last lap move to finish fourth.
In the process, he set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:57.491,which was 2 seconds quicker than the rest of the field and seven hundredths of a second shy of the circuit record for that class (1:58.422). That lap also landed him pole for Race two yesterday.
K-Hill’s Neil Verhagen, who lead for the final three corners in the 15 lap-race,finished in first while Team Pelfrey’s Denes and Frederick made up the podium.
In Round 20 (race two of the weekend), Ming again fell prey to the drafting method, falling back to third before the safety car was deployed on lap five. On the restart, Fredericks suffered the same fate as Ming on the same corner of the first race.
A close battle between team mate’s Portante and Verhagen saw the latter finish six hundredths off the time, with Denes ending .085 seconds behind the leader and Ming a tenth of a second off.
“The race today [Saturday],I was just trying to find the right position in the last lap but unfortunately I got clipped right at the end of the race and they managed to overtake me.”
“The game plan is to be smart again, try to stay up in the lead pack. Try to minimise my mistakes and be in a good position going into the last lap to get a run for first place,” He added.
With that finish, Verhagen picked up the f1600 title with Portante (705) leading Denes (694) and Ming in the battle for second with 55 points up for grabs in the final race of the season.
Race three this morning will see Federick starting on pole,ahead of Portante, Ming, Verhagen, Ada and Denes in that order.