Eric Vieira remembered at GMR&SC ceremony
A lap of honour around the Cosmos raceway led by Stanley Ming. Also in photo is Victor Peres;current GMR&SC President Mahendra Bhoodoo  and former president Shiraz Roshandin,among others. (Adrian Narine Photo)
A lap of honour around the Cosmos raceway led by Stanley Ming. Also in photo is Victor Peres;current GMR&SC President Mahendra Bhoodoo and former president Shiraz Roshandin,among others. (Adrian Narine Photo)

SOME of the tributes were long, others were short. No one,however,were teary-eyed but rather filled with laughter on hearing stories of a steel-willed, kind-hearted man that loved motorsport.Those tributes were paid to Eric Vieira,a former president of the GMR&SC,who passed away last week in London but was remembered yesterday by friends during a memorial ceremony at Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club,Thomas Lands.
Longtime friend Kit Nascimento, who chaired the proceedings, remembered Eric Vieira as a man who was always determined to get what he wanted done.
“He hadn’t the slightest clue about sailing but he taught himself how to sail,” Nascimento reminded as he turned back the clock to Vieira’s early days of sailing; the memory of his first wooden boat still fresh within his mind.
Meanwhile, Stanley Ming shared his long memory of the Guyanese, speaking of those days in London when he and Eric worked in a mechanic shop.
“Eric and I joined together and started Technical Companies and Supplies Limited,” Ming recounted, a company which was devoted to the distribution of Yahama parts locally.
Pat Holder, also a former administrator and friend of Eric,recounted their weekly races to ‘Nationals’ on Robb Street, where the last person to arrive would usually have to pay the bill.
He remembered Vieira as a bit of a `daredevil’ recalling one particular story when they were on their way down from Timheri and Eric was struggling to liberate a piece of sugar cane from an estate truck; a struggle which almost cost him his life.
“Well I don’t know how he got out the cane before the car came but he did, otherwise we wouldn’t have been speaking here; we’d be speaking long ago,” Holder joked.
Giving the closing remarks was current President of the GMR&SC Mahendra Bhoodoo,who expressed that the sport has lost a giant but will continue to build on the works of Eric Vieira.

 

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