By Stephan Sookram in Ohio, compliments of Ming’s Products and Services, Mohamed’s Enterprise and National Sports Commission

THE three-race weekend continued for Guyanese Calvin Ming in Ohio with another promising performance which brought him fifth from a 10th place start.

Yesterday morning’s early qualifying was filled with lap drama as positions were topsy-turvy on the last lap of the 20-minute session.

On newer rubber, than most of the pack, Ming was running fourth as the session winded down and when he pitted, he had all but secured his spot on the second row.

However, blistering sessions from his American team-mate Kaylen Frederick, Sweden’s Ramus Lindh and Brazilian Lucas Khol along with the rest of teams pushed him down.

Ming’s 1:21.3380 time was good enough for 10th in that session which saw the top 14 cars separated by just under tenths of a second with pole-sitter Frederick setting a time of 1:20.6447.

From the start, Ming was on the attack, using the outside of the track through turn four to gain the inside advantage through turn five. His teammate and pole-sitter Frederick missed the braking zone at turn 2 on the opening lap which pushed him to last and a few laps later, he crashed out at turn 4.

Ming, on the other hand, was clinical.

When he was close enough, he took the outside line on the fifth turn to get the inside of turn six, doing so twice including his move into fifth.

His exploits moved him five places in the 20-lap race which had significantly less yellow flags than yesterday, with Cape’s Kyle Kirkwood to take another win, Pabsts Khol to finish second and Igor Fraga to finish third. 

He told Chronicle Sport, “Today was good, passing-wise. I didn’t get where I wanted to be in qualifying but it meant that I had to push from the start in the race.”

“I found some grip on the outside (of turn five) since yesterday (Friday) and I just sent it (the pass). So all in all, a good drive today. Tomorrow (Sunday) is going to be another hard day.”

Ming starts 16th today after grid positions were decided based on the fastest lap of yesterday’s race. While stuck in traffic, he was unable to set a quick time. However, some of the back-markers used a safety car period to quickly pit for new rubber and were able to set solid race times which will allow them to start in the front of the pack.

Race time is 12:45hrs.