SURINAMESE Oliver Tjn-Lip-Shie, Matthew Vieira and Kristian Jeffrey were the stars of the day at the Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club (GMR&SC) Race of Champions at the South Dakota Circuit. Tjn-Lip-Shie won all three Group 3 races while Vieira continued his dominance in the Superbike category, winning both races.
Reigning Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) title holder Kristian showed his father (Kevin) who is the real ‘Jeffrey’ when he took home the two Group 4 races in style.
Despite the weather forcing the cancellation of a few races, the crowd on hand yesterday were treated to a day of exciting racing as some of Guyana’s representatives on the CMRC circuit used the event to fine-tune their machines for next month’s leg in Barbados.
For Kristian, the day was meant to show his father that the track has accommodation for only one Jeffrey. Both father and son sit behind the wheels of Mitsubishi Evolution and drive out of the same camp, but the younger Jeffrey, the Caribbean Champion and 2015 CMRC points leader, was obviously a cut above his ‘old man’ and the other competitors in the Group 4 category.
In the first race, Kristian beat his father to second place and Mark Vieira was third. The other race wasn’t even close, and Kevin was only able to keep up for just three of the 15-lap race.
Over in the Group 3 category, the day belonged to the Surinamese who left his Guyanese counterparts in the dust.
It was supposed to be a showdown between Tjn-Lip-Shie and Danny Persaud in Group 3, but the Guyanese in his Mazda Miata was simply a tad slower than the ‘flying Dutchman’.
Tjn-Lip-Shie took the first race, finishing ahead of Ravi Singh and Adrian Fernandes then battled Persaud to take the second race ahead of the Miata.
Singh finished second in the third race after Persaud’s usually dependable Mazda developed some problems. Rameez Mohamed was third.
Meanwhile, over in the Superbikes, Matthew Vieira’s bike was in top form and the man in control was doing much better than the opposition.
His cousin Stephen, the local Valentino Rossi, was beaten into second place in two races, while Carlos Rodrigues copped third in the final Superbike race of the day.
The Group 2 category was a battle between Chet Singh and ‘wonder boy’ Ryan Rahaman. Singh won the first but Rahaman reversed the result in the other yesterday.