Guyana sending tip-top 10

THE?GUYANA?Motor Racing & Sports Club (GMR&SC) is sending a ten-member team to contest the Digicel Williams Seaboard Marine International Race Meet at Bushy Park next weekend.
Andrew King and Paul Vieira will race in the second round of the 2012 Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC), facing competitors from hosts Barbados, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
Reigning CMRC motorcycle champion and Bushy Park lap record-holder Stephen “Rossi” Vieira will make his racing comeback after recovery from an accident in June. He spearheads a six-man team of Guyana’s leading superbike riders, while the country will also be represented in the CMRC Group 2 Championship.
Confirming the details of his club’s contingent, the largest in recent years, GMR&SC president John Carpenter said: “You can rest assured that our Guyana team of car and motorcycle racers will be competitive and provide thrills and excitement.”
Driving the GT&T Mazda RX-7, King has been Guyana’s most consistent performer in the current format of the CMRC. He is Guyana’s highest placed driver in the year end standings and finished second to multiple champion David Summerbell Jr. (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) in 2009.
The experienced King, who has been racing since the mid-1970s, is a regular visitor to Barbados and his best CMRC finish at Bushy Park is second in 2010.
Paul Vieira assumed the mantle of top two-wheel drive driver in 2010, his first season in the CMRC, when he finished third overall in his Carib Mazda RX-7 behind Summerbell and Guyana’s Kevin Jeffrey, also in an Evo VIII.
A former motorcycle racer, along with elder brother Mark, Paul Vieira moved to Canada, where he competed in circuit racing, sprints and road races before shipping the car home in 2009, when he won the GMR&SC Group 4 title. This will be his third visit to Bushy Park, where his best result is fourth, on his 2010 debut.
Guyana have two cars in the 1 600 class of CMRC Group 2. John Joseph, who finished all three races on his Bushy Park debut last year – two fourth places were his best returns – with his D&G Foreign Auto Honda Civic, and newcomer Mohamed Roshandin (Honda Civic Type R).
Superbike ace Stephen Vieira, cousin to CMRC Mazda racers Mark and Paul, has won a hat-trick of GMR&SC Superbike titles in the past three seasons, as well as his first CMRC title last year. This will be Vieira’s fourth visit to Bushy Park where he won two races on his debut in 2009 while claiming the motorcycle lap record (44.003s) in 2010.
He dominated with a hat-trick of wins last year on his way to the CMRC title, riding his Suzuki GSX-R600.  
In addition to Vieira and Joel Neblette, the Guyana superbike team also include Ricardo Fagundez (Kawasaki ZX600R) and Carey Griffith (Suzuki GSX-R750), both of whom have been Superbike B class winners at South Dakota this year; Carlos Rodrigues (Yamaha YZF-R6) and Maurice Meneze (Kawasaki ZX600R), who is the only one, apart from Vieira, to have raced in Barbados. On his previous visit, in 2009, he had two fourth-place finishes. (PR/EZS)