T&T has successfully scored a hat-trick by securing a third consecutive overall win at the Caribbean Motor Racing Championship, having also won in 2016 and 2017.
The results were confirmed and ratified at an official presentation ceremony in Georgetown, Guyana on Monday night. Overall, T&T scores 1,359 and retained the country title for cars, winning ahead of Barbados (723), Guyana (579), Jamaica (548), Antigua (205), CAMS (116) and Cayman Islands (32).
T&T’s Kristian Boodoosingh was the driver to beat when qualifying concluded on Saturday, but when the lights went out- it was Guyana’s Danny Persaud who made it to the first corner with Boodoosingh in hot pursuit.
With nowhere to go and space closing-in fast, Boodoosingh made contact with Persaud and managed to control the car but Persaud spun out. From then on there was no challenge for Boodoosingh, taking the checkered flag six seconds ahead of fellow countryman Ronald Wortman. Persaud recovered to third.
Race two saw three cars start and the result was the same for Boodoosingh and Wortman but this time Guyana’s Vishok Persaud took third.
With the consistent performance, Wortman snagged the CMRC 2018 Gp3 title, one he has been working very hard towards for the past three years.
Race three was a merged fixture between Gp3 and Gp4. Only Wortman and Boodoosingh made it to the start line for their group but mechanical issues with the Spartan Civic forced the latter out, leaving the win to Wortman.
On to Gp4 and the problems for the Audi TT meant that T&T Automobile Sports Association (TTASA) president Fyzool Madan missed out on a race one position before battling back to sixth in race two and then fourth in race three.
Andrew King had won the earlier two races over Guyana’s Rupie Sewjattan, Mark Vieira, CAMS' Quinian Lall, Barbados’ Mark Maloney and Guyana’s Kevin Jeffrey Sewjattan.
Under fading light, the Gp4 title was to be decided between King and Vieira and it was not without drama. A false start by Maloney after entering on the formation lap threw the whole race into doubt and with light fading fast, officials were forced to let it continue. And while Maloney crossed the line ahead of King, he was hit with a 10-second penalty for the infraction, leaving King to have a perfect day and snag unofficially, the Gp4 title up to that point.
Gp2 was supposed to be an easy battle for Marc Gill but it was anything but. Mechanical troubles for the first race meant that he would have to wait for another race to cement that elusive Gp2 title. Gill only lasted two laps before those issues arose. That left Guyana’s Shan Seejattan leading the way to the chequered flag ahead of countryman Chet Singh, Kurt Thompson of Barbados and CAMS Kemal Rahaman.
Race two from the get-go was a nifty fight between Seejattan and Chet Singh early but that faded away; Chet later coming together with Mark Thompson. Mark initially finishing second and his brother Kurt finishing third. However, a three-grid penalty for the incident with Singh meant that Thompson moved up to second, Gill third and Guyana’s Marcel Proffit fourth.
Gill needed seven points to win that championship and the third-place finish he picked up meant that he scored 15 points to become this year's Gp2 champion.
Race three had all the writings of a no-holds-barred battle between the Guyanese, the "Trinis" and Barbadians but a first corner ‘force-out’ on Gill by Mark Thompson ended the race prematurely; though they could not stop Seejattan from making it a perfect day.
In the end, Thompson was disqualified from that race. And while the SR3 Radicals were the biggest crowd pullers of the day, things were not as smooth as they needed to be for those from the twin-island republic.
A pair of wins for the Guyanese Calvin Ming and another for Kristian Jeffrey meant maximum points for the title contender, T&T’s Isa Dean was snapped up.
While race one was decided on the qualifying time, Dean had a tough time getting used to the slipperiness of the track which saw him finish an uncharacteristic eighth. Fellow drivers Boodoosingh and Luke Bhola finished sixth and seventh respectively with Vieira fifth, Sean Maloney fourth, Mark Maloney third, Jeffrey second and Ming first.
Race two was determined by an inverted grid of the driver’s qualifying time which meant that the "Trinis" now started ahead of the pack.
And while Isa drove well, contact with one of the competitors, in turn, one meant damage to his SR3, leading to him being black-flagged/Meatballed 13 laps in.
Jeffrey finished ahead of Ming, with Boodoosingh finishing on the podium, Bhola fourth and Sean Maloney, fifth. Race three had Boodoosingh finish just outside the podium with Ming and Jeffrey finishing 1-2 and Mark Maloney third. With that, Maloney is set to be named the first SR3 Caribbean Radical Cup champion. Dean finished ninth and Bhola eighth.
Since there were no Gp1 or Gp5 races run, Aqeeb Ali is the Gp1 champion with Maloney the champion for Gp5. The Superstock end of things is expected to be picked up by Matthew Truelove of Team Mohamed’s Enterprise.