Lap kings taking on region

Article by Trevor Thorpe

PRESENT and past lap-record holders are in the Barbados team for the SeaBoard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championships (CMRC), the feature event of the Digicel Williams International race meet being staged by the Barbados Auto Racing League on August 28 and 29.The present holders are Roger “His Hotness” Mayers, who has the four-wheel drive title, and Stuart Williams, current holder of the two-wheel drive title, along with Mark Maloney and Barry Mayers, former two-wheel drive record holders. The team is completed by the experience Doug Maloney.Mayers, in the Chefette Restaurants/Delaware Dispensary/Illusion Graphics/Valvoline Ford Focus, is highly fancied in the race, having broken the lap record on his first visit to the South Dakota circuit in Guyana in November last year and finishing fourth in the season after two wins and a second place in Guyana.Mayers’ brother Barry, who will be in the Simpson Motors/Shell and V-Power/Chefette Suzuki SX4, finished behind Jamaica’s David Summerbell last year and will no doubt be out to do much better this year. He finished eighth overall last year.Williams, who drives the Williams Equipment Lotus Elise, has 67 race wins to his credit at Bushy Park since 2001, and finished third to Summerbell and Barry Mayers in the final race of last year’s CMRC fixture and is also one of the drivers on whom much is also expected against the competition.However, of the five drivers representing Barbados – the reigning CMRC country champions – only Mark Maloney, in the Rockstar Energy Drink/Royal Bank/Digicel/Valvoline Mazda RX-3, has scored any points this year.He is sixth with 16 points collected at the opening round of the CMRC at Dover Raceway in Jamaica in May. He will no doubt be looking to repeat his form of last year, when he scored two wins at Bushy Park that helped him to finish third in the year-end standings.It was the position held the previous season by his father Doug in the Paints Plus Audi A4 Quattro. Doug Maloney was also the only driver to score in every race in 2008.