The race that should not have been run

Four of the Caribbean Motor Racing Championship cars (from right) Roger Mayers, Barry Mayers, David Summerbell and partially hidden is Stuart Williams

Have you even taken a drive in the middle of the night without any head lights on?

How about taking that same drive as fast as you can on a dark stretch of road?

Sounds dangerous and like complete madness, doesn't it?

Well that is just what the top group of the Caribbean Motor Racing Championship series did when the second round was held at the Bushy Park Racing Circuit in Barbados a few weeks ago.

The first round of the series was held at Dover Jamaica and the second round in Barbados, while the third and final round will be held in Guyana.

With each round hosting three races, it was the third and final race of this group which left many spectators and drivers with their mouth wide open and shaking with fear.

The sun was quickly fading, and the organisers failed to move up the feature races of their international race meet, but instead stuck to the original script and under the cover of darkness the highly modified cars started their engines.

Some of the car cost in the region of quarter million dollars, and everyone except the organisers were left in shock as the Caribbean’s top cars and drivers took to the track for this daring race.

None of the cars are fitted with head lights as they are built for circuit racing during the daylight hours and the Bushy Park track did not have any lights around it either.

One of the committee members for BARL Kurt Seabra said I caught up with him that “it is a bit of an oversight that we did not squash some other races and get the CMRC races in.”

“We ran late nothing due to our fault but every thing was late, getting the cars and I think we did a fantastic job to get where we did at this race meet.

“We were going along all the time and thinking that we would get the races in and get them in by 6:30 p.m. which is fine but it didn’t turn out that way.

“I think the (Countries) representatives (for CMRC) who none were up in the tower for this particular race including myself need to sit tomorrow morning to review this and see if we hold the race and or we just squash.”

Guyana's Mark Vieira found his Mazda beached on top of the tyre barriers

Championship leader David Summerbell Jr from Jamaica was visibly shaken afterwards and had to be stopped as he drove his Time Attack Mitsubishi Evolution down the wrong direction of the pit after the race.

jamaica's David Summerbell Jr

His mechanic raced to his aid and took over the driving duties. As I caught up with the shaking and sweating Summerbell he said “That was a really big mistake on BARL (Barbados Auto Racing League) and the organisers here, it ran too long and we ended up running in the dark. We couldn’t see it was very dangerous.” 

“I am still shaken but I am still glad that everyone has come out unscathed but let that be a lesson, you can’t make that mistake again and none of us in the Caribbean can ever let that happen.”

Long before the race had been started there were a number calls from drivers for a change in the schedule which would have allowed the CMRC races that included Group 2, motorcycles and the top modified classes to all move up the order in an effort to ensure they were completed as the feature races at the race meet.

But the schedule was kept and despite the many calls the last CMRC race had to wait as the light faded quickly in the eastern parish of Barbados.

It was well after 6 p.m. when the cars took to the track and veteran driver, Andrew King from Guyana, who has been coming to Barbados for many years said that the conditions were really bad and it was too dark to start a race.

“ I hope the organisers don’t take this to be a criticism, but had we as team Guyana or myself as I can’t really speak for the team, decided to not compete they would have seen us in a bad light as being spoil sports. So I made the decision to take part in the race,” said King.

“I was hit at the start of the race and if I was to ask the marshals who hit me I am sure they wouldn’t be able to tell me.”

In the end King decided to take himself out of the unsafe situation and back out of the high speed race roller coasters by returning to the pit.

“I made the decision very early to get out of the race.”

Visibility was so bad that if the race had been red flagged the only way the drivers would have been able to see it was if the marshals had stood dangerously close to the track with the speeding cars.

But it was not just the overseas drivers that had problems with it as Roger Mayers who won the first two races on the day  said afterwards while still wiping the sweat from his forehead, “that was madness with that night race.”

“That is the most dangerous thing I have done in my life.”

“The only thing that kept me able to know where I was, was the back firing from people’s exhaust helping to glow the track.”

His brother Barry Mayers was also of the same opinion, “A totally insane race and on the fifth or sixth lap when Roger slowed I thought the race had been red flagged so I slowed as well and I had just passed Mark Maloney and so he passed me again.”

However Summerbell was quick to say that he was surprised that BARL allowed to race to go on, “The stewards here are normally so strict with rules and safety is very important.

“Always coming to Barbados we know that they are sticklers for safety so I am completely surprised, I thought that race would have been cut very short maybe halfway… I was watching it and after maybe six laps I had my hand up out the window asking what has happened as I can not see and I am really not sure if I had missed a flag, have they red flagging it?”

“That must have been the biggest negative I have come across up here ever.”

“That goes against how BARL normally operates.”

Barbados Mark Maloney was of a different view, “It wasn’t as bad as you see from here but anymore laps and it would have been.”

He said he had fun in the race and said that “they ran the race late to start but the fact is that they ran the race and if you are in the race you have to do what you do with what you have.”

“We were all running in the same race, I don’t think my eyes were any better or any worse than anyone else.”

Barbados Stuart Williams walking through the pits at Dover Jamaica