Solodex III 2001
20th May 2001

Pictures

SoloDex-III, which was held on May 20th at the Arima Race Club carpark, marked the midway point in CARS’ SoloDex 2001 Championship and saw 28 competitors racing against the clock.

The highlight of the day came in the HS class with the battle between the ‘Joy Boys’ Gerard Dial and Robert Bates and the course designer Wayne Hutchinson in his Ford Laser. During the day Robert held the lead with constantly improving times. Gerard, the current leader in the class and last year’s champion in this class, had all kinds of problems trying to reel Robert in. With one run to go, Robert put down a blistering run, only to incur a two-second penalty for overshooting the finish box. Gerard, in true leader’s fashion, regained his form and edged Robert out by a mere 0.005 seconds to take first place! This was only Robert’s second time competing in SoloDex and he is certainly going to make Gerard work hard to retain the position of dominance in this class. Wayne had to settle for third (seems like the dragon turned around and bit him).

Competition was also keen in the GS class with the current leader Anson Eccles in his Nissan Bluebird and current Ladies champion Alicia McKenzie in her Mitsubishi Lancer doing battle for top honors. In the heat of competition, last year’s Ladies champion runner up, Susan Singh came from behind and slid (she actually slid into the finish box) past the leaders by almost a full second! With just two more runs of the course each, Anson and Alicia pushed hard to reclaim the lead. While Anson edged her out in his final run and he seemed to have the day all wrapped up, "sliding" Susan shaved a further 0.151 seconds off his time on her last run for victory. Alicia had to settle for third but she was only a mere 0.416 seconds behind Susan. At SoloDex-I Alicia won, at SoloDex-II Anson won and now Susan has her turn. That’s competition at its finest!!

In the ES Class Shaun Mohamed driving his Toyota Corolla was able to capture first place ahead of Anand Awai who was unable to retain his early lead. Another female competitor Shelley Ross placed third and trailed Anand by only 0.021 seconds – those guys should definitely keep an eye out for her next time.

The ESP class which was dominated by Hondas in SoloDex-II, saw the Peugeot 205 GTi of Ryan Pinheiro involved a three-way battle with William Barrow in his SiR Civic, and Sean Bissessar in his turbocharged Peugeot 306. The pressure of winning saw all three men incurring penalties in an attempt to outdo each other. When the dust settled, Ryan led with Bill and Sean taking second and third respectively with only 0.888 seconds separating the three!

As always, the EP class provided great entertainment with spectators and drivers alike being treated to the various driving techniques of Roger Williams and Rawle Mahabir in a Lancer Evolution, and Cristian ‘The IceMan’ Bourne in his Type-R Civic. With people wondering if the ‘R’ stood for ‘Rocket’, Cristian took control of the class from his first run. With his characteristic stone cold countenance, Cristian demonstrated his clinical style of racing. This was in contrast to Rawle and Roger, who wowed the crowd with power slides and razor sharp turns. Mixing it up with them was the Rookie of the day, Barry McKenzie who showed some power sliding of his own, albeit in a VR4 Galant!

With the exception of Gerard's and Cristian’s continued dominance of the HS and EP classes respectively, the SoloDex championship is still wide open in the other classes and will likely go down to the wire. Also, impressive first-timers at each event brings uncertainty and adds excitement to the competition among this growing family of SoloDex competitors.

SoloDex-IV is just around the corner so stay tuned for more highlights from Santa Rosa or come and be part of the excitement on July 8th! Competition will start at 10.00 am.

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