EIGHTEEN thousand motor racing fans watched Jamaica’s Doug ‘Hollywood’ Gore take the 2013 Caribbean Motor Racing Championship (CMRC) Drivers Title at Guyana’s South Dakota Raceway last Sunday.

“I tallied the points after the second CMRC race of the day and I knew I had the title,” Gore told Auto.

Gore claimed the CMRC trophy with 118 points to the 70 points of Guyana’s Kevin Jeffrey. In third was Bajan Douglas Maloney.

However, things weren’t that straightforward as Gore’s weekend had some rough spots. The highs were gaining the points to take the drivers championship and grabbing the official fastest time. In 2011 Gore posted a lap time of 33.3 seconds, but was unable to be fully recognised, as his car was not then part of the CMRC. This time around, in qualifying he managed to lower the lap record to gain pole, and then on the tenth lap of the first race he reset it again with a 33.401 seconds.

The lows were not winning a race and not taking home the CMRC country trophy of which Jamaica was the defending champion.

In his first race Gore spun, distracted by an incident involving Guyanese driver Andrew King, and finished third. Then disaster struck in his final CMRC race for the day.

“On lap seven a tyre came off the rim. Somehow water had gotten into it,” said Gore.

The problems continued for the Jamaican team as Peter Rae survived a heated first-turn battle to a best third-place finish for the day. Noel Golding Jr set the fastest time for a front-wheel drive car at the track — 35.489 seconds, but couldn’t convert it to an overall win as mechanical failure sidelined him after two podium finishes.

Jamaica lost out on the country championship due to a rule change for 2013, which saw points accumulated from competitors in both Group 2 and Group 4. This left Jamaica on 392 points to Guyana’s 508.