Cayman’s circuit racing team hopes to avoid a litany of issues in Guyana.
Team CaySpeed, representing the Cayman Islands, heads to the South Dakota Circuit in Timheri on 11 November for the third and final stop of the Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Championship.
Racers Junior Hydes and Andy Bodden recently struggled at Bushy Park race track in St. Phillip, Barbados, as Cayman slipped from second to third overall. Bodden blames that performance on suspension and travel problems.
“We faced several adversities, such as having to repair the cars and the cars being delayed getting to the track,” Bodden said. “We had plans to adjust our suspension but because of the lack of time, we couldn’t do it. We changed the rear sway bar before testing, which was a major mistake.
“How the cars handled saw understeer as opposed to oversteer in Jamaica. We thought the larger bar would hinder lap times but we could not get through corners at significant speed. We were competitive on the straightaways but we lost three to four seconds a lap on corners. On a 10-lap race, we came close to being lapped.
“In the rain, we didn’t notice the problem initially. In qualifying, our times were close to theirs in the wet. It was our first time ever on the track and the feedback from the cars was different. We were confident going into race day and we figured we could make it. We ran brand-new Yokohama slicks and we had extreme oversteer in the corners. We did about three races in all and we were adjusting and testing during those races.”
Hydes and Bodden, who had Cayman in second place after the first leg in Jamaica, competed in Mitsubishi Evolutions with Hydes running a yellow Evo III and Bodden racing a white Evo VIII. Bodden dropped to sixth place with 15 points while Hydes is ninth with 11 points. Cayman sits third with 26 points overall, behind Barbados (64pts) and Jamaica (113pts) and ahead of Guyana (21pts).
The stiffest competition has come from individual points leader David Summerbell Jr in his Evo VIII. The Jamaican has 50 points, ahead of countryman Peter Rae, 33 points, in his Mazda RX-7 and Bajan Roger Mayers, 30 points, in a Ford Focus.
Hydes states Bushy Park, a 0.8 mile track, was a miserable experience.
“Our cars were smashed, they were undriveable,” Hydes said. “Frustrated would sum up how I felt about the driving experience. We know, as drivers, we’re better than what the results are saying.
“The track defeated us and we wish we could have defeated it. We didn’t know about the track.”
Hydes and Bodden are part of a race team coordinated by Hydes and Sons, Tony’s Toys and Paul A Bodden Heavy Equipment Service. Other sponsors include AMB Construction, A-1 Equipment Rentals, A.L. Thompson’s, Rainbow Realty, Walker’s Road Texaco and Amsoil.
Ray Hydes serves as team manager and states the drivers overcame many hurdles.
“They had little to no time to practice,” Ray said. “They worked late into the morning repairing the cars for qualifying. Nevertheless, the focus now is on the next race in Guyana. Anyone who wants to come to support the team should contact me at 916-2472.”
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