Choachuy bucks rain, poor tracks

MANILA, Philippines - Jason Choachuy of Toyota Balintawak overcame tough track conditions due to rain and fashioned out a sweep of two races in the second leg of the 2014 Vios Cup One Make Race Series at the Clark International Speedway in Clark, Pampanga recently.

Choachuy flashed top form to beat his rivals in the rain to cop the top honors in the event held in cooperation with Bridgestone, ROTA, Motul, Denso, OMP, Brembo and AVT.

With the win, Choachuy stayed on course of his bid to become the pioneer champion of the event, pooling 75 points and leading Luis Gono of Toyota North EDSA and Allan Uy of Toyota Quezon Avenue, who assembled 49 and 47 points, respectively.

The first race sort of revived the long rivalry between Toyota Balintawak and Toyota Alabang as Choachuy faced stiff challenge from two Toyota Alabang bets – polesitter Carlos Castaneda who topped the Time Trials in 2:25.661 and Inaki Araneta.

But Choachuy grabbed the lead while foiling Castaneda’s repeated comebacks with near-flawless driving. He wrapped up the dry, 12-lap Race 1 in 29 minutes and 34.978 seconds or 1.213 seconds ahead of runner-up Castaneda with Araneta placing third in 4.169 seconds.

Luis Gono of Toyota North EDSA took fourth place while Bryan Co of TLU wound up fifth.

Completing the top 10 finishers were Pauland Dumlao of Toyota San Fernando, Basti Escalante of Toyota Otis, Carlos Loinaz of Toyota Batangas, Dominic Ochoa of Toyota Quezon Avenue and Andres Calma of Toyota Alabang.

Sam YG ruled the Celebrity class, stealing the spotlight from first leg champion Phoemela Baranda, who copped the runner-up honors. Jinno Rufino, Fabio Ide and Rhian Ramos finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively.