Burnaby's Marc De Vellis can look forward to a checkered future - checkered flag that is - in Indy style car racing.

The 19-year-old race driver earned rookie of the year honours in the 2001 Star Mazda North American Championship Series following a second straight victory at Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif, last week.

De Vellis' win was his third in eight races, a series high, that left him just two points shy of the overall driver's championship behind winner Scott Bradley of California.

Bradley earned seventh-place points despite a 10th-place finish in the final series race at Laguna Seca to finish with 289 points to De Vellis' 287 in the closest points finish in the history of the Star Mazda race series.

"We don't need a couple of extra points to know where we finished and to win the championship," said De Vellis less than an hour before his uncle John Venditti held a celebration surprise party for the up-and-coming racer at the Stinking Rose restaurant Sunday. "It's a culmination of what we've been working for all year."

His first win in Portland at the beginning of August was the turning point in the season he says.

The family-run De Vellis team changed their fortunes with a new engine in the third race and finished the rest of the season with six top-five finishes, including three wins and the only back-to-back victories at Road Atlanta and Laguna over the big budget factory teams.

"It's just a big honour winning the rookie of the year and missing the championship by two points," De Vellis said, adding it was also a sense of pride to run so well with so much family support behind him. "It goes both ways. They're proud of me and I'm really proud of them. We're close. We have an edge over everyone else."

That edge will likely continue for De Vellis and his engineer father Marc Sr. when the family team is expected to again tackle the 2002 Star Mazda series with full-time backing next year.

De Vellis, who has fielded interested offers from Indy Lights, Formula Atlantic and USF 2000 series this season, is also expected to be soon testing for a spot in the upper levels of racing, most likely in the Atlantic series, where fellow Burnaby driver Michael Valiante got the green light as Lynx Racing's number one driver.

"It's not a matter of getting there anymore. It's a matter of strategy. What's best for me - what will get me there - and keep me there," De Vellis said.