5th. AutoSport Drags 2001 - 22th July 2001

Article by Rawle Mahabir
Photography by Duane Boodasingh, Daren Dhoray and Rawle Francis

Drag Racing fans were treated to a day of thrilling competition at the fifth Championship Event staged at the AutoDrome this past weekend.

With Ricardo Pustam experiencing engine problems and Feraz Akaloo attacked with a bout of the flu, Richie Rich was confident that he would continue to get the better of Gordon Rooks. But Richie suffered engine problems and Rooks was able to easily get the better of the Rails of Michael Douglas and Taw Beejai, who now has some new components to make him more competitive. Rooks with his Texaco Tweety Laurel emerged winner of the Open Class and also Fastest-Car-Of-The-Day.

Kent Jacob finally had some competition in the 10-seconds class but his anxiety and over-confidence caused him to red light and also break his 10-seconds bracket limit. This made it very easy for the vastly improved Hero Boodram with his Hero-1 special to record his second consecutive Bracket victory. Hero's unique home-constructed machine with V8 turbo power, seems set on improving its times and possibly going after the big guns in the open Class in the not too distant future. Jason Laing copped third spot, but also has shown marked improvement and lowered his Fastest-Rotary record to an impressive 10.583 seconds at a top speed of 124.31 mph.

In winning his 12-seconds Bracket, Gary Smith still remains as the only driver to be unbeaten for 2001, and has now amassed a considerable points lead over all comers. His arch rival Brian Franco again placed second and also retained his fastest 6-cylinder title but has now joined a unique group of just four competitors to register a perfect Reaction Time of .500 secs. Third place went to newcomer Simon Reedhai with the Inland and Offshore-sponsored V8 Malibu.

Paul Chung continued his dominance in the 13 seconds Class over Terrence Gunness very impressive Datsun 1200 with 1800 Turbo power, and Taw Beejai with his convertible V8 Monte Carlo.

The 14 seconds class saw a major upset with new comer Visham Sooklal getting the better of Rennie Tokhai and Oswald Stoute.

Steve Mohan with his Escort 2000 retained his 15 seconds points lead with an easy victory over Erica Jobity-Dinnoo with her new and still to be fine-tuned Turbo Starlet. And after a long layoff, Calil Sooknarine copped third spot with his 280 ZX.

The 16 seconds Class saw a reversal of placings with Marlon Benjamin in his Turbo Starlet dislodging joint points leaders Tonya James and Douglas Stampfli. This now puts Tonya as the new 16-seconds leader by 20 points over Stampfli.

The battle of the Hondas saw Yuri Mulchansingh holding the title of fastest Honda this time around. With Gerald Aboud red-lighting and then suffering a broken axle, Yuri also ran away with the fastest 4-cylinder title recording 12.173 seconds @ 118.73 mph.

But a really stunning performance was also registered in the final moments of racing by Edward Aboud also in a turbo powered Honda Civic, Clocking 12.958 seconds. And this being a normal road-going machine, with music!