2001
Solodex 1 - 21st
January 2001
Article
by Duane Boodasingh and Rawle Francis
Photography by Duane Boodasingh, Nebert Marin and Rawle Francis
CARS
has started the 2001 race shedule off with a bang. The word on the street
for this year is Honda VS Mitsubishi. TypeR vs. Evo, etc etc, etc. Though
many of our fellow racers and enthusiasts were busy feteing at UWI,
many die hards and several new comers made it to Arima Race Course on
Sunday for Solodex 1.
Much
to the surprise of many, Cristian Bourne, produced the fastest competition
time for the day of 49. sec's in his little Type R matching that of
Peter Morris with his blown EVO 6.However,
one would expect an experienced combo like Peter and his machine to
do better. So said,so done, Peter came out roaring and produced a non-competition
time of 47 sec's. Thus bringing an end to Cris's glory. But then one
would expect nothing less from a full-spec tarmac prepped EVO.
This
raging battle set the pace for the days event with another big gun Rawle
Mahabir trying to play catch up with Cris and Peter in Peter's Evo 5.
However his unfamiliarity with EVO power only allowed a personal best
of 52 seconds. So there we have it, Cristian first and Rawle Mahabir
in second place in the Power Class EP. Again Peter Morris was not in
competion.
All
the action appeared to be in ESP however, with last years ESP winner
Ryan Pinheiro and his 206 GTI, having to ward off new comer Kirk "Mr
Fixables" Ho Hing in his hot SiR. Sean Bissessar impressed the
hell out of all in ESP with his 306, which brandished a new TURBO install.
That's right, Trinidad's first TURBO 306. Unfortunately, low boost made
it difficult for him to keep up with Ryan and Kirk. Sean had to settle
for 3rd in the ESP class.
Also
in ESP new comers Richard Ramsingh and David Cambell had their hands
full adjusting to the demands of Solodex competition. A little miss
calculation here and some under steer there, forced them to produce
slower times thus religating them to forth and fifth respectively, but
from the smiles on their faces it was obvious that we will be seeing
more of them in the upcoming events.
The
ES class where semi stock cars compete, last year's Soldex Champion,
Graeme Hutchinson continued his winning ways by dominating this class.
Shelly Ross, CARS Webmaster and P.R.O. fought to keep up with Graeme
in the her highly controversial Civic CVT. However, a win was out of
site for her on Sunday as Graeme made no mistakes with his Baleno.
Gerry
Dial seems to be very serious about keeping his championship title in
HS class. He came prepared with a fine looking set of very low profiled
Toyo Proxes sporting a very aggressive thread pattern and AA traction.
He used these and some excellent driving skills to maneuver his little
Chevy Joy around the course with Wayne Hutchinson and Ronald Spencer
close behind in their Ford Laser and Suzuki Swift GL respectively -
no more than 2 seconds kept them all apart.
We
think props need to go out to Alicia McKenzie, who plans to take away
the GS title from Nishard Mohammed in 2001, last years champion. She
showed fine form in her stock Lancer, defeating Anson Eccles in his
Nissan Bluebird. The poor guy was only 0.4 secs behind her. It seems
Alicia will continue to show her male competitors who is boss throughout
2001.
The
fun runs went off as planned with time to spare. Duane and Rawle of
the TriniTuner Crew took full advantage of this event and after an adrenaline
pumping, rage around the course, we are hooked. Tyre sponsors anyone?...
VIDEO!!!!
1.
Peter Morris
takes his tarmac prepped EVO VI for a run
2. Christian
Bourne shows them how nimble a TypeR can be
3. Peter not
takin' that - he crushes Cristian's time
4. Rawle Mahabir
takes a gallop with Peter's EVO V
5. Gerry Dial
tears up the tarmac with his new tyres
6. Mr. Fixables
fixing his way around the cones
7. Sean Bissessar
with Trinidad's first Turbo Pug
8. Ryan Pinheiro
in his 205 GTi Pug swingin the back.
