STAG / NP ULTRA Rally Trinidad 2006- 19th & 20th August 2006
Photography by Devi Nath, Ryan Ramsaran, Gerrard Wilson, Duane Boodasingh,
Narend Sooknarine, Cristian Cozier and Callil Sooknarine.
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Powell Wins "Rally Trinidad 2006"
 John Powel driving the ex Didier Auriol TOYOTA TRINIDAD / STAG / NP Ultra/ ICSL WRC Corolla was victorious on the STAG / NP ULTRA Invitational Speed Stages Rally held over the weekend of the 19th and 20th August 2006.
The rally started at the Grand Bazaar Mall car park and competitors made the long Trek to Bronte/ Borde Narve area in the Southland just off the Cipero Road.
Competitors from Barbados, St.Vincent and the UK were in Trinidad and ready to compete with our local drivers for gravel sideways action supremacy.
The Bronte Stage Road was the first to be run, the 6.4 km Twisty and Muddy Road was witness to some fantastic performances both from the local and foreign drivers with several retirements occurring on this stage, evidence of the extreme nature of this sport.
Barry Gale and Ryan Rodriguez in the Dentyne Ice Evo 6 from Barbados and Harold Morley and Geoffrey Goddard running their WRC Subaru Impreza Sunbeach UK machine along with Steven Ollivierre and Dominic Ollivierre in the Evolution 8 Empire Cigarettes/ Rum Please Mitsubishi from the lovely Island of St. Vincent were billed as the major challenge to the Trinidad Drivers.
 The rain severely affected the Limited Stages available to the Trinidad and Tobago Rally Club and repairs were only initiated on the day before the rally, as most of the roads were waterlogged and impassable to the teams, who needed to recce the route in advance of the competition days to ensure a safe and incident free Rally. On the Friday prior to the event, the rains held up and the sun did shine to allow the Saturday Stages to be run and run it did, with the first car on the line being John Powell's Corolla, which was expected to be the front runner for the Trinidad team against the foreigners.
Bronte Stages fastest 4wd was as expected. The WRC Corolla with a best time of 3 min 22 sec followed in second by the Castrol / Rallymac / Sweet Tamarind EVO 6 with 3 min 36 sec and in third was the Stag / Ultra EVO 6 of Ainsley Lochan with 3 min 41 sec.
In the 2wd drive class Rezan Mohammed and Ashard Mondro's Lancer 1800 turbo proved to be the fastest Rallycar once again on the Bronte with a fast time of 4 min 32 sec.
The ONE OOT EVO 6 of Barry Mckenzie suffered with fuel problems on Saturday and missed three stages which ended this teams hopes of a podium finish. Fawaz Mohammed and Ishwar Patel in the Evolution 2 was the first retirement from the NP Ultra/ Stag Invitational Rally with a broken timing belt which led to permanent engine damage. The Empire Cigarettes / Rum Please Evolution 8 also succumbed to the harsh conditions on the Bronte Stage, they went into a dip a bit over the limit and ruptured their oil pump resulting in an engine meltdown and out of competition went the St. Vincent team, who looked quite impressive on their first run in Bronte with a time of 3 min 47 sec.
The Stag/ Ultra/ Josef's Evolution 6 driven by Ainsley Lochan and piloted by Scott Sheppard was definitely on the pace and showed it in Bronte matching their team mate (Powell) time on the first Run, Dave Rampersad and Donald Gopaul returned to competition form and were consistent on the Bronte.
 The Cedar Hill Stage was and hopefully will continue to be the best Rally Stage in Trinidad with its sweeping flat out loose corners and wide Roadway. Several competitors were seen in reverse action as they got caught out in some of the tight turns. John Powell again posted the fastest time of 2 min 11 sec followed by Ainsley Lochan with a consistent 2 min 15 sec and Colin Khan's/ Richard Ramsingh team Esso/Flowertime Subaru in 2 min 20 sec, in the 2wd class on the Cedar Hill Stage Rezan Mohammed posted a best of 2 min 33 sec followed by The Daiman sponsored Super Charged Corolla of Franklyn Seegobin / Kurt De Freitas in 2 min 44 sec and in third was James Harris / Kevin Ablack in 2 min 54 sec in the Tropical / Oracle 2.0 Sunny.
The Rally moved to the Central area of the Island to the historic Gran Couva Countryside for the Saturday night stages. The rain had been heavy in this area during the day and the Zig Zag Preysal course had to be altered for safety reasons. The spectators had packed this superspecial from as early as 6.30pm. The area was turned into Tent City with our corporate sponsor Stag girls very present to offer souvenirs to our large groups of spectators, who converged on the mountainside at every vantage point to take in the action in the night stage. The rally cars danced their way around the many hair pin turns in the rally courses amid the cheers of the spectators and the wonderful scent of Sham's curry Duck in the air.
The Castrol / Rallymac Sweet Tamarind GREEN Mobile EVO 6 was back out after some technical repairs to the fuel system and they posted a best time of 2 min 1 sec good enough for Fastest Night Stage followed by the Barbados Dentyne Ice Evo 6 of Barry Gale / Ryan Rodriguez in second with 2 min 5 sec and Ainsley Lochan / Scott Sheppard in third with 2 min 6 sec.
The Trini and Bajan supporters were left at the stage sampling the sounds of DJ Cin along with a few Cold Stag and some hot Curry Duck whilst the teams made hasty retreats to garages throughout Trinidad to have repairs tended to for the final day of competition.
 Sunday Stages again were affected by the rains and the second best Rally Stage Road in our Island- the famous Big Snake Run had to be cancelled, a reverse Zig Zag Stage had to be substituted for both the morning and evening runs. The sun came out in all its glory but too little too late, the Zig Zag was the place to be and it dried out nicely which became evident with the drivers times improving steadily after each run through this stage just one minute off the Couva flyover.
The Toyota Trinidad/ Ultra/ ICSL Corolla WRC was at its best on this stage and consistently posted spectacular times of 1min 26 sec, Barry Gale, Dentyne Ice Evolution 6 came in with a best time of 1 min 28 sec tying with Barry McKenzie in the Castrol/ Rallymac Evolution 6. who also ran a best of 1 min 28 sec, the 2 WD class looked up for grabs as Rezan Mohammed Lancer Turbo had Gearbox failure and they missed two stages .However luckily they were in their home town and the car was towed to the garage in 45 min they were back out to compete in last two stages of the day to retain their lead on the Tire Clinic Sunny by an amazing 30 sec to capture the 2WD Championship in Rally Trinidad 2006.
In the end the accumulated times told the tale of an exciting weekend of rally. The corporate Sponsorship from NP and STAG have definitely moved our Rally closer to our Caribbean neighbor's level and in 2007 we expect our new stages to be fully developed to offer a Caribbean class Tourism boosting Rally. We hope this will attract more teams from Barbados, Jamaica, St. Vincent, The UK and possibly North and South America, where rallying has moved to the forefront of motor sport.
We wish to thank all our Foreign Teams for coming and hope to see you here again in 2007.
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