Invasion Of the Imports III - Antigua - 23rd - 24th June 2007
Photography by Devi Nath & Narend Sooknarine of Zorce Magazine
Article by: Rawle Mahabir

The International Drag Racing Event, Invasion of the Imports 3, turned out to be the biggest Motor Racing Event ever hosted in Antigua. The event was organized by CaribMotorWorld.com of Antigua with principlas being Stewart Davis of Antigua and Rawle Mahabir and Roger Nottingham of T&T. Ten countries were invited, eight accepted but in the end only five contested honours.

The shipping connections were tight and only those who made a special effort succeeded in completing the journey. One can just imagine the logistical nightmare that is faced in having all the containers arrive on time, cleared from the port, trucked to the track and then checked by the Customs authorities. As usual, this was all achieved at the eleventh hour.

The weekend saw four visiting countries with 29 cars coming to do battle with the best of Antigua. On the surface, the challenge seemed formidable with some really well-prepared machines from St. Maarten making a big visual impact. Now St. Maarten, is a whole 16 square miles, so one can guess that when they crank up one of those big V8’s in the North, they probably wake up everybody in the South. St. Lucia and Grenada presented 4 cars each, and Trinidad, eleven machines in classes from 14 seconds right up to the Open Class.

Friday saw all competitors getting access to their cars and checking that all systems were Ok. Some had more to do than others since some cars were shipped even before they were fine tuned, or had the defective transmission replaced, all in the effort to beat the suddenly adjusted shipping schedule. And who could, eventually got out onto the track late Friday evening and made several passes to get a feel of this Antigua strip. For those not familiar, the quarter mile is 1320 feet, right, but the shut-down area is just about 400 feet before you get into a nice sweeping left-hander. Thus cars running in 11 seconds and slower were running a full quarter mile race, but the faster cars were restricted to 1/8 mile run.

Saturday saw competitors putting down qualifying times before full competition on Sunday. And early o’clock the visitors realized that they were in for a really big challenge from the local racers, with some 60 competitors representing the best of Antigua and Barbuda.

Cutting this long story short, the Antiguans were able to fight off all comers and walked away with the lion’s share of Awards, including the coveted Castrol-sponsored Country Championship Trophy. They won in 15, 14, 13, 11 Secs. and the top class in the 1/8. St. Maarten won in 12 Secs. and the second class in the 1/8 and Grenada won the 3rd class in 1/8. T&T had a second place from Gordon Rooks and two 3rd place finishes and Rajesh Ramjattan won the fastest 6 cylinder.

Were the Trinis complacent or did the fact that they did not have any sort of practice and on-track-tuning affect their performances?

Well, there will be a repeat Event on the 17th-19th August in Antigua with all of the overseas competitors having left their cars in Antigua, except the Rail, the Mit. Mirage and the “slightly modified” Lancer. And we are assured that the approach by our drivers would be much more aggressive in competition and will definitely seek to turn the tables this time around.

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