President of the Trinidad and Tobago Automobile Sports Association Fyzool Madan addresses the horrific crash that occurred last weekend during the second leg of the Caribbean Motor Racing Championship at the Frankie Boodram Wallerfield International Raceway.
“I wish to let the you, the membership, and all stakeholders know that their new management is committed to obtaining a full report on the most unfortunate incident that took place this past Sunday. The five people, four patrons and the driver, who were injured have been our first priority these past few days and we will not rest until they are assured a full recovery.
This incident was tragic and we thank God that no lives or limbs were lost. All of us are terribly shaken and we are in the process of revisiting the FBWIR facility to see how best we can make our track the safest possible. We accept that motor racing is a dangerous sport and we need to pay attention to every single detail before every event. Motor racing is one of the largest spectator sport – and we have seen tragic accidents with fatalities happen in some of the safest venues in the world. As these events unfold and are investigated, changes and new rules are enforced to ensure non-recurrence. Our lessons have been taken and we intend to pool all our resources to make the track safer.
While the world is watching the horrific footage and fans and critics of the sport are sharing their opinions, we must remain mindful of the fact that we did our best with what we had. Funding to improve our facility has been difficult to come by and we were lucky to have the sponsors and investors who pitched in to ensure that T&T was able to host our leg of the CMRC. After much planning, we proceeded to stage the event believing that our facility was safe enough for it. A lot of speculation on who should shoulder blame is being voiced and while I am only two weeks at the President’s job, I will be the first to admit that the Wallerfield track has to be re-assessed urgently. This year had a small crowd at that fateful turn compared to previous years and we must be thankful that this kind of accident never happened there before; it would have been even more tragic. Our first step in revision is to completely remove patrons from that area.
New safety measures will be implemented including: relocation of spectator stands, marshal positioning, assignment of photographers to safe zones, etc. We will be inviting our members to join in on this discussion at a meeting to be held soon. Your thoughts and suggestions are valuable and I wish for us to make a concerted effort to push TTASA and motorsports to new heights. You may email me or call me with any concerns; my door is always open to the membership. For decades, people have been making points about how to improve motorsports and our facility- but very few have been willing to do the work. Building and improving a raceway requires an enormous investment of finance, manpower and time and I intend to work on the ground with you to make major headway with racing in T&T.
I also wish to address the evening news from July 26th, which claimed that FIA exec, Mr. Vincenzo Spano, had shared concern with TTASA about some safety matters which he detected. Our management team had never been informed about these concerns. This is pure mischief-making from the inside. Information is being perverted and given to the media in order to render our management team incapable. In so doing, these members are not only destroying the integrity of TTASA, but motorsports as a whole. Seemingly, they have no love for motor racing and do not care if the sport is destroyed for their own personal delight. Let us not be dispirited by these detractors. I have written to our FIA delegate and Mr. Spano to clear this up. I assure you, that if this management had the slightest concern that there were safety issues, these would have been addressed. We would never willfully put our drivers and our patrons in harm’s way. This same news story showed images of the track with heaps of gravel on the sides of the starting point – those were images from days before the event. Photos from the race day will show that all aggregate was removed and the track was in proper condition for racing. I personally spent many long hours with my two employees on Saturday night sweeping and washing the track to ensure this.
As I make these points to you, it saddens me when I reflect on the amount of hard work that our members and affiliates had put into this event. Members and supporters came out and cleaned, painted, fixed, cut bush etc. for weeks on end to help prepare the track. It is unfair that our club is now made out to be focused on monetary profits and not on safety. Every member knows of our financial struggles and how we function with whatever little we have. Such is our love for our sport and our fans. The whole idea was to have an affordable entry price and for our drivers to put on the best show for their families, friends and fans to have an enjoyable day. We never anticipated that the day would end in heartbreak.
So, I ask you to continue to pray for Tricia, Amrika, Jynelle, Kavesh and David to have a speedy and full recovery. As a race car driver myself, I sincerely ask you to support our brother in sport, David Lyons, who has a long road ahead to physical and emotional healing. Most of the sympathy has been focused on the four patrons but let us not downplay the trauma he must have gone through. It was not intentional and it can happen to the best of us.
I also wish to give my hats-off to our Vice-President, Mr. Jameer Ali, who undertook the heart-wrenching responsibility of overseeing care and treatment of the injured patrons. He has been visiting with the families and trying to ensure that they received the best care possible. I also thank Frankie Boodram for taking the time to handle PR issues, esp with the media. I also thank our member’s rep, Ruddy Beekee, for his assistance, as well as all the others who called and messaged to show their support. It is heartening for me to see this outpouring of compassion from the membership and even though my days and nights have been distraught since this incident, it makes me proud to be a member of TTASA today.
I intend to work with the Ministry of Sports, the FIA, our emergency responders and any other entity that can assist us in making the FBWIR a world class facility that our future generations can enjoy. This club and this sport does not belong to one of us – it belongs to all of us and I encourage each of you: Let’s put our best foot forward to take motorsports forward in our homeland.
I have an obligation as the president of TTASA to do my best to ensure that this kind of tragedy never happens again. We are the ASN and a member of the FIA so we need to set the proper example for all motor-sport disciplines in T & T. Safety remains our paramount concern and I intend to make sure that there is a positive outcome from this incident. TTASA and the FBWIR will emerge better and stronger from this adversity.
My management team and I remain committed to doing anything we are able to do to help the 5 injured parties along the road to recovery. May God lend a healing hand so that they may return to their normal lives soon.
I thank you for your time.”
