From 2010 I committed a lot of my time, energy and other personal resources into the sport of model car racing in Trinidad & Tobago. This commitment meant that my time as a rally car driver had to be shelved.
Over the last 8 years, I have competed in many races, Trinidad, Tobago, Curacao, Barbados, USA, Peru, Equador, Panama and more. It was a very enjoyable time, I won some races, set some competitive times; as well as being defeated by attrition, being out driven, many of the things you encounter in competition. In these 8 years, I met some really awesome people, many of whom will always have a fond place in my memories (Mas grande putas- Alejandro, Ariel Cohen, Emiliano Robles Gomez Mont….)
But, the time has come to now shelve model car racing, walk into the closet of shelved hobbies/vices/addiction(you get the drift). My trek, into the closet has sent me dusting out the driver’s seat of a race car. Yup, in 2019, I will be in the driver’s seat again, but this time, it will be different.
In the past, I had built many Rally Cars, driven them, repaired them, upgraded them and all the fun things in the life of a racer. I did that for 17 years, those 17years of knowledge and experience have been invested in my current project- a full blown road race car, or as we call it in TnT, a “Circuit Car”.
In 2018, the gov’t of TnT gave the local motorsport body the opportunity to have sustainability in motorsport with a 35 year lease on the land the race track is located. This is a monumental milestone for motorsport in TnT, it also sparked my internal desire to get back in the seat of a car full time. Without delay, I got to researching chassis, gearboxes and engines that would be fast, affordable, available parts and fast to build.
In the end, and I have to say in the end, because other chassis were selected, BUT, life as it is presented challenges that contradicted the fundamental cornerstones of the build, I eventually committed to building a Honda EG5(bleh). Most of you who know me, know Honda is a brand of car I would not even rent, far less buy one. Again, this thing called life have a unique way of taking control of circumstances and directing you.
Ultimately, the EG5 was the easiest, fastest, and most affordable to configure in the state I wanted a race car, notwithstanding the mammoth support this platform garners, it was for a better word, “easy”. As the build got on the way, things fell into place that changed the direction & potential of the build. Good people who know me and got wind of what was happening wanted to be part of what was transpiring, this in turn attracted other sponsors, all of whom have been instrumental in what you see in the pictures.
Without the car even being driven, it was upgraded, the original base platform was transformed into a much more capable machine set to compete against only one thing, the clock…. This build went from “I” to us/we/the Team. Because we live on a small island, word gets around, but that does not mean many hands touched this car. The ONLY people who have been instrumental in this build and getting the car to it’s current state are Akeel Ali, Kester Johnson , Jason Jamason, Levi Jamason, Shamodeen Salim aka Sham, Rohan Singh, Neilson Washington & myself. These people are great people and we, together are a team, we might all be a bit goofy in our own ways(others more than others), but together, we all have skills, talents and knowledge that allow us to achieve any task we set about doing.
