Press Release by Stewart Davis
Photography by Wayne Green
Invasion of the Imports 2004 is now seriously taking flight as Caribbean MotorSports in association with the Grenada Motor Club, gears up to stage what we predict will be by far one of the biggest drag racing events ever to be held in the entire Caribbean.
Last
Thursday, both the GMC and CMS met in Grenada as we are already in the stages
of making final plans for the June 2004 event, which will be hosted in
Grenada.
The event which is set for Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th June, 2004 the Pearls Airstrip is expected to feature over 10 Caribbean countries, which will be totaling an unbelievable number of over 80 vehicles, all competing in various classes from the 16 seconds bracket, to 8 seconds and faster class. The over-all winning country, will be crowned the champion country of drag racing in the region.
As we lay down the foundation for a very successful drag racing championship event, both the CMS team and Wayne Green from the Grenada Motor Club were up early after a pretty long meeting with the executive of the GMC the previous night, to inspect the Pearls Airstrip. To our surprise, we had the opportunity to meet with the Honorable Minister of Sports & Culture, Mr. Rholand Bohla, who was hard at work after staging a pre-independence event at the Pearls Airstrip the previous evening.
After our inspection of the Pearls venue, both members of the GMC and CMS were off to meet with the Honorable Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Brenda Hood along with the President of the Hotel Association, Mr. Ian Dabreo, at the Ministerial Complex at the Botanical Gradens in St. George's.
Also present at the meeting were Stewart Davis, Andre Crichlow, Rawle Mahabir and Roger Nottingham of CMS along with Alan McIntyre and Wayne Green of the Grenada Motor Club. Both parties had the opportunity to officially introduce the Invasion of the Imports event to the Ministry and upon successfully making our presentation, the Honorable Minister granted us the full support of the tourism department in staging our very highly anticipated event.
Shortly
after meeting with the Honorable Minister of Tourism, both groups once again
had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Adrian 'spaceman' Mitchell, a
representative in the Ministry of Sports and Culture, who also pledged their
full support towards the development of the June event and also towards the
development of organized motor sports on the island.
Motor sport is really taking off in the islands and thanks to the dedicated efforts of CMS and the various associations in the respective countries. At this time, Caribbean MotorSports would like to encourage everyone to keep on checking out our web site along with www.motorsportsgrenada.com for all our developments on what is expected to be the biggest drag racing event ever to come to the Caribbean.
CMS would like to thank Caribbean Star Airlines (the airline with “A whole New Altitude"), Cable & Wireless Antigua, Wave Crest Hotel in Grenada, the Grenada Motor Club and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports & Culture in Grenada.
Last but not least, CMS would like to wish the island of Grenada much success as they celebrate 30 years of Independence, Happy Birthday Grenada....CMS truly looks forward to bringing you one of the biggest motor sporting events ever.
Enjoy the Ride...........
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Features-
Drag Wars-
December 14th, 2003
Article by Ravi Benjamin
Thought
the 2003 Racing Season was over? Well think again! On Sunday December 14th, 2003
the Grenada Motor Club in collaboration with Heineken, Red Square, AC Delco,
Spice Isle Retreaders Limited, Renee Cars, Castrol and Grensure will transfer
the old Pearls Airstrip at St Andrews into a drag racing arena for the staging
of the biggest and best drag meet for 2003. Drag Wars, the championship event
that reveals the 2003 Driver-of-the-Year is just days ahead of us. It would be a
December to remember when an estimated total of twenty race cars and five
thousand spectators gather at the track at this grand finale for 2003.
Who's going to be the Grenada Motor Club's 2003 Driver-of-the-Year? Bet no money on this! Defending the title is John-Mark Forshaw at the top of the list with 413 points while Alan McIntyre is 25 points behind and Paul Hughes at third place with 300points. The battle is between Forshaw and McIntyre. One of them will have to win their bracket in order to gain the title. Hughes still has a chance to win the title at this event, but he will have to come with something very fast and be very consistent in order to win the bracket that he runs in.
Making a return at this event will be Jason Johnson and his Mazda Familia GTX. Jason will burst out his Familia that has been undergoing major modifications at Blake's Engineering garage for quite some time with additional cc's. More high performance parts was placed in the Familia in order to break the best time of 12.69seconds and place Jason in low 11s and at the same time, taking the title of Fastest Front Wheel Drive and Street car of Grenada.
Jason and Saggy will battle Alan McIntyre's Ford Mustang and Don Purcell's Rotary Datsun 1200. McIntyre would be punching nitrous for the last time in his V8 Mustang. The Mustang will be making its last appearance under the ownership of Alan since its on the market to be sold. This last appearance is something to look forward to. Would Alan break his personal best time of 11.868seconds that has been done at the Invasion of the Imports at Antigua or would he do so with the new project that he's embarking on come 2004?
The rotary man, Don Purcell will arrive at the track with more modifications done to his FD3S Rotary Datsun. The 1200 now brags of many top secret modifications including a custom built T66 turbo and a water-cooled intercooler system. Don is confident that he's going to post a time that would break the national record of 11.61seconds that has been set by him back in October and at the same time, runaway with the title of Fastest-Man-in-Grenada. He's also waiting very patiently for Saggy's WRX.
14 seconds, a bracket that one should not miss. Lots of excitement and competition. Cars like Bernard Spann's Mitsubishi Lancer GSR, Richard Chase's Mistubishi Galant VR4, the impressive Rotary Mazda 323 owned by Ian 'dabs' Dabreo and the three Familia's belonging to Fabian Charles, Garfield Miller and Lester Martin will all scuffle each other to see who will be the last man standing. With a new installed 3inch exhaust pipe, with no cat, what is Garfield really looking for? My guess, since Fabian and Dabreo are both looking to run in the 13s, Garfield wants to be part of this action so he's doing everything possible to drop him low.
In the 15seconds category, John-Mark Forshaw's Honda Prelude will defend the title once more against Troy Andrew's Prelude and Joshua Lewis' Toyota Starlet GT while in the 16seconds bracket, the turbo Starlets of Nicholas 'dadz' George and Cecil Pierre would skirmish Morris in the Honda Civic Coupe. Want some V6 action in this bracket? I've been told by the owner of the Buick Grand National, Haffez Peters, that if he gets the car up and running to his standard, he would return and take part.
Be sure to check out the pit for Nigel Gresham's Subaru Impreza WRX STi, Nigel 'blonde' McIntyre's infamous Honda Integra Type R, some Evo's including the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution V owned by Brian Sylvester, the off-Road Samauri built by RED-I Racing (if finished in time), Christian Chu Fook's Toyota MR2, Supa Scorp's Toyota Alteeza and other cars that we don't see at Pearls when we go racing.
Drag Wars brought to you by:
 Grenada Motor Club Limited Phone # 407-2590 / 0485 |
|
|
 Heineken Beer Distributed by: Bryden & Minors Limited Lagoon Road, St George's. Phone # 440-2018 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 AGD-Signs Tempe, St George's. Phone # 435-0243 |
|
|
| Dabs
Car Rentals Grand Anse, St George's. Phone # 444-4116 |
Grensure
Fire & General Insurances |
|
| The
Computer Store Grand Anse, St George's. Phone # 444-3653 |
Renee
Cars |
2 Fast 2 Furious Drags- Sunday October 5th, 2003 at Pearls Airstrip. Article,
One may ask what does the term '2 Fast 2 Furious Drags mean? Well it means smashing records being broken, new cars being rolled out on the track, some of the popular one's handicapped due to mechanical problems and other drivers with no race-cars present at the time, looking furious and worried for when their time comes. Racing got off late due to rain and drivers turning up late with their cars. Street cars were sent out to dry the track by driving up and down and here we saw Michael Haywood doing some neat ninety degree turns with his Corolla. The Mitsubishi Pajero driven by Richard Adams was also assisting in drying the track. Richard has changed from 19s to 22 inch spinners. As soon as the track was dried, marshals began to line up the cars in their respective brackets and the finals began. Two
of the big guns, Hassn Gibson's Corolla GT won the 18secs category defeating Ronnie Dopwell's Golf GTi while they both recorded a personal best of 18.59secs and 17.85 respectively for the day's racing. In the 17secs, Devon Charles' Mitsubishi Galant defeated Devon Cumberbatch's Honda Civic recording personal best of 17.27secs and 17.55secs respectively. In the 16secs category, Cecil Pierre's Starlet GT placed first with best time of 16.18secs, Nicholas 'dadz' George's black Starlet in second with 16.50secs and Maurice's Civic in third with 16.51secs. The battle of the H22A Preludes saw some stiff competition. John-Mark Forshaw's Prelude won the 15secs category recording 15.22secs while Joshua Lewis's Starlet in second and Troy Andrew in third recording a personal best of 15.5secs. In the 14secs category, Lester Martin's BG8Z Familia won the category recording a personal best of 14.2secs while Fabian and his BG8R Familia placed second with 14.75secs. The highlight of the day was seen when Alan McInytre lined up his V8 Mustang to run against Don Purcell's Rotary Datsun. The first run saw the Mustang doing 13.42 while the Datsun did 13.21. The second run, McIntyre's Mustang started to spin as if he lost control. He went left, then right and eventually side-ways. But driving this V8 for over ten months, McIntyre reclaimed full control of the car and still had time to zoom down the track recording a 14.65secs while Purcell recorded 12.28secs. The estimated four thousand and five hundred spectators on hand was in total uproar. A Grenadian built Rotary Datsun breaking Keith Braveboy's best time of 12.30secs. The mechanics, Ronnie Lee and Mervin Bonett were both in excitement as well as the Rotary Rules crew. But there's more, listen. The two cars were sent back to do a grudge run around 6:05pm. Temperature was cool enough for the turbo to spool and the crowd were all in suspense. Would the Mustang win or would the Datsun win? Will Don break his record or not? The flag was dropped and the Rotary Datsun shooted down the track like a 9secs Rail Car beating the Mustang, breaking the previous record of 12.2secs, recording a personal best, taking the Fastest-car-of-the-day award, a new National Record of 11.61secs. After Don and a couple of us saw Shaun Ready's Monster Rotary Sunny doing a 9.67secs pass in Trinidad last Sunday at AutoSports 7th Drag Race, Don felt that he should show Grenadians the amount of raw power that these engines conceived and developed by Dr. Felix Wankel are capable of doing. Way to go Don! T The Grenada Motoring Club would like to thank our sponsors for making this event possible; Waggy T Rent-a-Sound Company, Blue Bubbles Food Bar, Ernest Marshall Construction Company, the Grenada Red Cross Society, Carib Beer and yours truly, the Grenada Motoring Club. We would also like to thank the thousands of spectators for turning out and supporting the drivers and help in making drag racing one of the major sporting activities on the island.
  
 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | More Photos | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||