By Neto Baptiste
General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Drag Racing Association (ABDRA), Renee Edwards-Ambrose, has assured that the body’s Test and Tune Tuesdays event will return in short order despite a seven-week break.
Speaking on Observer Radio’s Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, Ambrose, who is also a racer, said that a glitch in the government’s gazette resulted in the body having to halt activities.
“We were given the opportunity to actually open up on that day so the Ministry of Health would get the opportunity to see what we had in place specifically for the protocols with regards to the pandemic. There was somewhat of a misunderstanding where certain wording within the gazette that sort of put a stop to what we were doing because from the perspective of the Ministry of Health and the police, everything was fine,” she said.
The association was granted permission by health authorities in July to host test and tune activities at the venue after races were halted in March after the country recorded its first case of the coronavirus.
Ambrose predicts that regular racing will return to the North Sound venue by the end of the year.
“We weren’t able for the last seven weeks to go back and continue that phase one reopening at the North Sound Raceway, but now that it has been finalised and we have, to some extent, gotten the green light, we will put things in place to see when will be the next tentative date for the testing and tuning activities,” the renowned racer said.
“Once we get forward into phase two and phase three where we would be able to introduce spectators little by little to the testing activities, we will do that until we are able to open up to a full-blown event at the North Sound Raceway,” she added.
President of the association, Gene Mason, tendered his resignation to the body earlier this week citing personal reasons for his decision.