By Neto Baptiste
A shocking but welcome win for Claudius Lee and his Honda Civic ‘Venom’, beating favourites Orland Weeks’ Subaru ‘Helter Skelter’ to capture the feature race during the second annual Prime Minister’s Cup at the North Sound International Raceway over the weekend.
Venom, setting a time of 10.10 in the bracket event, stayed within the limits of the time set while Helter Skelter, after dialling in a time of 9.0 seconds, ran an 8.9. The came running closest to the time set is declared the winner.
President of the Antigua and Barbuda Drag Racing Association (ABDRA), Jerry Roberts, said the event was well received, adding that Venom’s surprise win was the highlight of the two-day event.
“Definitely from a spectator standpoint and yes, the crowd came a bit later but they did show up in numbers. We had a few breakdowns, we call them carnage in terms of racing and cars breaking down but the event in all turned out to be very good with a surprising overall winner. I was won by a Honda Civic called Venom and it beat Helter Skelter in the finals. If you were pick 10 people, nine or 9.5 or 9.9 probably would have said Helter Skelter would have beaten that car,” he said.
Helter Skelter however registered a win in the outlaw class while Gaston Browne Jr captured the 10 seconds class with a time of 10.6 seconds in his Nissan Skyline. Shane Potter and his Toyota Starlet was champion in the 11 seconds class, registering a best of 11.3 seconds while Niko Antonio and his Toyota Starlet clocked 12.3 seconds to win the 12 seconds class. Shequan Hewlett won the 13 seconds class.
Roberts said the association will host a number of other meets leading into its Legendary Drags meet scheduled for November 25-26.
“Now we will have other events leading up to our Legendary Drags, we have Street Wars which is another event promoted privately and a few other events. We have the normal Tension Tuesdays coming up which is every other Tuesday at the track. There events help people learn their cars going into big events rather than waiting for the day of a big event and you get caught out so use every opportunity you can and I am actually speaking to the racers now, to learn your car and don’t just wait,” he said.
A group from Montserrat also participated in the event.
