The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Rev up your engines. Speed Week is here.

On Wednesday at Arawak Cay, the first official event was held under the pavilion as the opening ceremonies took place, followed by a luncheon as the local and international participants were treated to a junkanoo rush-out.

On hand to address the crowd were Deputy Prime Minister Philip ‘Brave’ Davis and Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Dr Daniel Johnson.

In his address, Davis announced that come next year, the Bahamas Government will ensure that Speed Week will return to Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre where the original race site was held from 1954 to 1966. It was only revived three years ago by Jimmy Lowe, Brandon Foulkes and Davis McLaughlin.

“It’s significant for us to attract this type of clientele to the Bahamas because this brings cars that are in excess of millions of dollars,” Davis said. “So we are attracting some very important clientele to the Bahamas.”

Having thrown his support behind the organisers since the reintroduction of the Speed Week Bahamas, Davis said as was the case in the past, the hotels are brimming over with guests for the event.

As a result of the economic benefits that the Bahamas derives from the hosting of the event, Davis informed the audience that his government is committed to restoring the original track in time for the staging of the fourth version next year.

“It was a big thing then and it will be a big thing when we restore the track next year,” said Davis, without going into any further details of what specific renovations will be made to bring the track up to speed.

The news was like the sound of the engines rearing up to compete for the organisers.

“We’re moving in the direction that we started out when we started our five-year plan,” said Lowe, one of the owners of the event franchise.

“With the public commitment from the deputy prime minister that we will be moving back to the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre is a huge step in the direction that we want to go in,” Lowe said. “So I feel good about our accomplishments so far.”

Lowe said in going back to the original track, they are that much closer to accomplishing their goal.

McLaughlin, who doubles as the chairman and event director, said over the past two years, they were able to learn from the mistakes and now they feel they have a quality product that has been given thumbs up by both the participants and the spectators.

“We have more Bahamian entrants this year. We have about 12 with some really exciting cars - some mustangs - and they have improved on their cars and with the news that we just heard from the deputy prime minister that racing will return to the old site, we are hoping that more local Bahamians will get into it,” he said.

Yesterday’s activities also included an official reception at Government House.

Today, the estimated 40 cars from Europe, South America and the Bahamas will all be paraded through the streets of New Providence - known as the 007 Tour in honour of Sir Sean Connery, one of the actors who played the famous role in the James Bond movie.

The traffic will take the participants all the way around the eastern end of the island before they end up in Lyford Cay where a luncheon will take place in what they describe as the beauty contest for the cars.

After an off day on Friday, the cars will begin competition in the Up High Battle around Fort Charlotte at 10am Saturday. Then on Sunday, the race day will take place with the cars competing in single, double and triple competition around a site that has been designed around Arawak Cay.

Additionally, Victoria Sarne, the director of Karting Bahamas, said they have added the go-carts for the government school students. Sarne and McLaughlin created a programme called Edu-Karting, Learning to Win.

“It started as a summer camp with four schools in a four-week programme where we brought in two instructors from the UK, former racing drivers, to instruct the students how to design, build and develop their public relations,” she said.

“So they were learning a lot of things that they didn’t know. They learnt a lot of team work because we split them up and we made them interact so they learn how to do a lot of things with a lot of fun. So it was something that the schools agreed to do as an after-school programme.”

Once the original track is reconstructed next year, Sarne said they will have an opportunity to engage a lot more students. She noted that they have also gotten a request from urban renewal to become a part of the programme as well.

The schools are Doris Johnson, CV Bethel, AF Adderley and CC Sweeting. Out of those schools, a total of 19 students are now trained drivers. They will be in action on Saturday when they participate in the Up Hill Climb and on Sunday, they will be doing demonstrations around the track where the actual racing will take place.