To­tal Mon­ster, Fire One and So­lo, the three biggest names in lo­cal power­boat­ing will line up in what is ex­pect­ed to be an­oth­er ex­cit­ing edi­tion of the Carib Great Race, which takes place this year on Au­gust 23.Mon­ster won the 45th an­nu­al event last year reach­ing the shores of Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go, in one hour and 20 min­utes, de­thron­ing two-time cham­pi­on Fire One. This year's event, which is card­ed for an 8 am start will once again con­clude in Scar­bor­ough.The Great Race was launched yes­ter­day at Carib Brew­ery Lim­it­ed, Champs Fleurs.

The high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed pa­rade of boats, tra­di­tion­al­ly a high­ly-an­tic­i­pat­ed pre­lude to the main event takes place on Au­gust 9, start­ing at West Mall, West­moor­ings from 2 pm. It will fol­low up the Fore­shore, reach­ing Port-of-Spain, back down Tragerete Road and con­clud­ing in St James at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5pm.Reg­is­tra­tion for par­tic­i­pat­ing boats will take place on Ju­ly 23. Carib has con­tin­ued its sup­port of the event as ti­tle spon­sor for the 14th year and ac­cord­ing to Collin Mur­ray, the brew­ery's spon­sor­ship and events man­ag­er, af­ter all ex­pens­es in­clud­ing its pro­mo­tion­al dri­ve and con­tri­bu­tions to the T&T Power­boat As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA), Carib's in­vest­ment this year will be in ex­cess of $500,000.Speak­ing at the launch yes­ter­day, TTP­BA vice pres­i­dent Garth Mar­shall said that while the as­so­ci­a­tion was in con­tact with re­gion­al power­boat own­ers, none have com­mit­ted them­selves thus far but be­tween 27-30 boats are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate. On­ly once has the event been won by a com­peti­tor from out­side of T&T.

Carib mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, Antron Forte al­so ad­dressed the me­dia and in­sist­ed that power­boat­ing en­thu­si­asts are in for a num­ber of treats this year, in­clud­ing the re­turn and up­grad­ed beach par­ty in To­ba­go on the day of the event. Fur­ther de­tails of the par­ty will be an­nounced with­in the com­ing weeks. Giv­ing his en­dorse­ment Forte said, "The Carib Great Race is one that tests not on­ly the skill of the power­boat dri­vers, but in­deed the met­tle of the en­tire crew. No year has bet­ter demon­strat­ed this than 2013, when rough wa­ters and the chal­leng­ing 115-mile course brought out an amaz­ing dis­play of rac­ing tal­ent and nav­i­ga­tion­al skill.""As we head in­to this year's race, how­ev­er, none of us can say for sure who will cap­ture that elu­sive ti­tle. For both par­tic­i­pants and spec­ta­tors, it is tru­ly a case of time will tell."He said Carib was once again "tak­ing the race from the rag­ing wa­ters straight to the Face­book plage", where par­tic­i­pants can vote for their favourite boat for the Carib Great Race Peo­ple's Choice Award. That award was won by Fire One last year.