T&T’s Nao­mi Gar­cia per­formed cred­i­bly at the Las Ve­gas Mo­tor Speed­way in Las Ve­gas, Neva­da, USA from No­vem­ber 13-17.

The 14-year-old rep­re­sent­ed this coun­try in two class­es—the KA100 Jr class, a 100cc plat­form, plac­ing 11th and the more pow­er­ful X30 Jr class, a 125cc plat­form ex­ceed­ing speeds of 75mph where she placed 18th.

From the start of the event, Gar­cia was con­sis­tent­ly in the top 10 of all prac­tice ses­sions in the 125cc X30 Jr class.

Al­though strug­gling with en­gine is­sues, she man­aged to be in the top 25 out of the 84 dri­vers in the 100cc KA Jr class prac­tice ses­sions.

Qual­i­fy­ing in mo­tor­sport is cru­cial as it de­ter­mines your start­ing po­si­tion for all of the heat races. The fur­ther to the front of the grid, the bet­ter your chances of win­ning and mov­ing on to the fi­nal event.

In the KA100 Jr class, Gar­cia was able to se­cure 24th out of 84 in qual­i­fy­ing which was ex­cel­lent con­sid­er­ing her on­go­ing en­gine strug­gles.

In the X30 Jr class, she had the pace to be top five, but to every­one’s dis­be­lief, dur­ing the qual­i­fy­ing laps, there were con­temp­tu­ous acts of im­ped­ing by oth­er com­peti­tors, plac­ing Gar­cia a dis­ap­point­ing 30th on the grid.

Even with the odds stacked against her, Gar­cia, through sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion and pas­sion, was able to work her way through the three Heats races for each class to se­cure her po­si­tion in the Fi­nals.

Out of the 84 dri­vers in KA100 Jr, on­ly 34 au­to­mat­i­cal­ly made it to the fi­nal; an ac­com­plish­ment in it­self.

Gar­cia start­ed the fi­nal in 28th po­si­tion and on the first lap, she was able to pass five karts. As the race con­tin­ued, she kept her cool, find­ing the right mo­ments to push her­self for­ward.

With every turn, she gave it every­thing she had. Her hands gripped the wheel, her eyes sharp and fo­cused. As the laps wore on, she gained more and more ground, un­til she was with­in strik­ing dis­tance of the lead­ers, gain­ing a to­tal of 17 po­si­tions. Steal­ing the crowd’s hearts by show­ing her raw tal­ent, Gar­cia fin­ished just out­side the top ten in 11th place.

In the X30 Jr fi­nal of the top 46 dri­vers, Gar­cia start­ed in 14th po­si­tion and had a great start. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, head­ing in­to turn three, there was a crash in front of her and though Gar­cia did all she could do to get around the crash, she got pinned by a dri­ver from be­hind, which sent her and her kart spin­ning in the air. The field of tal­ent­ed young dri­vers surged ahead putting her to the back of the pack with ma­jor dam­age to her kart.

How­ev­er, Gar­cia re­fused to give up and thank­ful­ly she was able to con­tin­ue the race. Nat­u­ral­ly slow­er due to the dam­age, she pushed her­self hard­er with un­wa­ver­ing fo­cus, her mind cal­cu­lat­ing every move.

With each lap, she start­ed to find her rhythm. She closed the gap and start­ed pass­ing one by one. Gar­cia crossed the fin­ish line se­cur­ing a re­spectable 18th place among the 46 top ju­nior dri­vers.

Com­pet­ing amongst dri­vers from around the world, many of whom come from coun­tries with a rich rac­ing his­to­ry, and most who have ac­cess to state-of-the-art equip­ment and year-round prac­tice; these dri­vers are al­ways rac­ing, al­ways re­fin­ing their tech­nique, al­ways a step ahead. They have en­tire teams be­hind them, spon­sor­ships, and ac­cess to the best tracks in the world.

The re­al­i­ty is that in a small coun­try where there are no kart­ing tracks. With no ac­cess to the kind of rig­or­ous, on­go­ing train­ing re­quired to com­pete on the world stage in mo­tor­sports; Gar­cia is of­ten at a dis­ad­van­tage.

Yet even with these chal­lenges, Gar­cia’s spir­it is un­break­able. Over the last two years, she has used every op­por­tu­ni­ty pos­si­ble to trav­el to near­by coun­tries with kart­ing fa­cil­i­ties, to race, to learn, and to im­prove. While this sce­nario may not be ide­al, it has helped keep her dream alive!