The T&T Pow­er Boats As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TP­BA) has moved in­to over­drive, de­spite the re­stric­tions of the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic.

Roger Bell, the as­so­ci­a­tion's ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber re­vealed on Tues­day a num­ber of ini­tia­tives, in­clu­sive of a pos­si­ble World Cham­pi­onship Se­ries of the best power­boat rac­ers in the world, here in T&T.

Then there will be a first-time, Vir­tu­al Great Race Boat Show to be held at a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar plat­form which was con­struct­ed by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC). And, not to be down-played there will be three top class in­ter­na­tion­al boats for the 53rd run­ning of the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Great Race which will be held on Au­gust 21, un­der the same COVID-19 re­stric­tions as last year.

Bell ex­plained that his as­so­ci­a­tion's on­ly hope from gov­ern­ment is to en­sure that the boats en­ter and ex­it the coun­try seam­less­ly.

Bell, con­sid­ered one of the most knowl­edge­able men when it comes to power­boat rac­ing, said: "The Great Race has been reg­is­tered now as an in­ter­na­tion­al event, with our align­ment with the UIM. Great news is that we have three race teams that have all agreed to come here. Now, it's all based on COVID-19 guide­lines, pro­to­cols, and re­stric­tions, so there's a lot of in­ter­ests for these teams, as such, we have sub­mit­ted doc­u­men­ta­tion and pa­per­work to the au­thor­i­ties in the gov­ern­ment, re­quest­ing a one-gov­ern­ment ap­proach on pro­vid­ing that these boats come in here seam­less­ly and leave seam­less­ly, be­cause they have com­mit­ments to for­eign sched­ules in North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope, so we need help with that.

We're not ask­ing for fi­nan­cial sup­port, we're ask­ing for sup­port with the boats com­ing in­to cus­toms and the crews com­ing through im­mi­gra­tion and so on, and then ex­it­ing when the race is done."

Last year at­tempts to se­cure a for­eign en­trants failed, but power­boat au­thor­i­ties have this year, made up for that by seal­ing the reg­is­tra­tion of three boats which will all con­test the 130MPH A-Class di­vi­sion where mul­ti­ple-time win­ner Mr So­lo Too, Big Thun­der, Iron Man and Mo­tul Mon­ster par­tic­i­pate.

Mean­while, Bell in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Sports ex­plained that a World Cham­pi­onship boat event will fit in line with the coun­try's pen­chant for host­ing big in­ter­na­tion­al events, say­ing: "What this will do is pro­mote us an a des­ti­na­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al rac­ing. We're in talks with the P1 Off­shore Body and the Ocean Cup about a ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al event here from 2022 and on­ward- how great would that be. We al­ready put on the world's great­est show which is Car­ni­val, we have put on ma­jor sport­ing events, we've host­ed World Cup Crick­et and so on, so why not host a pos­si­ble World Cham­pi­onship Se­ries of the best power­boat rac­ers in the world, com­ing here to our lo­cal shores and pro­vid­ing sport tourism, fill­ing our ho­tels, fill­ing our restau­rants and just see­ing our beau­ti­ful is­land."

The power­boat as­so­ci­a­tion is at­tempt­ing to squeeze in the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship Re­gat­ta which will be used to give the boats much need­ed prac­tice ahead of the Great Race. Bell said he is hope­ful that with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the re­stric­tions be­ing lift­ed some­what in the month of Ju­ly, that it will en­able his as­so­ci­a­tion to stage a fi­nal re­gat­ta on Ju­ly 18, say­ing it will give the rac­ers a chance to sort of shake their boats down to know that they are ready for the Great Race. "The re­gat­ta is Ju­ly 18, five weeks be­fore the Great Race, so any dam­age that may oc­cur, they will have enough time to do re­pairs," Bell said.

The Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship Re­gat­ta was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Ju­ly 4 but due to the changes in the COVID-19 re­stric­tions it had to be pushed to Ju­ly 18.

This year's Great Race will al­so fea­ture live stream­ing of the event, with a fo­cus on in­creas­ing its base of 180,000 view­ers.