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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Heat Wave faces tough Great Race defence

by

20110728

Last year's over­all Great Race win­ner, Heat Wave will not have it easy as it goes af­ter a re­peat of suc­cess at this year's Carib Great Race card­ed for Au­gust 27 which will fea­ture a new start­ing sys­tem, once again.Last year, Heat Wave with James Hadeed at the helm won the 42nd edi­tion of the event to stun pre-race favourites Mr So­lo and Fu­jit­su Fury.

How­ev­er, this time around, Hadeed and his crew will face stiff com­pe­ti­tion from for­eign-built en­tries Stam­pede and In­tense, both in the 110 miles per hour (MPH) C Class dri­ven by Lee Pol­lon­ais and Steve Ghany Jr re­spec­tive­ly.

In ad­di­tion the M Class (120 miles per hour ) trio of Fu­jit­su Fury, Mon­ster and peren­ni­al cham­pi­ons, Mr So­lo Too with Ken Charles in the dri­ver's seat will al­so be in the fray for top ho­n­ours in the event, which has been spon­sored to the tune of over $500,000.

This from Garth Mar­shall, vice-pres­i­dent of the T&T Pow­er Boats As­so­ci­a­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to Mar­shall, "Last year most of the faster boats failed to reach To­ba­go, but a lot of ef­fort is be­ing put in­to their prepa­ra­tions this time around which means Heat Wave and its crew will be in for a hell of a fight for the over­all ti­tle.

Speak­ing at the launch, Col­in Mur­ray, Spon­sor­ship and Events Man­ag­er at Carib Brew­ery first de­scribed last year's stag­ing of the event as the best ever if his com­pa­ny was to judge by the amount of crowd par­tic­i­pa­tion.

"We've heard re­ports of two-three thou­sand peo­ple in at­ten­dance at the start of the race at the Hy­att Wa­ter­front, and more than dou­ble that in Scar­bor­ough at the Es­planade at the fin­ish. We had great weath­er, no ma­jor in­ci­dents, and lots of Carib beer...all the in­gre­di­ents for a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence.

How­ev­er, Mur­ray was quick to note that like any oth­er event, there are ar­eas his com­pa­ny, the ma­jor spon­sors feel the event can do bet­ter and this year they in­tend to make a num­ber of im­prove­ments.

These in­clude live com­men­tary at both the start and fin­ish points, to let every­one know what is hap­pen­ing; bet­ter course mark­ings at both the start and fin­ish of the race; get­ting the cel­e­bra­tion par­ty start­ed as ear­ly as pos­si­ble at the Hy­att as they did in Scar­bor­ough at the fin­ish line last year which will all lead to a full race ex­pe­ri­ence for spec­ta­tors at both venues.

With re­gards to the build-up to the event, Mur­ray said he would love to see more mar­ket­ing to­wards the boat show, and pa­rade as they are crit­i­cal mo­ments to get the pub­lic in­volved.

Look­ing ahead, Mur­ray point­ed out the new start/fin­ish venues are here to stay but wa­ter­sports/cir­cuit rac­ing and greater par­tic­i­pa­tion in pirogue class for those of more mod­est means-es­pe­cial­ly in these re­ces­sion­ary times should be en­cour­aged.

Neemah Per­sad-Ce­les­tine, Mar­ket­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er of Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, speak­ing on be­half of man­ag­er Rus­sell George, said the ho­tel was one again very ex­cit­ed to be a part of the Carib Great Race 2011 and pleased to con­tin­ue the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts with Carib Brew­ery Ltd and the T&T Pow­er Boats As­so­ci­a­tion.

Carib Great Race Cal­en­dar:

Au­gust 20: Boat pa­rade and show - The Greens (Be­hind (Peakes Gas Sta­tion).

Au­gust 26: Bar hop­ping with Carib Trail­er in To­ba­go/ wel­come par­ty at Shade night­club.

Au­gust 27: Break­fast par­ty on the Es­planade.

Au­gust 27: Start at Hy­att with full en­ter­tain­ment scene un­til the end of the race

Au­gust 27: Fin­ish at Scar­bor­ough – par­ty scene from ear­ly morn­ing right through the day with live en­ter­tain­ment on the wa­ter...and on the land.

Great Race Day Sched­ule:

Start Times and Boat Class:

Short Course:

Course 60MPH

P: 7.50 am start

D: 7.50 am start

70MPH

SI: 8 am start

80MPH

SII: 8 am start

Long Course:

90MPH

B: 8 am start

110MPH

C: 8 am start

120MPH

M: 8 am start


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