It will be a straight dash to the fin­ish from Trinidad to the sis­ter isle of To­ba­go, from 7 am on Sat­ur­day, as the stage is set for the 51st edi­tion of the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Great Race.

Guardian Me­dia Sports will to­day high­light some of the con­tenders in the six class­es that will be in ac­tion and will con­clude with a line-up of the starters, all brac­ing for the race of their lives, from Williams Bay in Ch­aguara­mas to Store Bay in To­ba­go.

Last night or­ga­niz­ers were busy fine-tun­ing the course as strict em­pha­sis is be­ing placed on safe­ty. TTP­BA sec­re­tary Shal­i­ma Ed­wards said par­tic­i­pants were made to un­der­go med­icals and oth­er safe­ty checks to en­sure that hel­mets and life jack­ets are in check.

All boats are al­so be­ing scru­ti­neered, a process that will be com­plet­ed soon be­fore the race starts on Sat­ur­day.

Or­ga­niz­ers have al­so put all hos­pi­tals in Port-of-Spain and To­ba­go on stand­by. The event will be streamed live on CNC3's Face­book page and the T&T Guardian's web­site, as de­vices will be placed in all boats to en­sure the race is com­pre­hen­sive­ly cov­ered. There will al­so be live cov­er­age on VIBE CT 105FM.

Mo­tul Mon­ster, the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on boat will be re­quired to pro­duce the race of their lives with 17th-time win­ner Mr So­lo Too bid­ding for an 18th ti­tle and Iron Man and Para­mount aim­ing for a ma­jor up­set in the 130MPH Class. Ac­cord­ing to Ed­wards how­ev­er, or­ga­niz­ers have agreed that win­ners of the re­spec­tive class­es will re­ceive spe­cial high­light, a move that will change the fo­cus on the over­all win­ner alone, to those who fin­ish first in their class.