This Saturday, the Palisadoes go-kart track in Kingston will host the second staging of Asphalt Assault: Wet and Slide Night Dexterity. The action begins at 4:00 p.m.

“Our expectations are big as we had thirty-nine entrants last time, which is unheard of in modern dexterity history,” Christopher James of event organisers Team Streetz Jamaica told the Jamaica Observer’s weekly Auto magazine.

Team Streetz Jamaica took over the running of the 2018 dexterity series with the permission of the Driver’s Rallysport Club (DRC) after successfully staging their first event in December of 2017, reviving what was a dying genre. The very first Asphalt Assault was a wet surface dexterity, in the tradition of those that happened on the western end of the island. The organisers continued down that path when they brought back the night competition element in May. With that dexterity under their belt, Team Streetz Jamaica has learned a lot and will be putting those lessons to use this Saturday.

“No one expected the competitor turnout that we got last time, which carried the event until two in the morning. This time there will be some serious changes to make things run better,” said James.

As pre-event interest is already high, their strategy is a change in timing method.

“We’ve gotten electronic timing courtesy of Jetcon Corporation. This will allow us to move things along faster than the previous hand timing, allow spectators to root for their favourite driver, allow the competitors to see their times, and have more accuracy since at the last event the winners were decided by milliseconds.”

The other big change is the separation of the professionals from the rest of the field. Dexterity regulars — those seeking DRC points — and recognised racers will be run after the rest of the entrants.

“We’ve also got all the lights in place before hand; unlike last time when we had to wait for them to be set up.”

There is a lot up for grabs at Asphalt Assault.

“The pro-class will have a $50k winner-takes-all prize and a set of Falken performance tyres from Miracle Corporation up for grabs.”

The man with the target on his back is Joel Jackson, having won the last Asphalt Assault.

“Jetcon Racing will be running up to three cars. I’ll be returning in my Silvia,” Jackson said.

He tips dexterity regular Maurice Whittingham, round one winner Lee Vaz, and his own brother Sean as his main rivals.

“We did some changes to the Silvia. It was set up for drifting from Japan with good tyres and a differential. We just added some more power and a better gearbox.”

— Rory Daley