Drag Rivals: JDM vs Euro got the 2023 motorsports season off to a fast start at Vernamfield, Clarendon, recently.

“The meet was exceptional. The cars came out on Friday. We had approximately 180 competitors ranging from eight second all the way up to the 16 second class, veteran and international racers. Everybody commended the organisation, our preparation, and just our overall execution of the event,” Kenneth Timoll, director of KenT Racing, told the Jamaica Observer‘s weekly Auto magazine.

The three-day event began on Friday, January 27, with a Test & Tune session for competitors to work out issues before the head-to-head racing began on Saturday, January 28. Given the number of entrants, having a whole day of eliminations ensured that on Sunday, the event was able to end within the lighting constraints normally enforced by race officials.

In light of the incident at the inaugural event in 2022 that saw four injured and a later death from those four victims, Timoll and his team have taken what could have been an early end to their drag racing series in stride and beefed up safety for their second event last December. The lessons learnt continued into 2023, with concrete barriers lining a portion of both drag racing lanes, plenty of security, and railed-off sections as to separate spectators from the vehicles while still giving good viewing options. So serious was the matter of crowd control that racing was suspended for a short while to rein in errant patrons.

The racing was fast and close, keeping spectators guessing all the way down the quarter-mile during many match-ups. The theme of Japanese versus European brands also kept things interesting. Dean Shaw was the winner in the Pro Race 8 second class, followed by Roland Crawford in Pro Race 9. Pro Modified 10 was won by Robert Morrison, while Seymour Anderson took Pro Race 11. Pro Street 12 and 13 were won by Andre Brown and Alex Innis, respectively. Lorenzo Virgo took home Super Street 14 honours and Ricardo Rhule did the same for Super Street 15. Romaine Senior closed out the top finishers with his win in Street 16.

Timoll is already looking ahead to April for the next event, especially as his experiment of truck drag racing went over well with the crowd.

“What we did today was just an introduction and to build our database to let people know we’re also into diesel performance,” he said.

By the end of the year, he hopes Drag Rivals will have a diesel drag racing class.

— Rory Daley