SOLODEX 5 Night Dex
Saturday 30th, August 2006

Pictures

Oh, what a night, late September but certainly not 1963. It was, however, CARS annual night dex and it was a very special night. With an unfortunate late start, it was destined to be a loooooooooooooooooong night, but as usual everybody was ready to pitch in to make up for lost time.
With a course designed with some tight corners, the action was going to be fast and furious with the chance of some Arima drift. With a record number of registrants on briefing night, people were either excited about the night event OR the fight for championship was orn.

Novice class saw a total of 14 entrants with cars ranging from a Scoobie, and  Evo 8, to an RX 7 and Locust 7.  With quite a few newcomers, getting the hang of the course with the combination of the night was proving to be a bit of a challenge for some. The usual favourites in NE class were beaten down the ranking with the two of the top three places being first time Solodex drivers.  The difference between 1st and 5th place was only a difference of 0.739, which shows how tight this class was. Anthony Farah (X2) showed how to aide the break-in of brake pads with reverse action into the finish box without hitting the timing lights (thank goodness). Narend Sooknarine demonstrated the best way to drift around a course of this nature by handling his RX 7 like a professional. However, the Novice winner of the night was Sherwin Leepoy in his Honda Civic with a time of 87.030, followed by seasoned novice driver Vaughn Callendar who is proving that he is going to be very competitive in his class, with a time of 87.031, and in third place Rico Charran with a time of 87.125.

GS class saw the usual cars – Kevin Singh in his MGB and Sanjay Singh in his Nissan sunny and was sadly missing the company of Alan Rajkumar Maharaj’s Lancer who unfortunately had a meeting with a cane field earlier in the day. However, sliding very discreetly into this grouping was Casper minus his Boo driven not by Kirk but the bull dog himself, Scott Dopson, and William Barrow in his questionable Honda Fit. Kevin’s MGB unfortunately was not able with such a late night and went to sleep some time midway through the event, along with Sanjay’s sunny that made it to the end but was unable with the trek home, thus taking a piggy back ride. Scott Dopson came out on top in this group with a finish time of 89.056 followed by Bill with a time of 90.968.

With the movement of Scott into GS class, this left the 1st place position in HS class wide open. It was a battle of the Wingroads against the poisonous venum of Shawn Bridglal’s Mitsubishi Lancer that battled for the 1st place.  Unfortunately the power of the Tasmanian devil did not push Kerwyn Charles into this position being pipped at the post by Karl with a time of 91.267, against Kerwyn’s time of 93.241 and Shawn’s time of 94.063.

ES class saw the usual 5 competitors with 3 Honda Civics fighting for prime spot against the Ignis and 306XT. With those odds, it was almost guaranteed that a Civic would come out on top, but not before Amir Hosein put up a good fight gaining at least 5 more horse power with his go faster stickers. Not even Karen Pinheiro’s fancy 360 could help her to beat biscuit boy Ryan (Mad Crix) Ramsaran himself out of 1st place with a grand time of 85.173 and Amir with a time of 86.663. Crix also walked away with the Autonation Honda Challenge ES champion for Dex 5 trophy.

Kirk Hohing took control of Novice driver Anthony Farah’s Honda Civic to show Anthony what the car is capable of when driven by a seasoned solodexer. As the night was growing longer the SS drivers fought off sleep and to keep the sand man at bay by slugging Red Bull. Both Tim and Kirk took a spin on the course with Kirk following the line of Anthony by bringing the car to a stop in reverse in the finish box. Zac Waddell, in his home built Locust super 7, showed that just because a car is lacking in height doesn’t mean that it cannot compete with the grown ups, coming in with a time of 86.749, but being beaten by Kirk who posted a time of 86.517, only .232 of a second in front. Kirk also won the Autonation Honda Challenge in SS for Dex 5.

In a battle of the Super powers, Evo 6 against Suburu Sti, the competition was on for what was destined to be the fastest time of the day. Ryan Pinheiro left his Evo killer Golf GTI behind to drive Rico Charran’s scoobie to show that it doesn’t matter what he drives, Evo’s are destined to die!  Barry Mykoo, who designed the course, later admitted that he didn’t mind losing to Ryan as long as the time difference was not too great and it wasn’t. With admirable finish time of 81.387, Barry’s time was just 0.763 behind Ryan’s time of 80.624 bringing Ryan to triumph in EP class and showing the fastest time of the day.

All in all, Solodex 5 had many fastests that night, not just fastest time on the day. Devi Nath posted the fastest time from Siparia to Arima coming in at what felt like 45 minutes, and the faithful helpers of CARS took down the course in record time with many hands on deck all eager to get home to bed. Dawn was only 3 hours away, but with adrenaline pumping, Red Bull in the blood stream and the thoughts of future Solodex events on the horizon, sleep was probably very evasive to most drivers that night.

Without the help of our sponsors, CARS nightdex would not have been possible and for this we would like to thank:
Castrol, Red Bull, JK Entertainment and Autonation. We would also like to thank Barry Mykoo for designing the course and also sourcing the sponsors for the most important feature of a night event – the lights, which were kindly sponsored by Peakes, Ramsammy, EDC and Tim Kimpton.

Looking forward to CARS next exciting adventure Circuitdex on the 15th October 2006. Keep watching for further details.

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