– will let his car do the talking
Shailendra Mahabir has tossed out all expectations of a successful title defence in the Group `B’ category of the Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club (GMR&SC) annual Drag Racing meet on Easter Sunday, as he will make his debut in the `A’ category.
After powering through the earlier rounds in Group `B’ of last year’s event, Mahabir gained a walkover in the final since the remaining wanted cars failed to show.
He said that he want to be at the top of the sport and the only way for him to achieve that goal would be to race against serious competition.
“Well my victory last year has given me the confidence to step up and challenge the ‘big boys’ in the sports. I realized that Group `A’ is where the real competition is and I would not be satisfied if I continued to dominate Group `B’ where there is not much competition,” he said.
Mahabir also said that he was very anxious to compete among the top names in Group `A’, including defending champion Pierre Singh and Prakash Ganpat and Fidel Khan.
Mahabir told Stabroek Sport yesterday that in order to make the jump to compete with the ‘big boys’ he made an upgrade to the engine in his 81′ Toyota Corolla.
“I bought a Silver Top 4A-GE engine, which is the engine that most of the Group `A’ cars run on and the one that I bought came straight out of the chassis of the Toyota Levin racing in Japan,” he said.
The 21-year old local racer also told Stabroek Sport that he had entered the beefed-up 81′ Toyota Corolla in the rookie category of the GMR&SC Mashramani Race of Champions earlier this year, but was unsuccessful because of the weather conditions and problems with his tyres. Mahabir’s engine is a Silver Top 4A-GE 1.6 litres, 1587cc bore and stroke engine that outputs 165 horse power (hp) at 7800 revs per minute (rpm) with 162 Newton-metres at 5200 rpm of torque.
This engine type is currently used in competition in the Toyota Formula Atlantic Racing series in a heavily modified state and is known for producing high rpm readings to low output of torque.
Mahabir said that he was very confident of his chances of being the winner in the Group `A’ category since most of the cars had the same engine that he had. He added that his car would do the talking for him on race day.
