My bf is into cars. I am not. I drive a pretty normal car with a pretty normal engine and I don’t mess with it except to take it to the dealership to get its regular service and tune up. I drive below 120 and rarely wash it. I guess you get the picture: Ayanna= no gas brain.
Despite this I found myself at some kind of car show this weekend. I know right? Random. A new engine oil on the T&T market, ENEOS Nippon Oil in conjunction with CARS – an organization that produces these type of events – hosted “ENEOS HI-SPEED DEXTERITY – CHASING THE SECONDS” at the Arima Race Club Car Park on Saturday 28th June. How did I end up there given my total lack of interest in cars? Basically the bf woke me up and suggested we go shoot some cars. Cars I don’t really get but shooting? Hell yeah. So off we went.
It is events like this that I sometimes end up at, totally off my beaten track that make me realize that Trinidad, as small as it is, is composed of parallel universes. There are so many little sub-cultures, entertainment genres and interest groups that exist, a little off the mainstream, all with their own unique vibe, that if you are not into them you may never know they exist. For me this event was one of them. Cars with engines loud as lawnmowers painted in even louder colours and designs; old looking, beat up cars in nondescript grey that I would usually zoom past on the highway roaring menacingly as their owners proudly popped their hoods and showed off the car’s insides to appreciative spectators; girls in shorts milling around looking cute (eye candy?) and girls in jeans and caps striding purposefully around ordering the guys with the cars around (organizers?) and the Japanese reps from ENEOS walking around beaming at everyone. Cars seemed to come with crews of 5 or 6 guys who stood around it looking cool or checking out the competition. I even saw a girl whom I went to school with – a quiet girl, did her school work, never got into trouble. Turned out, she was one of the bossy jeans clad girls with a mean car of her own. Go figure?
Even for a non-enthusiast like me, you can’t help but appreciate the hard work, skill, talent and money that must go into the maintenance of these vehicles. I saw Audis and BMWs outfitted for racing amidst the Suburus, Lancers and Suzukis. Now even though I don’t know much about cars, these are pretty expensive luxury vehicles. For the life of me I don’t get why anyone would spend that much money on a car only to run it into the ground.
The event mainly consisted of the cars racing around a course marked with cones set in what looked to me like a pretty intricate pattern, each one aiming for both accuracy in making the turns without knocking over the cones following the set route and doing all of this faster than I have ever driven in my life. There were some pretty impressive displays and some not so impressive ones. I was pretty happy to see a lone female competing in the event and doing quite well too.
There were also quite a few photographers there (every event has its photo groupies, I guess☺) and we spend some time surreptitiously checking out the sweet lens wielded by on one photographer, wondering if together we could take him and jack him for his lens (ok joking.. really)
All in all it was pretty exciting and I am glad I got to check it out. I also got wind of a Rally event due to take place next month. Guess who’ll be there?
Check out more photos from the event on my Flickr page.
