Ah, the Darren Sammy Cricket Ground. Home to sports such as cricket, basketball and…racing?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years it will come to no surprise when word of speed junkies and race addicts flocking the area on a Sunday starts springing up on social media and in conversations. The Cricket Ground’s network of roads and parking areas have become something of a regular race circuit, home to the northern AAMA Dexterity events.
While less configurable than the Dexterity events which take place on the beloved and chronically endangered airfield we know as The Base, the more circuit type setting of the Cricket Ground events allows drivers the chance to home in on their weak points and mistakes hoping to shave on their times one tenth at a time.
It goes without saying that events on our island have become well known for the variety of machinery that lay down their rubber and excite the crowds with feats of speed and the latest Speed Kings: Autocross (AAMA Dexterity) keeps that tradition going. Mixed in with the likes of Brian’s purpose-built Lancer Evolution VI racecar, you will find the likes of Wasseem with his JZA80 Supra RZ, a larger more GT type car whose driver was keen to show that those wide tires and galactically large Brembo brakes aren’t there just for show. Where there is might, there is also light, evident by the mass crowd event debut of Lee’s Nissan Sunny turned corner carving SR18 powered, tube frame buggy, scampering its way through the course.
No matter one’s taste, there was surely something to excite the crowd as it screamed up the main strain on its way to chase down that fastest lap and many a taste there was. It isn’t every day AAMA hosts mass crowd events at the Cricket Ground location but when they do the crowd does indeed come en masse. Well placed barrier fencing ensured ample crowd safety without robbing the eager race enthusiasts of the chance of full experience immersion. Just close enough to see the cars in their full majesty and to feel the exhaust pulses as engines spun up to the maximum allowable revolutions. If you don’t walk into the event as a racing fan, you surely will leave the Ground as one.
How better to sum the event up but just another grand show of just how present and powerful the vehicle motorsport community is, coming up not at all short of both spectators and participants resulting in a day that many won’t soon forget. Just one, of many more to come.
