By Akeem Greene
The Guyana Motor Racing & Sports Club (GMR&SC) club is the venue for a race with a difference tonight when Raj Boodhoo, Shairaz Roshandin and Rameez Mohamed go at each other for the post of President.
Boodhoo, who is the incumbent President, is seeking reelection but is expected to be challenged by Roshandin is a former Vice President and Mohamed who is a current competitor and long standing member of the club.
On Wednesday Guyana Times Sport spoke to all three candidates vying for the top job to ascertain their plans for the sport.
Boodhoo in explaining his highlights as President posited that “my most outstanding moment is getting the Cosmos motor racing facility [now GT Motor Sport] up to scratch and making the headway in getting the extension for FIA [Federal International Automobile] certification.”
The businessman was blunt in responding as to why he should remain in office, stating, “Because of my track record, there is always improvement whenever I’m there, we always make leaps in infrastructure and participation, so I shouldn’t see why they shouldn’t remain.”
Those improvements according to Boodhoo were “Rehabilitation of the club house at South Dakota, fencing South Dakota, the return of Suriname for dragz and the introduction of three new classes of racing.
Explaining that the current state of the economy impacted the financial support given to the club, Boodhoo plans to return to the grass root in order to gain the necessary support.
“It is always challenging to get financing, we are not getting a lot of getting sponsors, we are going to the grass root, reach out to more people and keep racing as cheap as possible,” he stated.
Roshandin, who has been a part of motor racing for 15 years as a drag racer and national circuit racer, is also on the Caribbean Motor Racing Association for the last three years as Technical Adviser and then Administrative Rep after Ray Rahaman was elevated to Chairman.
The former Vice-President stated “Being the VP [Vice-President] in 2016 we had started a lot of projects but I took year off and I sit back outside and see what are the problems and ways to solve them.”
Those problems and ways of rectifying he explained is to “Play attention to spectators since they bring the income; there is a need for proper access roads, stands need to be covered, washroom facilities need upgrade and most importantly take care of our sponsors since they will benefit from these upgrades.”
In an effort to help the touring teams, Roshandin felt that there is need to be innovative in fund raising activities to garner as much support possible.
High on his agenda of activities, the businessman wants include a drag racing track into the current track designed to expand the club and get FIA certification.
Similarly, Rameez Mohamed’s platform is built on ensuring that Guyana capitalizes on
the numerous opportunities for Motor racing and hopefully see more participation.
Development of drag race track, rally racing, forging greater ties with sponsors are just some of the ideas.
The long standing member, who is the current Vice-President is contending that the implementation of many of these objectives requires strong and accommodative leadership and most importantly co-operation.
Mohamed wants the club to maintain a high standard and values in the sport regionally and internationally. The AGM is set to commence at 19:00h and the club is urging all members to be in attendance.
Boodhoo’s fill slate reads; Mahendra “Raj” Boodhoo (President), Johnny Carpenter (Vice-president), John Bennett (Secretary), Hansraj Singh (Treas
