Sammy hopes his Breakers assault dodges bad weather

Planning sports events during the rainy season can be tricky.

Sammy Jackson can only hope that a race at Breakers Speedway goes off as scheduled. Jackson is a local driver and president of the Cayman Islands Drag Racing Association. The group, which formed this year, are slated to host a meet this weekend at the 1/8 mile track.

The event is scheduled for Sunday 12 June. Gates are expected to open at 12noon with qualifying taking place at 1pm and the actual races getting under way at 2pm. Admission is $10 and $5 pit passes are also available. However Jackson is well aware that all of those details are subject to weather conditions.

“The race was supposed to happen last Sunday but we moved it to this Sunday,” Jackson said. “I was told the weather would be bad so we had to put it off. Hopefully this weekend it doesn’t rain. But we’re into the rainy season where you don’t know if anything goes off on account of the rain.

“A lot of people have been preparing for this race. We’ll be doing the same quick bracket set-up as last time. The idea is to have cars run within a half second of each other. In turn we can have more competitive races.”

Among the people gearing up for this month’s event are Humberto Rives and Billy Ebanks. Rives set a new local record in the motorcycle class at Breakers. On his Suzuki Hayabusa, he initially ran a time of 5.807 seconds at 121mph during qualifying and reset the mark with a 5.702s pass. Both times eclipsed the previous mark held by Dante ‘Ross’ Hydes, who ran his Honda CBR 1000 to a time of 5.994s last March.

Ebanks meanwhile won the meet’s fastest bracket in his Dodge Daytona. He would beat fellow West Bayer Sammy Jackson (who ran a Chevy Camaro) in the final. Ebanks had an approximate time of 5.700s, well off his mark of 5.567s which is the current record for the fastest overall time at Breakers.

Jackson states as a racer his focus is on challenging Ebanks.

“Billy is the guy I’m looking out for in terms of competition for me. I’ve been doing a few things to my car. I hope to see records fall.”