Donald Francis is now a motorsports celebrity.
With his Plan B Honda Civic Type-R, he won the last Cayman Islands Drag Racing Association drag meet at Breakers Speedway. Since then many locals have congratulated the North Side resident for beating cars with bigger engines and more weight. The Water Authority engineering assistant states the sudden praise is in stark contrast to when he started racing.
“Coming up a lot of people said I’m not going to get nowhere and the car is slow,” Francis said. “I wanted to prove them wrong. As a young guy coming to the track with a Honda older guys looked down on me. They would say there couldn’t be a day a Honda would beat a V8 or a car with a bigger engine. But the day is here and they can’t under-estimate Hondas because of their smaller engines.”
Being a respected racer is quite a feat for a young man barely in his twenties. Yet Francis, 21, has already put in substantial time on the track with some three years racing. Francis, who was born and raised in George Town, has even encouraged his younger brother to join him on the track.
“For three years I’ve been racing and I only recently got the Plan B Civic. I used to race Integra Type-Rs (I had a lot of them). Hondas are an ideal platform because of the power to weight ratio. It’s also less money and less work to go fast with the Civic. I also play football and during the off-season I have more time to work on the car.
“I have two younger brothers and an older sister. Steven, 19, races with a Integra Type-R. It’s a very good feeling seeing him run and I feel like I’m his role model. He’s just coming into it and he asks me for advice as I’ve done it all before. He helps trouble shoot with my car and before he buys anything for his car he checks me. As a big brother it’s a good feeling because we have a very good, tight relationship off the track.”
These days Francis’ Civic is far from slow. The car is reportedly the fastest street-driven Honda in Cayman and among the quickest all-motor Front-Wheel Drive vehicles on island. With times in the mid-seven second range, Francis is able to hang with sports cars such as Mitsubishi Evolutions and Chevy Corvettes. At the last meet he beat out Marlon ‘Christian’ Forde in a Mitsubishi Evolution III for first place in the low seven second class on the 1/8 mile track.
Francis states the car has put down solid times with no issues.
“At first it ran 9.7s before starting this year with 8.5s. On nitrous it dropped to 7.9s and 7.6s and the other day it ran 7.407s on just boost (it used 24lbs to be exact) and makes 590-610 horsepower now.
“The car ran exceptionally well and the major problem was traction. I couldn’t get any traction. Right now I’m trying to decide what to set up for next race in terms of wider or bigger slicks. Mind you the car would run better if the weather was cooler. But the main thing is there were no mechanical issues and it ran smoothly.
I was even able to drive to the track and then back home.”
Indeed the Plan B Civic is far from stock. Aside from a 2000cc stock Type-R motor and stock manual transmission the car features: aftermarket pistons and rods, a ported and polished cylinder head, racing manifold, dual wastegate, race injectors and a Precision 67/65 turbo. Francis states all of those parts are not cheap and make the car an experience to drive.
“The car has a lot of Edelbrock parts. The turbo is capable of 50lbs of boost and at 24lbs the car is capable of 900hp. I want to push the car further with such a big turbo for a four cylinder engine.
“Having the car at that high boost is scary. The torque steer is crazy. I used to run nitrous before my tuner Javier Torres told me to run just turbo. Going from nitrous to turbo is a new learning stage. You have to learn the car over again.
“It’s not cheap either. From January to June I put over $20,000 in the car (including parts, shipping and the tuner coming). It takes money to go fast but it’s a good feeling to be fast.
At the end of the day it’s a fun sport, I enjoy it and I want to make a name for Cayman and myself.
Right now I give thanks to Jimel McLean for his advice and Javy who comes down from Rhode Island to tune the car.
I also give God thanks for the patience and courage to do this.”
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As a first hand observer at the race, I respect Donald plan B Honda victory and take nothing away from it, but I must say although he came first in the class, the only reason that he was victorious over Marlon Ford aka Christian is because he red light. So your story that he beat Christian can be misleading. He got the victory but did not win the race.