After his first year in charge of the speed test competition Imad Lahoud reflects on the championship this year and talks about the Sysley case in addition to some other issues.
This is your first year as the head of Speed Test committee. How do you evaluate the 3 races this year?
We can say that the races were very successful, although in the second Speed Test the track was a bit tough. I guess this gave an edge to some cars over some overs. This may have affected the normal Mitsubishis who are not allowed to have “bang” in their cars. These cars found a difficulty at the exit of the “figure of 8”.
In the last speed test we widened the road a bit. This helped the fans see more drift and helped some drivers gain more speed. If you have noticed, Feras Khaddaj stayed on first gear in the second speed test while in the third he used the second gear.
Overall I find the speed tests very encouraging. We saw new faces, and some of the new faces made a big impact. Osmat Saify, for example, did a great result in the last 2 speed tests. He was scoring a very fast timing straight from the first run.
We won’t speak a lot about the regular winner. Abdo Feghali is a Red Bull athlete. He has a very good team and a very good car. He takes things very seriously and he is very talented.
The speed test is turning more professional with time.
Do you think that the first speed test was much more successful because of the amount of spectators that attended?
Yes this is true, but there are many reasons behind it. First there were more competitors, so for sure there will be more spectators. In addition to this the participation was big because there were no points and everybody was trying to see what they will do in the season as a whole. The place was also fundamental, because at Fouad Chehab stadium, the by passers would stop to watch, transportation there is much easier. You know now the country is suffering from some economic difficulties so people would not travel for long distances to watch.
Why didn’t you repeat the event there then?
We wanted to have it there but the Stadium officials couldn’t give us the place. Biel was next on the list but that did not work out either. I hope next year we will be able to organize it in the same place where the concerts are held at Beirut down town water front.
Our main problem in Lebanon is the place. I ask everybody who knows a place where we can organize a speed test to guide us to it. We need a place where we can create a 1600 or 1650 meter track.
In this context at Fouad Chehab we are not able to create a track longer than 800 so people can enjoy their driving.
[singlepic id=4992 w=320 h=240 float=left]Are satisfied with the job you did this year on the personal level?
On the personal level, I am very satisfied. I know I can give much more and you can say it is beginners luck but I am very satisfied. We have learned a lot and I hope we can improve next year. We have a great team. Georges Ferzley gives everything from his heart. Gaby Kreiker is our God Father in these matters. Said Zacca helped us a lot this year. There is new blood in the sport. People like Elie Ghanem are helping us too. Motorsports has really improved a lot in the past 4 years.
Between Friday the 19th and today Sunday the 19th, a controversy ran about the participation of Sysley. People are asking and we even asked the same question about the matter on our website. Can you please clarify this issue for us?
We made a small error. We had a typo mistake from our staff and we will not mention it now. I did not agree the starting order and sign it at the time. Some people usually call me if they have a problem with their car or any other issue. There are some issues we always solve. Another problem was that the car was not ready yet. Sysley’s team sent an official document agreeing on a penalty for late scrutineering on the basis of participation. When I reached the office of the club, I found out that they have published it on the official website. I republished the entry list later on with the name of Sysley on it. But as we expected the car didn’t get ready on time so he couldn’t participate.
Anyway if he managed to participate he could have added some kind of a twist to the competition. Abdo Feghali’s car is prototype and the car that Sysley should have participated on is a prototype too so it could have given some edge to the competition. It could have encouraged him to keep on participating if he enjoyed it.
Why didn’t you clarify this issue in a statement on your official media portals?
The administrators of the Facebook motorsport page are me and Carl Chalhoub, and we get some help from Sandra Khoury too. I have to give my confirmation to everything that is published. The thing is we are here in Kfardebian made the matters more difficult. We suffered some internet connection problems and we also had some difficulty creating the track. In addition to this our staff was very minimal this time since the club had many other events running at the same time.
This was a human error and it happens to the best of us. We hope next year we can keep improving.
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