Garcia, riding on borrowed car, bags national drag race title

Veteran Vannie Garcia used a borrowed car to post a new track record, upend heavily favored Jonathan Tiu in the final duel and seize the Quick 8 third-leg title in the 2019 National Drag Racing Championships Series at Batangas Racing Circuit recently.

Garcia squeezed every ounce of power from the Mitsubishi Evo 3 lent to him by his good friend and teammate Allan Ararao to shatter the latter’s 1/8-mile record of 6.5 seconds at BRC. He clocked 6.31 seconds in eliminating Erbil John Janolino right on his first spin on the track.

Although that made for Garcia’s mouth-watering Quick 8 final faceoff with the multititled Tiu, the duel died at the start as Tiu’s Nissan GT-R red-lighted. Garcia took the win in 7.039 seconds despite Tiu flashing home with a quicker 6.393 clip.