T&T speed­ster Rishi Kan­ick raced in the event of his life and ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions when he end­ed run­ner-up in his de­but sea­son to the world cham­pi­on Top Al­co­hol-di­vi­sion drag­ster Bill Re­ichert in the fourth and fi­nal round of the Na­tion­al Hot Rod As­so­ci­a­tion's (NHRA) Dol­lar Gen­er­al Four Wide Na­tion­als at Zmax Drag­way, North Car­oli­na, on Sun­day.

Kan­ick's fairy­tale jour­ney be­gan on Fri­day, with the T&T rac­er sit­ting on top of the qual­i­fiers ear­ly in the morn­ing af­ter record­ing a per­son­al time of 5.42 sec­onds at 253mph on the quar­ter.

That was un­til Jim White­ley came and put down an elapsed time (ET) of 5.29 sec­onds at 271 mph run to take the lead. Lat­er, Kan­ick would have an­oth­er qual­i­fy­ing run and clocked an ET of 5.89 sec­onds at 247mph with en­gine com­pli­ca­tions af­ter a cylin­der dropped.

Stormy con­di­tions with heavy winds and rain forced the day to an ear­ly halt but Kan­ick still qual­i­fied with the sev­enth fastest over­all time head­ing in­to the fi­nal 16 run­ning on Sat­ur­day.

He said, "It's my first sea­son run­ning a ni­tromethane car so I am still learn­ing a lot as I go along. I have to say thanks to my fam­i­ly, friends and An­tho­ny Dicero Rac­ing."

Kan­ick went even faster dur­ing fur­ther qual­i­fy­ing stages on Sat­ur­day, with an ET of 5.26 sec­onds at 274mph in his Top Al­co­hol Drag­ster and sent the crowd in­to be­wil­der­ment as he is in his de­but sea­son at the Na­tion­al Hot Rod As­so­ci­a­tion (NHRA).

Top fu­el dri­vers Sid­ney Fri­go, Spencer Massy and cur­rent world cham­pi­on White­ley con­grat­u­lat­ed Kan­ick on his achieve­ment. His crew chief An­tho­ny Dicero was al­so proud of Kan­ick's 5.26-sec­ond pass but was more pleased with an ET 5.33 sec­onds at 267mph lat­er in the evening which se­cured the team in­to the quar­ter­fi­nals.

Lo­cal mo­tor­sport vet­er­an Hol­lis­ter Ed­wards was on lo­ca­tion with Kan­ick and pro­vid­ed sup­port head­ing in­to the quar­ter­fi­nals. This was the first for any­one fly­ing the T&T flag at this lev­el of rac­ing, the Top Al­co­hol Drag­ster, which is a brack­et be­low Top Fu­el. Sat­ur­day's ac­tion was full of ex­cite­ment for race fans as four Top Fu­el cars fol­lowed by four Jet Drag­sters ran si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly on the biggest four track fa­cil­i­ty in the world.

Quar­ter­fi­nal ac­tion con­tin­ued on Sun­day morn­ing with a spe­cial church ser­vice, track walk and pre­sen­ta­tion of rac­ers. Kan­ick ran an ET of 5.33 sec­onds at 267 miles per hour to dis­pose of John Finke and head in­to the semi­fi­nal. He main­tained an ET of 5.33 sec­onds beat­ing out Mar­ty Thack­er and cre­at­ed Caribbean his­to­ry as the first rac­er from the re­gion to qual­i­fy for a Top Al­co­hol Drag­ster fi­nal in NHRA.

Al­though Kan­ick lost the last race, the last­ing im­pres­sion in his de­but sea­son had earned the re­spect of many fel­low rac­ers and crews who came across to the T&T camp to con­grat­u­late the team.

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