A few weeks back we at Sleeper Forest had the opportunity to visit Freddie Mapp's garage. We never got to meet him as a race car driver, his glory days were before our time in the 80's but we got to meet him as the mechanic. It's interesting how race car drivers never really leave the race track, they just "race" in an another way.

Archival footage from the "The Barbados Rally Club" & Kaieteur News

Our friend "Sicky Back", gave us the invite.

We got the invite to tour the garage from friend of ours, you may have seen pictures of his 1jz swapped Toyota Cressida on some of our Instagram post, it's pretty great.

We got to see just few of the cars on the outside, they were works in progress. We deemed it the inline 6 alley, every Toyota with the space, received the inline 6 treatment. Some twin turbo, some single turbo, these machines were being built for drift, they were definitely not lacking in power.

Among these cars was something a little different and special but that's a secret...for now.

Once on the inside we were greeted by the smell of oil and metal. The garage wasn't much different from any other garage except for the six pieces of Caribbean automotive history laying around in the form of six ford escorts. They were just taking a rest from the hard work they put in over the years, catching some dust, winning races is hard work you know.

Way in the back of the garage was this blue escort shell it once carried a single cam engine, however it was modified to be a twin cam engine.

The engine started with a single over head cam, that was driven via a push rod method from the crankshaft, but with this conversion, the first cam, spun a second cam via a gear, and this allowed more airflow into the head, more air = more power, and more power = more fast. This was automotive magic and ingenuity.

Further to the front of the garage, we found more Escorts, one MK1 with the Cosworth 2.0L 16v turbocharged engine, makes around 300hp as well as his Mk2 Escort, the one he used consistently in rally. They were covered in tools and parts.

This really reinforces the fact that we need experienced persons to be able to carry on the passion and love for Motorsport to a younger generation, so it can continue grow. As Freddie stepped away from racing his mechanic shop continued to grow, taking the time to work with clients and help those he can.

We really appreciated the tour, and the chance to be able to photograph these amazing machines.

- Sleeper Forest Team