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| Essay Archive | February 17, 2003 |
RACING IN THE STREETS
The Taxi Grand Prix of Managua
I was riding shotgun in a burgundy 1984 Lada, gripping the Russian car's rattling door with my right hand and a sweaty black vinyl seat with my left. We approached an intersection with its signal changing to red. Traffic around us came to a grinding halt. Not to be deterred, the taxi driver wrestled the old Lada into the vacant left turn lane, floored the pedal and swerved hard right, crashing through the red light at full speed. I tightened my grip on the door and seat and held my breath as we knifed through cross traffic. For the driver it was just another day at the office. He grumbled something about the increase in city traffic; his thick left arm dangling out of the Lada's window and the other busy sawing away at its big black steering wheel. He spied me out of the corner of his eye and a small grin of satisfaction crept across his mouth.
What better way to arrive to this unique and prestigious sporting event than with one of Managua's finest, the taxista (taxi driver). The event: the 4th annual Taxi Grand Prix of Managua, perhaps the world's only stage for street taxis driven legally on the ragged edge, against the limits of adhesion and reason. The hope seems to be that an annual session of helmeted aggression might calm the Managuan taxi driver's insatiable hunger for speed, melting rubber and terrified pedestrians. There is no evidence that this has been effective.
Latin American taxi drivers are celebrated for their liberal interpretation of driving rules and Managua taxistas are a fine example of this tradition. The Grand Prix race is a challenge, a test of these extraordinary skills, in a controlled environment. The taxi drivers are allowed to modify their machine's exhaust system, nothing more. They are required to wear a helmet; which is normally borrowed from a friend with a motorcycle. The competitor's cars are examined the day prior to the event for race legality by an expert, who is subjected to thinly veiled threats of being left curbside in the rain for eternity, if he does not pass all of them. The roads of central Managua are closed. Large speakers are set up to add thumping music and color commentary to the spectacle and a crowd shows up to cheer these humble and proudly vagrant sportsmen to victory or at least a spectacular mechanical failure.
After my adrenaline-filled transfer to the trackside entrance, I was able to sneak into the pits. There, Managua's finest spoke about the trials of competition. One disgruntled taxi driver spoke bitterly of pre-race sabotage, of a screwdriver finding its way into his taxi's rear tire before the race. Another shrugged off the rules and regulations committee, admitting happily that he had paid a visit to the tarmac of Managua International in the morning, to fill his 1988 Toyota Corolla taxi with aviation fuel, thanks to a local airline contact. Really the Managua taxi driver has more contacts than the Pope. If you need to find something, anything in Managua, the taxista has an in and his contacts always lie just a fare away. The taxi driver is even more renowned for his drinking exploits and amorous adventures. A married taxi driver with less than two girlfriends has either fallen on desperately hard times or found Jesus Christ. The best way to prepare for the big race is to go out the evening before and drink all night, which means that some 30% of registered participants are no shows and the other 70% have brutal hangovers. Fortunately the race participant list is posted on a port-a-potty inside pit lane, to assure that the taxista is well informed of what race heat he will compete in and at least temporarily discourage his favored used of the taxi left rear wheel as a portable urinal. This is not to suggest that all taxi drivers in Managua are rogue, unmannered, womanizing, party animals, nor is it to claim they are not. Simply that their fame goes beyond their extraordinary driving talents. However, one fine day, every August, these much-maligned taxi drivers gather to show the citizens of Managua how unjust their public image is.
The level of pre-race tension in pit lane (a parking lot in the shadow of Managua's Cathedral) was high. The numbered taxis lined the pit area, cars brightly decorated with sponsor decorations like Victoria Beer, Pirelli Tires and Esso Gasoline. Others displayed personal inspiration with Che Guevara or Jesus stickers. I stopped to chat with one of the most famous competitors, a taxi driver known only as "Lágrima" (teardrop) for the tattooed teardrops that adorn his cheeks. He is a former Grand Prix champion, one of the many heartwarming success stories that this classic event has given Nicaragua's sporting tradition. In 1999 Lágrima was working as a taxi driver for a car owner, when he secretly registered his boss's car for the big event. He told his boss that he wished to work a double-shift the night before the Gran Prix. On the eve of the race Lágrima visited a friend's garage and changed the exhaust system on his boss's new, bank-financed Hyundai Accent taxi. The next morning the owner of the car went to see the race with his family and was so angry that had to be restrained by the police when he saw his new taxi doing hot laps around the circuit, piloted by an inspired Lágrima at the wheel. Terrified that Lágrima would wreck his new car, yet unpaid for; the owner tried to enter the course, jump in front of his car to save it from destruction, but to no avail, Lágrima was a legally registered participant. Lágrima, who looks the part of a barrio gang member, has a delicate touch at the wheel, he is deceptively quick. No squealing tires, no side ways corner exits, just smooth precision, he posses a brilliantly methodical quickness.
In Lágrima's first ever event, in a borrowed, or some would say, stolen car, he won his first Taxi Grand Prix. His prize was a brand new taxi, a little Chevy Monza. Lágrima's tears were now of joy. Lágrima was no longer just a driver - he was a car owner. The celebration, the elation, would soon dampen and in less than a year his insatiable love for Nicaragua's fine rum and woman left him broke. He was forced to sell the car. In this year's event he was in another borrowed car (this time with the owner's permission), but it was old and battered, a veteran of Managua's city streets. He looked nervous. "How do you see your chances"? I asked him, examining his red bandana headdress, camouflage pants and deathly serious face with tattooed teardrops running down his cheeks. He studied me tensely, like a Formula One pilot before the biggest race of the year, then shrugged, looked around at his competitors, Managua's finest, "Don't know" he sighed, eyes growing big, "but I do know that these guys are dangerous".
The air was filled with giant golden dragonflies, as Managua's morning sun turned up its wick and began to beat down on the race circuit blacktop. The 3-meter tall speakers at the start/finish line thumped out salsa music. The big event was to begin, a decent sized crowd was gathering along the street course, looking for shade and once-in-a-lifetime glimpse at a Managua taxi driver wearing a seatbelt. Just as the announcer was to call out the first set of taxis to compete in the opening heat, a steel-gray Nissan taxi entered the course, tires squealing and license plate dangling from its damaged front bumper, with a police car in hot pursuit. The taxi driver was unregistered and was apparently returning from his nightshift a little worse for the wear (drunk to be precise). He had crashed the police barriers and was trying to lap the course. The crowd cheered heartily. The unregistered participant was arrested and his taxi was lifted on to a flatbed tow-truck. The tow-truck then backed into the side of the police car, locking them together in twisted metal. The crowd erupted into a bigger more enthusiastic applause. They had come for Grand Prix action and they had come to the right place.
For fan excitement, the race format is questionable at best. All taxis are placed into a series of 5-lap heat races of 5 cars each and the winner decided by the fastest overall time. In previous events the winners of each heat met in a climatic final race, but this led to ferocious driving tactics and numerous accidents, so it was decided to run the race based on the best elapsed time for the five laps. The problem for Lágrima was his draw, he was placed at the back of his heat, if he was to run quick, he would have to overtake four taxis quickly and then make up elapsed time with some open running. When Lágrima saw his draw on a little piece of yellow paper taped to the temporary outhouse, he leaned up against the port-a-potty hugging it and banging his head against its blue plastic walls. His dreams for the grand prize, a new taxi, now looked distant, highly improbable.
The Taxi Grand Prix course is a tropical, Nicaraguan version of the old Hockenheimring Grand Prix track in Germany, long straits running through palm trees on the road along the west side of the Managua Cathedral. The straights are followed by hard breaking for tight chicanes, with a small stadium section that runs around the Tiscapa Crater Lake and then more long straits and chicanes before finishing with the Metrocentro round-about, which forms a parabolica reminiscent (with some imagination) of the Monza Grand Prix track in Italy. The first four heats saw some great battles, but the chicanes were built too tight for overtaking, making it almost impossible to brake side by side, there was little racing to be had by the taxistas. None the less, there were some fine Managua Grand Prix details, like the classic taxi driver stylistic move, so appropriate in a tense race, of dangling the left arm out the window on the 150 km/hr long strait and unforgettable design touches, like flaming-death-skull painted side-view mirrors accompanied by a little stuffed teddy bear dangling off the rear-view mirror, or subtle signs of sportsmanship, like a polite warning to a fellow competitor on the starting grid that his tire was flat (while stowing the screwdriver in his glove box). The taxi drivers really were on their best behavior.
In the final heat Lágrima's car lurched to a start and he jammed his battered 1992 Hyundai Accent taxi in front of another Hyundai taxi before the first chicane. He then went after the next victim, getting in the draft of a little Nissan Sentra going around the Metrocentro parabolica, which he easily beat under breaking at the back straight chicane. Through the crater lake stadium section Lágrima worked on a dark blue Mitsubishi Lancer, but found it hard to get enough speed to overtake it. With the clock ticking and his elapsed time being slowed up by the Mitsubishi taxi, Lágrima never lost his cool, methodically he stalked the blue taxi knowing that every second he stayed behind it, his chances of stepping on to the top of the podium grew slimmer. With the Mitsubishi protecting the inside of the entrance to the Metrocentro parabolica Lágrima went around the outside, balancing the car on its throttle and then flew by the blue taxi on the exit of the corner. With the crowd now cheering wildly and the huge circuit speakers pumping out, "I'm Comin' Up", Lágrima attacked the final car in his heat. "Don't forget race fans, these heats are of five laps each", reminded the track announcer over the blaring music and then loudly into his microphone, "does anybody know what damn lap we are on?" Lágrima was now drawing close the last taxi in front of him. He would have only two laps to pass a very clean, silver 1999 Toyota Corolla. Lágrima stuck his front grill to the rear bumper of the Toyota and shadowed it for a full lap. The crowd grew tense. Could Lágrima's thrashed, ten-year old taxi overtake the new Toyota?
It was during a stress-filled moment like this, in the 2001 Taxi Grand Prix, that a cow decided to cross the racetrack. Cows and horses are not uncommon in downtown Managua, as there really isn't a downtown, having been swept away by the Christmas earthquake of 1972 and never rebuilt. The cow was destroyed in that race by a Toyota Tercel taxi and the race red-flagged while taxi drivers helped race fans pull the slain beast and wrecked taxi off the track. The crowd ate well that night and the next day's newspaper headlines read, "Cow Killed by Mad Taxista Disease". Thankfully there were no animals sacrificed at this year's race, but the now desperate Lágrima would have gladly killed one, if would have helped him to find a way past the silver Toyota Corolla. Running through the crater lake section for the final time, Lágrima got a wheel up on the front running Toyota and coming down the final straight pulled his battered taxi along side. At the finish line, Lágrima's white Hyundai was just inches behind the Toyota. He had lost the heat and any chance at overall victory.
The taxi drivers returned to the pits and promptly fell asleep. The results would take some time to process and this was the perfect chance to catch up on some of the hours lost in the pre-race parties and be properly prepared for the post-race parties. I walked down the pit lane serenaded by ruffled snores of the Grand Prix pilots. I felt let down. I really wanted Lágrima to have another chance at the title. The results meant little to me now. I went behind the course looking for a taxi ride back to my apartment.
Squinting into the sun, I saw a forest-green Audi taxi filling the horizon. I flagged it down. On the roof of the taxi, standing in a flat luggage rack, was the driver's dog, a little yellow mutt with a permanent smile. The taxi driver smiled too as I got in and he wiped the steering wheel dry of sweat with a little white towel from his shoulder. "How was the race?" he queried. I told him that it was great to see the taxis running at those speeds legally and with woman and children safely out of harm's way. He smiled peacefully and began to sing into the windshield and we sped off. The 1975 Audi was singing along also, with an orchestra of rattles from the dash, squeaks from the wheels and the driver's little dog happily barking a chorus from the roof rack. I felt at one with this eternal song of the taxi, its peaceful driver and his little yellow dog. I even felt privileged; after all, how can one maintain cool in the searing heat of Managua's streets, fighting traffic, horse-carts and aggressive city buses. The taxi driver is hard working, not exactly a pillar of society, but few work longer hours and no one knows the labyrinth of Managua's streets and landmarks better than the taxista. In addition the fares are cheap, a real deal, where else can you go across town for US$1.00? Besides, who knows better what is happening inside Nicaraguan politics and bars? The Managua taxi driver is someone who deserves to be appreciated, respected. The green Audi taxi arrived to my street. I paid the driver and stepped out. He wiped the sweat from his steering wheel with the little white towel from his shoulder and smiled at me. I waved goodbye to him and his little rooftop dog. He sped off, running the stop sign at a school crossing, disappearing into the afternoon light.
Copyright © Richard Leonardi