Being a Petrolhead in the Dominican Republic #BlogPost

This image above SHOULD put this subject into enough perspective for you. But if not, let me take you through a journey of the repressed life of a petrolhead in the Dominican Republic.

<b><big>Y</b></big>ep. So we’re that little country, somewhere in the Atlantic, middle of the Caribbean that really most people don’t even think about it unless you’re from the country itself or happen to have a summer home/timeshare in Samaná or Punta Cana. Despite this, some of our fellow countrymen have proven to be bonafide car enthusiasts (for instance thecrazyman, The Stig’s Dominican Cousin, and Kanjo 8th, and myself.) However, we’ve seen from other examples on here that in some countries, it’s not exactly easy to be a car enthusiast, be it social, economic or government policies. So here I bring you in the form of a Bachata, what it’s like to be a petrolhead in the Dominican Republic.

No. 1: More..err…..LESS Money, Mo’ Problems…….SON!

<b><big>Y</b></big>ou saw that correctly. The majority of the people you’ll see on our roads are usually going about on small motorbikes like this Honda C90 SuperCub. No, none of the V-Twin Harley-Davidson stuff; we’re talking One-Cylinder, Three-Speed, 80 kph levels of extreme VTAAAK………ok maybe not VTEC, but you get the idea. Main reason behind this being that there really is no money to be spent on cars (GDP per capita in the Dominican Republic is the equivalent of $6,150). Adding to this, the taxes on cars are the equivalent of getting your life savings robbed, and it’s not like tax returns are fair either (if anything they’re nonexistent). The fuel prices are some of the most expensive I’ve seen, personally, and are of NO COMFORT WHATSOEVER!

LET’S PUT THIS INTO AN EXAMPLE

This Audi TT costs, in America, the larger bit of US$42,000. In a similar build, as shown above, it costs US$74,000 (yes, that’s a 7 and a 4). Then you have to dial in the taxes which can end up to doubling or even tripling the entire cost of the car. So in total a BASE Audi TT can end up costing up to $222,000, MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A FULLY LOADED PORSCHE 911 TURBO S CABRIO IN AMERICA.

And filling up every week is a different story. Filling up my car’s tank (15.9 gallons with premium fuel) would take about US$32.59. Filling up in the Dominican Republic would take RD$3,003.51. Which when converted, comes to a total of US$65.49. And now you’re starting to see why I said car enthusiasts are repressed. The majority simply CANNOT afford to run even a small sports car like a Toyota 86/ Subaru BRZ AND afford to fuel it. May as well live by the side of the Autopista Duarte.

No. 2: Infrastructure Worse Than……Well………Anything, really…

<b><big>A</b></big>s you saw in the title image, the image with the bus on the side of the motorway, and the image up here……………..yeah. Forget about good infrastructure. This is a third world country without much money that is practically going bankrupt as we speak. So if anything roads and overall infrastructure to have a good drive are either nonexistent or quite sparse in some places of the country. So expect to spend your nonexistent, hard earned money on your suspension. Most of the roads in the countryside look like this and are littered with tattered villages with people living in them, or meandering cattle, donkeys and horses. And pigs. And dogs…..cats…….and newborn children.

And despite some noble efforts to better the roads (I’ll talk about this later), there’s still SO much more that’s left to be done.

No. 3: Top Gear Africa Special……Part 2……But in the Caribbean…….

<b><big>T</b></big>op Gear had it really tough trying to get out of that overnight traffic jam in Uganda, but at least there people follow the law. In the Dominican Republic?

Honestly don’t bring traffic laws into the discussion. Because even though they’ve been written down in the books, those books have been either soiled on by government functionaries’ dogs, or used to fuel the flame for the tyres and plants set alight by ‘protesters’ on ‘protest days’…….ooh yeah…

ANYWAY! Away from the socioeconomic commentary and back to this. The traffic is what you’d call an “Organised Chaos,”essentially meaning that everything is a complete mess, yet for some reason or another (I’m guessing primal human instincts) everybody seems to know what they’re doing. You can be coming up to a red light, in the middle of the afternoon, and literally NOBODY will respect it. You’ll literally have motorbikes scything left and right, splitting lanes trying to get to the front to make a possible illegal turn. If you try to drive like you would in the UK or America here (as in ACTUALLY FOLLOWING THE LAW), you’re more than likely gonna get flattened by a lorry taking a 90-degree turn at 100 kph. But as a word of advice, if your barreling down the road at midnight, nobody around, and there’s a red light DON’T STOP because usually people get assaulted or carjacked GTA Style. “Jus know, don’t ever play yourself.”

And once you get to the lights and decide to actually stop alongside some people with common sense, you get to these people.

At EVERY SINGLE RED LIGHT you’re gonna run into these lads. These are essentially street merchants, they meander about selling produce that they grew (or probably stole from an unattended food stand, seen it myself), falsified electronics, or try to clean your windscreen against your own will (they’ll even lift your wipers making your attempts to fend them off futile, and so then you’ll HAVE to pay them). These are mainly just a nuisance, so if anything just……just ignore them. Or if it’s the guys cleaning the windscreen, install a train horn or start your wipers at full speed…or both.

LET’S PICK UP THE TONE!

<b><big>R</b></big>ight, so let’s not leave this on a bad note, so here I’m gonna start listing some of the good stuff about being a car guy on this old rock in the Atlantic

No. 4: Better Roads Are Being Made

<b><big>R</b></big>emember that “noble effort to better the roads,” I talked about earlier? This is one of the best examples. The country’s full of mountains, meaning that you can actually build roads around the contours, and that means that curves are often the theme here. This road is “El Boulevard Turístico del Atlántico” (Touristic Boulevard of the Atlantic). Runs all the way up to Samaná and has some of the best views of the seaside I’ve ever seen from a road. Plus the gradients and some of the switchbacks, hairpins and slaloms make it a road that you may ACTUALLY want to drive, even if it was in a lazy FWD Crossover with a 5-Speed slushbox like me.

No. 5. The Car Community here is MASSIVE

<b><big>Y</b></big>ep, despite everything I said above, the car enthusiast population in the DR is still huge. People are always finding ways to make their cars unique, finding ways to modify them with their own hands and ingenuity. Always trying to push harder, or even just trying to have fun, and with them, they bring more along with them (see my Honda Integra story here). We’re always trying just to go that little bit faster and have a little bit more fun.

WE EVEN HAVE OUR OWN RACING DRIVERS

Yep, we’ve got our own breed of Stigs too. We have Jhonnattan Castro taking over Formula-D for us, Benjamin Breny, who’s ended up in the BRCC (Belgian Racing Car Championship), and R.J Lopez in Trans-Am.

See? We contribute a little something or another to our beloved motorsports world!

<b><big>A</b></big>nyways, thanks for sticking through to the end, and I hope you’ve learnt a little something here about our country and it’s connection with the car world. We might be little, and insignificant, but we have our own qualities too. Until the next one, see you lads soo.