# Cuban motorsports is in mourning, Quico Dobarganes has passed away

**Date:** 09/18/2021

A great friend of Excelencias del Motor has passed away, Quico Dobarganes, the driving force behind karting, classic cars and the dreams of motorsport in Cuba.

Sad news. When we were trying to get in touch with him to congratulate him on his birthday, he did not respond. Then the news hit us. A few weeks ago, at the beginning of August, we spoke with him by phone in order to coordinate an interview in which he would talk about his father's participation, together with Luis Breto, in the efforts to bring Harley-Davidson motorcycles to Cuba. We were excited and now we were going to set the day to see each other. This is how the Excelencias del Motor website expresses it.

Issue number 0 of Excelencias del Motor (ExM), which came out in February 2006, brings the start of the Cuban Karting Championship of that same year. At that time Quico was the President of the Kart Drivers. We met and, from the beginning, he gave us his valuable help. ExM, which supports all motorsports, came to have its vip area at the Cocomar racetrack.

If ExM supported Cuban karting, the Federation of Automobiles and Karting of Cuba also recognized the work done by ExM publications, both in motorsport and in karting. In the main hall of the Grupo Excelencias, in Havana, is the diploma that certifies and bears witness to said work.

Quico Dobarganes, with his privileged memory, was a permanent source for information about Cuban motorsport in the 1950s and 1960s of the last century. That is why, in 2014, when the ExM Prize was awarded for the first time, it was to Quico, then already delegate of the International Automobile Federation (FIA) for Cuba, to whom this award was granted.

There is probably no better way to honor our friend Quico than to remember him for his anecdotes and stories of cars, speed and those races between cities in the middle of the last century. He was the right person who treasured in his memory those times when motorsports in Cuba were a reference in Latin America.

We will not forget Quico Dobarganes, we will continue telling his stories, the past and present ones, of Cuban motorsport.