Carlos Marquez

Carlos Marquez is a musician and part time racing driver from Cuba. His official birth date is October 17th, 1971.

Early Life

Born in a poor workers family in communist Cuba, he spend most of his teenage years as a street musician. For his 16th birthday, his parents gave him a second hand bass guitar, and Carlos soon formed the music band The Rocktober Evolution, making energetic ska-core with heavy leftist messages. Having an underground following in latin America.

Carlos however also had a passion for tuning cars and street racing, earning extra money as taxi driver. When photographer Friedl Kallström got onto trouble with a local drug cartel when making a documentary, it was Marquez taxi he ended in. Being impressed with Carlos driving style, he promised that if he got out of there alive, he'd fund a racing career for him. Somehow making it out alive, Kallström kept his word and due to his connections, landed Marquez a drive with Great Leap Backward in 1993 in the LGPS

Race Career

Due to not having much racing experience, and the W12 powered Life L190 being hard to drive, he did not make a huge impression. However, due to being able to get a few shady Cuban companies to fund his drive, he got contracted for a full seasondrive at GLB again when they moved to Rejects-1 World Championship in 1994. Success never came due to the lack of funds of the team. His best result being a second place in 1996.

However, with the famous summer of ska in the music scene, Carlos decided to spend more time with his music again, being able to get a mainstream breaktrough with the hit single Sauce-ialism. Due to drug addiction, Carlos Music career deteriorated rapidly. Eventually leading to a prison sentence of 5 years in 2006.

Today

In 2014, The Rocktober Evolution made a comeback tour, and Carlos occasionally pops up again to race for Great Leap Backward every now and then.