LONDON, United Kingdom – After winning races in Europe, Isaac Tutumlu Lopez dreams one day of racing in Kurdistan to honor is paternal roots.
“This is my dream and I want to do as much as I can for it to become true,” said Lopez, 28, who was born in the Barcelona to a Spanish mother and a father from Turkey’s Kurdistan region.
“My father separated from my mother when I was only one-year-old and I have lived my whole life with my mother. I used to see my father every week or every two weeks,” he said.
Lopez adds that he is proud of his Kurdish and Catalan roots, noting they have a lot in common. Like Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Catalonia is autonomous, has its own language and culture, and talks of one day gaining independence.
“They are two countries fighting for the same aim and with a very extensive history, culture, and language. For me to represent a Kurdish village and race all over the world is an honor, and I hope I can continue doing this for many years,” Lopez said.
The young driver has won several racing competitions, among them the Catalan Touring Car Championship, Nissan 350Z Challenge, Runner up in the Copa de España de Resistencia, and Nevada Cup Radical Master. He says that his passion started when he was only two-years-old and that until the age of 15 he practiced on go-karts.
“At the age of 15, my mother told me that if I wanted to continue with go-karts I should work and pay my own way, and this is what I did,” said Lopez. “I was studying, and at the same time I was working every afternoon in a warehouse, and with the money I earned I paid for my go-kart races.”
His first real race was at age 21, when he entered the Mitjet Series of the Albacete Circuit, where he won against 30 drivers.
Lopez once visited the Kurdistan Region and presented the Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani with a T-shirt from Lionel Messi, signed by the president of FC Barcelona along with an invitation to attend a match at the team’s Camp Nou stadium.
“The president was very happy as he is a fan of FC Barcelona and Lionel Messi,” Lopez said.
“In that meeting I also explained to President Barzani that I was a racing driver and my idea was to create a team where all the Kurds and our country, Kurdistan, could be represented, with the main objective of making the world know about Kurdistan,” Lopez said.
He believes that Kurdistan is still a long way away from organizing international standard racing championships.
“It will be a really difficult job because it is not only the construction of a race track, it is also constructing all the infrastructures necessaries to bring an International Championship,” he said. “At the same time it is important that more people in Kurdistan become aware of racing and I hope that through my work this ends up happening.”
