UAE National Race Day, Round 2. UAE GT Championship

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You can perhaps measure the intensity of any National Raceday by the amount of cars lurking in the paddock parking lot throughout the event.

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After a big marketing build up, the paddock ended up quite nicely packed with many of the local car and bike clubs showing up early in the morning for the prime spots, with parking spaces remaining scarce even in the more distant public parking spaces until the very end of the day as the sun set.

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Any National Racing day where it’s tough for a committed individual such as myself to actually find an open perch from which to enjoy the racing must be a good one though, so as usual I, your humble servant, persevered in order to bring you our latest behind the scenes account of what is undoubtedly the flag-bearing series for all things circuit racing related in the UAE. On to the play by play then!

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Coming into this round there was quite a buzz in the paddock due the appearance of a few new players who were widely expected to have a decent shot at chasing down the seemingly unassailable Karim Al Azhari in his formidable TAM/House of Portier Corvette Z06R…which has owned the GTA class so far in spite of the best efforts of others.

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The potent upstarts this time around included an early-rumoured Khaleeji Motorsports Ferrari appearance which never materialised due to some behind the scenes hand/wringing and complaining. Nonetheless the campaign to get the Khaleeji Prancing Horse on the grid goes on, and even on display in the pit lane it enjoyed a considerable amount of attention from the public, particularly from some particularly gorgeous ladies, not to mention pink-elephant-in-the room status.

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The other hungry new kid on the block was the newly refreshed and pumped up DXB Racing Viper Competition Coupe, built and piloted by the soft spoken but eagle eyed Julian Griffin, who seemed cautiously optimistic about his chances to at least land a few good blows on the TAM/House of Portier Corvette before the end of the day.

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As the GTA cars roared off the grid a huge road of delight emerged form the crowd as the Viper shot off like a bullet, squeezing between Karim’s Corvette and the Khaleeji Porsche GT3 Cup to take the top spot right form the beginning, after which a stellar duel emerged as Karim fought back hard to regain the top spot with the Viper right on his tail in hot pursuit.

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Alas, the Viper challenge faded away early on as the car suffered from some mysterious electrical problems forcing it to pit and ultimately retire.

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The slack was taken up admirably by Cabell Fisher and Tarek Elgammal after the mandatory pitstop however as the Khaleeji Porsche ended up leaving pit lane right on Karim’s tail, after which the Porsche fought tooth and nail for the distance, managing to cling to the Vette’s four taillights right until the checkered flag no more than a second or two behind the entire way, earning another solid second place finish for the Khaleeji Porsche boys.

Categories: Race

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