17 March 2015, Dubai – Having left Fujairah in disappointment after a fire in their engine brought a premature end to the opening round of the season, the Fazza duo of Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir bin Hendi are determined to make amends in Round 2 of the UIM XCAT World Series in Dubai this weekend.
A failure in the fuel line led to the fire in Fujairah
The pair confirmed that it was a failure in the fuel line that caused the fire in Fujairah but their goal is to return to the top of the podium in Dubai. “Yes, that is our goal and we are determined to achieve our goal,” said Al Zaffain, who together with Ben Hendi, won every race in the Series last year but is currently lying eighth overall this season. “We have done an overall inspection of the boat and equipment and necessary changes have been done accordingly,” he added. The Fazza team have always enjoyed racing in home waters in Dubai and speaking about the conditions, Bin Hendi explained: “It is difficult to predict the conditions now due to the wind factor which keeps changing minute by minute. However, the Dubai race course is a challenging race course due the unique combination of open and closed sea.”
Fazza in full flight
The course in Dubai – in the waters in front of DIMC – consists of one start lap of 2.68 nautical miles, 13 race laps with some tricky turns (making up 46.15 NM) and two obligatory 8.06NM long laps. Going in as current Series leaders are Team Abu Dhabi who claimed top honours in the tough Fujairah GP in which only six of the 13 boats managed to complete the race. Speaking about the challenge from their neighbours, Al Zaffain reckoned: “In this Series all the teams are immensely competitive and challenging, and we think Abu Dhabi Team will be in high spirits.” The action gets underway at DIMC on Friday, 20 March with the race for Pole Position and the thrilling head-to-head Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run while the main event, the Dubai GP, will kick off at 3pm on Saturday, 21 March. Entry to the general public areas at DIMC is free of charge as families can venture down to catch all the action from the jetty with plenty of other exciting activities on offer for all ages.
Powering into the Future
