Racing your friends at the limit and having a good time- that’s what it’s all about

Two months spent working in Turkmenistan meant I missed the first two rounds of this year’s National Race Day, and I hadn’t even driven our Golf GTI since the 2008/09 season in April - a total of eight months. Despite enormous work pressures I had to to drive as many laps as possible on Thursday’s test day prior to the thrid round of NRD.

DXB Racing had been proving their worth all summer with both repair work such as a much needed alignment and new work in the major areas of more power via an engine management chip (now 270bhp), and better brakes in the form of Brembos on the front, to replace the existing VW Golf units.

The first of Thursday’s test sessions was used to bed in the new brakes and pads, and to get back in touch with the car’s front-wheel drive handling characteristics - a far cry from my Porsche GT3. My times were irrelevant in the first session and the best thing was that no incidents occurred either mechanically or through driver error. Robert, the DXB Racing mechanic who was looking after our car that weekend, asked whether I could push a little harder in the second session, so that the tyres and brakes actually got some heat into them, ‘like Ala does!’ he says referring to my team mate. I think that I took some offence to this statement and a few laps into the second session promptly put the car into a high speed spin through the left hand kink of turn five, when I simply tipped the steering wheel a little more aggressively than usual and the car decided to swap ends. Hard on the brakes when going sideways down the circuit with the sponsor’s logos on the concrete wall looming near the front end of my car, I took a few deep breaths as I recovered on the tarmac run-off areas. I then took the applause of Karim Al Azhari and the House of Portier team, who were laughing and shouting from turn seven. Down to the canvas with flat spots, it was time for two new front Dunlop racing slicks. They were $ 700 for the set.

Race day. Qualifying at 9am was a hectic affair and it was difficult to get a clean lap with 30 cars circulating at differing speeds. I qualified 17th, and thus started just a car length behind the Golf GTI of Ramzi Moutran. We had a fun first race, with relatively improved speed along the pit straight and especially confident braking going into each of the turns. The new front tyres were also adding to the overall experience, and I spent much of the race battling with a Honda Integra, finally making the last of several passes into turn one stick to take 13th overall and seventh in Class One.

Some Pizza and a cappuccino for lunch and it was time to get ready for Race 2. I started very well and into Turn 1 there were several cars sideways and going off the circuit as the pack of nearly 30 cars funnelled through, each driver with red mist on the inside of his visor. Another incident in Turn 6 meant that I was probably in the top 10 and then I did it, a clean run into Turn 9 meant that I was ahead of the Golf GTI of Ramzi Moutran and the Renault Clio Cup of Nader Zahour. Racing your friends at the limit and having a great time - that’s what it’s all about. The 12 laps seemed to go on forever, with faster drivers coming up quickly in the mirrors and sometimes you just have no answer to the attacks. Close, bumper to bumper throughout I slipped back in the last 2 laps, finishing 15th overall, but had several friends say this was the best race that they’d ever seen the Golf involved in. That was all the recognition that I needed.