Honda mounted Tannir on his way to two second place finishes on the day

After 6 years of racing, Mahmoud achieved another of his racing targets by becoming an official dealer supported

team. As a result the old trusty bike was replaced with a brand new CBR600RR. One of the big advantages of

becoming a dealer backed team is the additional support that Al Futtaim Honda are able to provide, which means

the team now has 3 fully trained mechanics at the test and race days, as well as extensive marketing support.

Thursday 6th March saw the new bike make its race event debut. The three test sessions where used to evaluate

suspension and gearing settings with good progress made. The day concluded with the schedule for Friday agreed

and the bike prepared for warm-up.

Friday saw no issues in warm-up or qualifying, with Mahmoud putting the bike in 2nd place overall behind the flying

Saudi Falcon, Abdulaziz, on his ZX6R. A slight drama occurred on the green flag lap as the start marshal forgot to turn

off the red lights (race start procedure is all light off, red lights on with the race starts when the lights go out). Luckily

Ian and Richard Birch (DAMC) spotted the error with the lights turned off before the riders returned to the grid.

The national circuit has only one long straight (start / finish straight) with the rest of the cicuit being made up of

linked corners. This means that the 1000cc bikes get in the way around the corners and then blast by on the straight.

Thus, the plan was for Mahmoud to try and lead the 1000cc bikes into turn 1. A great start saw Mahmoud keep his

place at the end of the 1st lap. Despite his best efforts Mahmoud could not match the lap times of Abdulaziz but still

finished 2nd in class and 3rd overall. A very satisfactory start with the new bike.

Race 2 was the same affair but with the track temperatures being higher, the lap times were slightly slower. Still

another 2nd place resulted in plenty of championship points.

With 4 races to go the team is still targeting wins and with a rigorous test programme planned, the team hasn’t given

up on defending their championship.

A slightly humorous event occurred during the podiums, as the 2nd placed 1000cc rider didn’t appear, so Ian

represented him and received his trophies!. So 2nd place trophies for the team over the weekend…… And on that

note, the team wished to thank Julian, Arthur, Peter and Jay from Al Futtaim Honda for their tireless work over the

weekend.