Emirati duo Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali were thankful to escape unscathed after their Dubai 7 boat flipped at the XCAT Gold Coast Grand Prix in Australia during the fourth round of the UIM XCAT World Series.
The Team DTCM co-pilots were up against the XDubai team of Arif Al Zaffain and Nadir Bin Hendi in the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Speed Cat Run – a drag-race-style head-to-head contest – and their catamaran toppled as they were crossing the finish line.
Boat 7 Dubai towed to wet pits. As said, drivers are ok pic.twitter.com/3qPlkglKKm
— XCATracing (@XCATracing) August 23, 2015
Thanks to the speedy response of the safety team, the pilots emerged from the upturned boat completely unharmed – just a little shaken up, and chilly.
“It was a combination of factors. We were going at top speed because it was the finish line. And at that point the waves were getting higher so it all happened very quickly. But we’re both perfectly fine,” said Al Adidi, who is no stranger to finding himself upside-down in the boat. The last time was at the Napoli GP last May.
Meanwhile, Italian Giovanni Carpitella gave himself a nice birthday present as he took home his inaugural Speed Cat Run title.
Carpitella and Australian teammate Darren Nicholson of the Luca Fendi Racing Team overcame Mar-ine Investimenti Sud’s Serafino Barlesi and Alessandro Barone in the final showdown of the race in front of a crowd of 10,000 spectators at Doug Jennings Park.
The Italian-Aussie pair had taken their T-Bone Station past Altman Marine’s Lady Spain in the first round before beating Team Abu Dhabi in the second.
The penultimate round saw them defeat Six’s Tomaso Polli and Matteo Nicolini) before their clash with Marine Investimenti Sud in the final.
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“I was very glad to be able to sing my anthem on the podium. I could have sung it another two or three times this year,” said Carpitella, ref-erring to the bad run of luck he has had with his boat when mechanical problems meant he lost out from potentially winning positions in the last few rounds.
In the race for pole position for today’s Grand Prix, series leaders XDubai posted the fastest lap of the day, securing top spot with a 2:58.51, which was just over four seconds quicker than second-placed Team Abu Dhabi.
“The waves you get outside have a big impact on your body,” explained Bin Hendi. “You can’t see the waves so you can’t predict – when there’s a wave, there’s another one in front of it. You can’t see them coming and then there’s a big hole in the front so it’s a shock impact. But it’s fun, it’s challenging – we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
There was lots of home cheer when local Gold Coast team of Tom Barry-Cotter and Ross Willaton registered the third-fastest lap of the day.
“We’re very thrilled with the result in our first time out in an official qualifying session,” said Barry-Cotter.
