Latham dominates Max Seniors
Several familiar faces were absent from the third round of the DAMC Karting Championship at the Kartdrome on Friday, 27 November 2009 due to the Eid holidays. Among the absentees were some of the frontrunners in the various categories and as a result there were some new faces on the podium at the end of the day.

Sheikh Hasher Al Maktoum, who has set the pace in previous DAMC rounds, was otherwise committed on race day which made life a little easier for Scott Latham and Maurtits Knopjes in the Max Seniors Class. Latham, who heads of to the Rotax Max World finals in Egypt next week, was in top form and proceeded to dominate from qualifying onwards. Never putting a foot wrong he won the heat, pre-final and final. Knopjes was the only one to come close to challenging the reigning champion, but on each occasion had to settle for second.

The real battle was for third place with several drivers battling it out for the honour of the final podium slot. Arnaud Bouf took third in the Heat, holding off Paul Healy and Ali Al Najjar. Bouf was third again in the Pre-Final ahead of Karan Rallan, Healy and Najjaf. In the Final Healy pulled out all the stops to take third after a race long duel with Ashraf Raza and Andrew Fuller. The trio crossed the line separated by half a second with Raza taking fourth by a whisker from fifth placed Fuller.

With the absence of leading Junior Max drivers Edward Jones and Shahaan Engineer, Piers Pakenham-Walsh became the pace setter in the class. The youngster took advantage of the situation, made no mistakes, and posted three wins over Tom Soubiron and Mohamed Alaa.

Bale under pressure in Cadets Class
Although Thomas Bale has made the Cadet Class his own in recent seasons, he found the going tougher than normal as his rivals are starting to reduce the gap and challenge for top honours. Bale did the business, as has become customary, by winning all three races. However in the Final he had to work hard for his victory as Zak Munawer and Pascal Pook pushed him all the way to the line. When the chequered flag came out to end the race, Bale was first ahead of second placed Munawer by a mere four hundredth of a second, with Pook in third by a tenth of a second. It could not have been any closer at the front.

As close as it gets in SWS sprint races
One field that was unaffected by the holiday season was the increasingly popular leisure karting Sodi W-Series Sprint Races. From the outset of qualifying it became clear that another close contest was on the cards as the top eight drivers were within a second of each other, with the top twenty were covered by just over two seconds. Topping the timing sheets at the end of qualifying was Luca Cima who edged Sam Zian out of top slot by the narrowest of margins. This was a sign of things to come as the duo were the class of a very classy field.

In race one Zian and Cima took an early lead, gradually pulling out a cushion on their pursuers while battling among themselves. The two were bumper to bumper throughout the race, which was all about tactics and avoiding the slightest mistakes. In the end it was Cima who took victory by less than a quarter second from Zian. Race two was more of the same, however at the finish line it was Zian who took the chequered flag this time with Cima tucked in behind him.

The battle for third was a contest between several drivers in race one with Paul Chatenay managing to take third, ahead of Patrick Jarjour and Raffaele Delorenzi – half a second separating the trio as they crossed the finish line. Also in the hunt early on were the media duo of Rami Joudi (SportAuto) and Phill Tromans (AutoMiddleEast) but they gradually fell back to take sixth and seventh respectively. Chatenay was again the best of the rest in the second race taking third ahead of Jarjour and Joudi.

The Sodi W-Series Sprint Race concept has become a mainstay of the regular DAMC Karting Championship race days and throughout the field there were personal battles raging. Notably there was a lady racer in the mix for the first time, Vicki Rutherford who gave a good account of herself finishing 10th in the first race and 16th in the second race in a field of 28 drivers.

The DAMC and SWS season goes into holiday mode for the forthcoming holiday period and resumes again on Friday 22 January 2010 for the second half of the season.