NEW YORK (USA): His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and Steve Curtis will give their new turbine racer, Al Adaa’am 96, its eagerly awaited racing debut at this weekend’s 23rd Annual New York Super Boat Grand Prix, round seven of Super Boat International (SBI).
The president of the Qatar Marine Sports Federation (QMSF) and his British throttleman gave the stunning new turbine-engined Mystic boat a shakedown on Lake Stanford in Florida last week before the team headed north to prepare for this weekend’s race in New York.
“We tested on Lake Sanford to give the boat a shakedown after the minor fuel leak that stopped us racing in Sarasota,” said Sheikh Hassan. “The test was not to look at miles per hour but to take a look at the new system we have on board. My first impression was ‘wow’, impressive, excellent acceleration. It handles well, but I still need to get used to it. It’s a bigger boat than the Class 1 I used to run, but I don’t think that should be an issue.
“I am looking forward to New York. We are not going to push. We want to make sure that everything is okay. We will go out there and have fun and test the boat on the racecourse. We are on a river and I guess there will be some strong currents, the ferries will be running up and down and that could create some issues on the water.”
Meanwhile, Qatar team regular Mohammed Al-Nasser has Xcat racing commitments and Ali-Al-Neama will now be joined by the experienced Billy Moore in Spirit of Qatar 20. Moore, from Grantsborough in North Carolina, is an experienced throttleman and raced at the helm of Warpaint in the Superboat class this season.
This class has provided some nail biting racing throughout 2013 and Team WHM Motorsports arrives in New York with a 183-point lead over Team Stihl, with JD Byrider in third.
Sheikh Hassan also confirmed that Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, Qatar’s leading rally driver and the current leader of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship, will test with the team in Qatar in October before joining the QMSF-backed operation at the Key West World Championships in November. “His boat is now being worked on to be ready with big power,” enthused Sheikh Hassan.
SBI has raced in New York for 22 years with boats tackling courses on both the Hudson and East rivers. This year crews will race on a course in lower Manhattan with the new Freedom Tower in the background and Statue of Liberty in the foreground with the dry pits based at Liberty landing marina in Jersey City.
After team registration and inspections on Friday, teams will be permitted to test on the course for the first time on Saturday with racing in the various Turbine, Superboat Extreme and Superboat classes taking place at the earlier time of 11am (6pm Doha time) on Sunday to fall in line with a tribute to the 911 tragedy that is taking place at 1pm.
Racing can be watched live on https://new.livestream.com/sbi/newyork2013.
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