It was a wet and windy end to the race season for Fabienne Lanz as she took part in the final round of the Nivea for Men Endurance Challenge on 11 December 2009, as a special invitation driver of Stargate, Dubai’s Edutainment Theme Park.

The Nivea for Men Endurance Challenge is a 24hr race which is part of the Sodi Kart World Series. This was the first 24hr race event Fabienne had taken part in and it was her chance to show the people of Dubai her karting talent, a sport she has competed in since she was nine years old.

Fresh from winning the South African Northern Regions Championship only a month earlier, Fabienne wasted no time in showing her skill and determination to the Dubai crowds. The rain started to fall just as she took her seat for qualifying, with only one chance to set a good time.

She was a little reserved as she had never raced on this track before or raced a kart of this type. Against the odds, Fabienne managed to qualify in pole position for the race and made history by becoming the first female ever to do so at the Dubai Kartdrome.

“I am very happy to give our team pole position. I am ecstatic because I have never raced on this track before’’, commented an elated Fabienne.”

“The kart is totally different to what I normally race. My race kart is a high performance racing machine which can be finely tuned to my own requirements. These are leisure karts which are all pre tuned to the same settings by the organizers and we are not allowed to change any settings to the engine or chassis. It is a fantastic team building opportunity and I am very excited to be part of this all male team in my first 24hrs race,” said Fabienne.

The Tracktalk Speedsters are a highly experienced team who have outperformed on previous occasions in 24hr races, and they all helped by sharing their expertise with Fabienne.

The race started off in extreme conditions, the intermittent downpours caused the track to become flooded in several parts during her first stint. The conditions made it difficult for her to find the right race lines, so Fabienne took it quite easy and started to pace herself for the long haul. As the hours ticked by, Fabienne took the seat for her second stint in the kart just as darkness fell upon the floodlit track. Three laps into her stint, it poured with rain again.

During the night the team performed well with no incidents and kept good average lap times in the rain. The track never really dried out and the cold and windy conditions made it very challenging for the teams. Drivers were trying to catch a few hours sleep whenever they could and Fabienne managed to retire for a few hours rest.

By break of dawn, and after three suit changes, Fabienne took her turn in the seat again. Just as the daylight pushed through the clouds, the sun was teasing everyone with an appearance which had dried out the track. It was a chance to make up some time to try and gain some places for the team.

“I was refreshed in my mind but my body felt a bit battered from the oversized kart seat,” commented Fabienne. It was in this stint that Fabienne set the fastest lap of the race, with a time of 1:11.5 seconds.

The Tracktalk Speedsters clinched a third place in the corporate group and a sixth place overall with a whopping 1004 laps completed. Fabienne was very happy to accept the trophy for fastest lap of the race, awarded to her by the Dubai Autodrome Management team for her outstanding performance.

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