Dubai plays host to its home grown championship this week when A1 Grand Prix celebrates the mid point in its inaugural season at the Dubai Autodrome. source: a1gp.com Under the royal patronage of His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and UAE Defence Minister, the race will focus the eyes of the world on Dubai as an anticipated global television audience of 10 million viewers tune in to watch the action. The five events to date have provided spectacular racing and series Founder, President and Chairman, Sheikh Maktoum took the opportunity to announce prior to his home event plans for the future. There are now five new Franchises available for 2006/2007, so bringing the total number of national teams to 30. The Dubai event is the only one where there will be no national team racing, but this will be rectified as the UAE is planning to enter a team for next season. The training of six drivers for this team is already well advanced and there are plans to set up both a junior and a senior team. Despite no local A1GP team, the interest in Dubai could not be higher for the race and its participants. A series of promotional events are being held in and around the city with the drivers having already visited the Class 1 World Offshore Powerboat Grand Prix dry pits ahead of their race on Friday. After the race an A1 car will be on display at the Dubai Motor Show and A1 Team Lebanon drivers, Khalil Beshir and Basil Shaaban will be visiting. Even before a car had hit the track A1GP was trying a new innovation in motor sport - a helicopter to lift abandoned cars off the track. In the first trial of this system today (Thursday) a single-engined Swiss helicopter from Air Zermatt demonstrated the speed with which a stricken car could be removed. Piloted by Samuel Summermatter, a veteran of 50,000 lifts, the helicopter had a fifty metre iron cable slung beneath it and removed a test car in a fraction of the time that conventional tow vehicles would have taken. This system known as A1 Recovery is now being studied for possible inclusion in the series.
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