24 hour endurance drive records shattered

24 hour endurance drive records shattered
This year’s 24-Hour Endurance Drive organized by AutoMiddleEast.com and held at Dubai Autodrome set new UAE national time and distance records. Two Nissan Altimas, shattered all previous records by completing a combined distance of 4,581.865 km in just 24 hours.
In a display of high performance and impressive engineering capabilities the Nissan Altima 2.5 achieved 2271.389 km in 24-hours, an increase on the previous record of 21930.215km set in 2006. While the Nissan Altima 3.5 clocked a distance of 2310.476km, an increase of 86.86km from last year’s record.
The Nissan Altimas proved their power and performance as well as the reliability and durability of their technology by undertaking the grueling test in real world conditions at the 4.343km international circuit at Dubai Autodrome in temperatures that exceeded 40 degrees.
“We are extremely proud of this year’s Altima Endurance records. This is yet further proof of Altima’s outstanding durability and endurance,” commented Saleh Jafar, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications Department at Nissan Middle East. “The vehicles handled the high temperature along with the tough conditions of the track so well to succeed in breaking their own record once again,” continued Jafar.
A total of 22 national records were set between the two cars including the 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 kilometres records.
The 24 Hour Nissan Altima Endurance Drive team was made up of nine skilled drivers in total and included: Pankaj Dev, Fraser Martin; Sean Stevens; Andrew Donaldson; Michael Prophet;; Zlatko Mulabegovic; Umair Khan; Alix Capper-Murdoch and Neville Darukhanawala. Supporting the record breaking drive was the Arabian Automobiles company pit crew who ensured that all pit stops went according to plan.
“This year’s 24 Hour Endurance Drive has not only set new records but also new benchmarks for performance and demonstrates Nissan’s leadership in engineering and reliability and durability of technology,” said Pankaj Dev, CEO and Managing Editor, AutoMiddleEast.com.
The record breaking drive was run under the aegis of the Automobile and Touring Car Club of the UAE (ATCUAE) and conformed to the rules and regulations of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motorsports’ worldwide governing body. Both cars were checked by a team of ATCUAE appointed stewards and adjudicators, both before and after the event and all the times were monitored by them.
In addition the event also used two timing systems running concurrently. One was Racelogic’s VBox-II in-car GPS system along with Dubai Autodrome's timing system using transponders. Additionally, a manual lap recording system was also employed.
Sponsors of the record breaking drive included Nissan, Auto Emirates, Racelogic, U.K and Mobil 1 through Ema Lubricants.