[CentOS] clients obtaining dhcp addys slowly

Hi all,

This is unusual for me to observe.

I've a dhcp server running on Centos 5.3 and it takes a while to  
answer clients asking for an address.

This is playing some havoc with certain scripts at startup not fully  
working because of the address delay.

I've even used a dhcp helper address type function in my Juniper  
router but nothing has changed.

Any ideas?