Petrolhead’s perfect weekend in UAE!
Meets, shoots and smoke – Shahzad’s Diary of an octane-filled weekend
By Shahzad Sheikh
I had to take yesterday off. Completely. After two days of immersing myself deep into UAE car culture and getting utterly high on heady mix of passion, petrol and performance, I decided I needed some down time.
That didn’t last for long though, as I ended up sifting through the tons of pictures (over 4000) that we shot over the Thursday and Friday of the long weekend, and then settling down to watch an excellent Discovery Channel documentary – Megafactories: Ford Mustang. Look it up online.
Discovery Channel Car Club Meet organised by MME
And talking of the Discovery Channel, the weekend fun kicked off with a mini-meet we organised for them and Mike Brewer of Wheeler Dealer at the Dubai Autodrome on Thursday morning. It was part of a new series he’s filming, ‘Trading Up’ that airs in May, and the Dubai edition will be the last episode.
They wanted to get a feel for the local car culture and talk to owners and enthusiasts. And boy do we have a wonderfully diverse car community.
How about a Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach alongside a custom built 57 Chevy truck, a rare British Alvis, Caterham 7, Aston Martin Vanquish, a couple of Bentleys, two Cobras, a load of stunning Porsche 911s, a classic Mustang and Pontiac GTO, first gens M5 and M3, a manual ‘Wald Black Bison’ Honda HR-V with 300,000km on the clock all the way from Bahrain, and the wackiest and most evil-looking Beetle you’ve ever seen – as well as many, many more amongst around 100 cars that turned up!
And then there’s the people, many of whom we know very well at MME, and it was such a joy to get to meet up with most of the gang again after the winter hiatus. Different personalities from difference places, bringing different perceptions and approaches to the scene – but all sharing the love of cars and motoring.
As ever we could have hung around and chatted for hours [Don’t worry guys, we’re working on planning the next MME Meet – stay tuned for more information soon] but the rest of the day beckoned.
JACCK Classic Car Meet on Jumeirah Beach Road
And the day wasn’t done with cars just yet, because after editing some of our pictures (see a full gallery at this link) and sharing Darren Rycroft’s pictures from the Discovery Channel Meet (see his gallery here), we headed back out again in black Jaguar XJ (the weekend’s tester) to hook up with the Jebel Ali Cool Car Klub (JACCK) guys for a casual meet for burgers on Jumeirah Beach Road.
A lot of the guys from the morning were also there too, including Herbie the Love Bug, Johnny B with his classic Fiat 500 and of course Todd and the Corvair. But there were more great cars to see, like an amazing low-rider Impala and Nass Ahmed’s simply stunning 65 Ford Mustang notchback. Even cooler is the man himself – he’s a Lt Colonel with UAE Aerobatics Team!
The evening presented more photography opportunities for myself and my boy, Junaid, who is really getting into capturing these events – here’s our album. Once again super-snapper, Darren, was on hand to capture the evening too – check out his images here.
Car shoots and meeting owners
Getting home late didn’t deter another early start the next morning to shoot two owner’s cars. We’re very grateful to Stephen John Coates and Darren’s better half, Sally Rycroft, for taking time out of their Friday morning to allow us to shoot their BMW M3 and Ford Mustang respectively. More on those cars coming up in future – watch this space!
And once again, as much as shooting the cars, it’s a pleasure to meet the owners and drivers. Sally absolutely loves her Mustang GT, adores the V8 rumble and the her only complaint was the way the radio antenna snags in the boot-lid spoiler when she closes it – seems to have bent inwards just a fraction too much.
Equally Stephen was full of affection for his second generation M3 which can regularly be seen at Evolve AutoCross events making swift and spectacular progress through a cone-lined course. He’s one of the organisers and openly encourages everyone to come and take part in the easiest and most accessible form of (semi-competitive) motor sport. There’s even a classic category (see a previous gallery of mine from the event here) – entry price just AED300.
Hmm… wonder if I can borrow the large but lightweight XJ again to take around the AutoX next time, I found myself wondering…
Drift UAE Round 3 at Umm Al Qwain
It takes 45 minutes to get to the Emirates Motorplex in Umm Al Qwain from Dubai – an easy trade-off for over four hours of sound, smoke, screech and sliding with full-on action and high drama at the third round of the UAE Drift championship. Check out our full gallery of images here.
We were there to cheer for our home team – the Emirates Drift Team and good friend of MME, Ahmed Alamri. Having missed out on the first two rounds getting his Toyota 86 drift car ready, he was well up for it this time, despite a still slightly recalcitrant Toyota 86.
In the single car runs, he immediately took enough points to snatch second place with a superb display of high-speed drifting and perfect transitions around the course, underscoring the UAE Drift King title he deservedly holds.
There was some great drift action all evening from the various teams and drivers, with three teams from Saudi Arabia including the slick AlJazirah Ford Racing team with their awesome Mustangs.
An interlude featured local freestyle Land Cruiser drifting which is such an assault on the senses it’s like standing on top of an old washing machine on its spin cycle, whilst there’s an earthquake going on, whilst the neighbour is playing Aerosmith really loudly and your kids are letting off fire-crackers.
It’s unrelenting yet compelling, you find your jaw just dropping at the absurdity of it all – it’s mechanical mayhem in its most outrageous form, and you’re left in wonderment that the thing doesn’t just topple over, flip into the boisterous crowd or simply just self-combust. Love it!
Back to the championship and next came the tandem-drift shootouts for the top eight scorers. The pressure was on, and Alamri was on it, hanging it way over the line – so far over the line that he took out a load of tires on the barrier next to which we were standing. That wasn’t clipping, that was mullering! Kept going though.
In the next run, the 86 was up against the tremendous Mustang and it was tight. The Ford dived through on the second last corner and flung into a drift it couldn’t recover from collecting the 86 in a T-bone and a controversial smash. Both drivers were fine thankfully, but sadly the damage to Alamri’s car was too great to continue and we were deprived of a fantastic finale battle for first place.
Not to worry though as Dr Mambo of Oman in his 370Z took up the gauntlet and fought hard against the same Mustang for third place, drawing equal twice before finally taking the last podium position.
That was the cue for some celebratory drifting, and Abdulhadi Alqahtani in the winning Aljazirah Ford Racing Mustang indulged in an overwhelming display of donuts that created their own weather front – sublime!
If you haven’t seen a round of drifting yet, be sure to get down to the next one – you won’t regret it! Check out our full gallery of images here.
Where were you then?
In fact, if you are reading this, and you stayed home all weekend, went to a mall or, heaven forbid, ended up at IKEA or ACE Hardware, then you missed out.
In addition to all this, there was even a National Race Day going on at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi as well as a Time Attack sprint event the same evening.
Don’t worry though, there’s plenty more of the season left, and more action still to come. Keep it tuned to www.MotoringME.com and our Facebook page – www.Facebook.com/MotoringMiddleEast where we’ll always update you on all forthcoming events as we hear about them.
