JEDDAH, 9 February 2006 — Farhan Al-Shamari led after the first special stage on Tuesday as Toyota cars swept the top five places in the Hail Rally. Some of the biggest names in the sport from around the Gulf, among them, Qatari Hamad Al-Thani and the Kingdom’s Majed Al-Ghamdi, are entered in the two-day event.

The special stage covered a distance of 425 kilometers from Gebah city to Hail and back passing through Alnofooz region, Beer Al-Roudaifa, Alsora, Tas Zoben and Al-Aleem mountain. Shamari, driving a Toyota Land Cruiser with co-driver Bandar Al-Sindan, was clocked in 4:55.21. Another Toyota Land Cruiser driven by Khalaf Al-Shamari and his co-driver finished second at the end of the first day in 4:56.05. Rasheed Al-Shamari, with co-driver Salman Al-Omari, placed third in 5:00.03 followed by the Land Cruiser tandems of Faisal Al-Shamari-Rajeh Al-Shamari and Muhammad Al-Dash-Khaled Al-Roaish in 5:00.24 and 5:05.36 respectively.

Halftw through the special stage, Obaid Al-Shamari and his co-driver Fawaz Al-Otabi, took the lead clocking 2.30 followed by the Saudi driver Abdullah Al-Mouri with his Omani co-driver Homoud Al-Jabri in a Mitsubishi Pajero and Emirati Abdullah Al-Katbi.

After a 30-minute respite at the end of the first half of the special stage the drivers were back in action for the last leg and the competition reached its peak.

Obaid was unable to finish the race after suffering from mechanic breakdown paving the way for Farhan and Sindan to take over en route to victory.

Waleed Mehiar, rally administrator, said everything is coming along just fine and this is a very clear indication of success on the part of th organizers.

“We did not face any problems with the participants and all the drivers were very cooperative” he said.

Adnan Qahtani, general marketing manager of ALJ, expressed his delight that Toyota cars are always in the first position.

“It isn’t strange for Toyota cars to be in the first position in this rally. Our cars have many facilities that enable the drivers to control it very easily and very fast within the track,” Al-Qahtani said.

The Group T2 contest, meanwhile, was another Toyota show with Sultan Hamdi, with his co-driver Saad Faisal, grabbing first place followed by Abdullah Al-Dousari.