Even a sandstorm can’t stop these surfers from taking their sport to the dunes.
Areas in Jeddah, such as the Bahra Area and Al-Mustora, have become ideal spots for a sport that could be unique to the Arabian Peninsula: Charging your four-wheel-drive vehicle up, down, over and along big piles of sifting desert sand.
Mohammed Kindasa, a Saudi pro Sand-Sport driver told Arab News.
“The sport is becoming more and more popular with families. A few years ago you’d see only a few cars on weekends practicing, but now on an average you’ll find around 40 cars.”
But to play this sport is far from easy thing, and it can be dangerous. Kindasa describes once witnessing a car roll about 15 times down a steep and large sand dune.
“You can’t think that you can drive like an expert from the first try,” he said. “The sand hills are very unpredictable. To drive a car to the top without flipping backward or sideways requires acute judgments involving the height of the hill, the speed of the car, the angle of the vehicle, and, of course, the type of vehicle you’re driving.
According to Kindasa, the lighter the car the better.
“In order to have a car that can take up steep sand hills, you have to customize the car,” he said. “The first thing is that the tires must be under-inflated, otherwise the car will just spin in its place.”
Other modifications include replacing glass windows with plastic everywhere except the windshield — to reduce weight and shattering in the event of a rollover. Some prefer to seal off all holes in the body to keep sand from spilling in. The tubes are also removed to reduce the clutter in the undercarriage that can cause the vehicle to get stuck on the peaks of the dunes. Most of the modifications involve reducing superfluous weight, such as bumpers, seats, carpet, and even air conditioning systems. Then the biggest tires that will fit are placed on the vehicles.
Kindasa says the sport is very challenging. A driver may attempt to take a sand dune 15 to 20 times until he can reach the top.
Once a driver spends a great deal of time simply trying to reach the tops, they might try a “tasyif”, where a driver runs along the top blade of a sand dune, which is considered one of the riskiest moves.
“It is an extremely hard and dangerous stunt, definitely not to be attempted by beginners,” said Kindasa. “I once saw a car flip and then nose dive on the other side of the hill as the driver didn’t get the balance right and couldn’t keep on the blade of the edge, but miraculously the driver survived without serious injury.”
Kindasa says the seat belt is all that holds the driver from hurling out of the car if it flips. “Some pro drivers attempt to drive up sand hills even during a sandstorms, but I strongly advise against it. You can’t see properly, and you can’t get the balance right because the sand is shifting.”
The drivers divide the area in which the sport is played into levels: small hills for beginners, of course. Some of the pro hills can be 800 meters from bottom to top. There are also “ditches”, desert depressions surrounded by a ring of dunes.
“If you go down one of these ditches and your car hasn’t been modified with the necessary horsepower, you can forget about getting your car out without a helicopter. Even another car won’t be able to tow you out.”
Kindasa often practices until late in the night. He says once it got very late and he was too tired to drive the long way to his home, so he stayed there. But then it got too cold, so he burned coal red-hot and than he buried it with sand and placed his tent on top of it and went to sleep in the warmth.
“I don’t advise anyone going out and practicing this sport alone in case the car flips or an accident occurs,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll see father and son bonding through the sport, and many bring their families to watch and cheer them. The weather is also very beautiful so it makes it suitable for a family outing.”
Kindasa says to learn the sport one must be patient, watch how other drivers do it for a long time before attempting, and always ask experts for advice, and always start with small hills.
