JEDDAH: The second round of this season’s Middle East Rally championship gets under way tomorrow in the desert around Kuwait City. With his eye on a first win in the rally, Saudi Arabia’s Ahmed Al-Sabban, driving his refurbished Mobil 1 and Coral Beach Resort sponsored Toyota S200 with his navigator Irishman Dermet Orgen for the second time in the Kuwait Rally, is determined to get a podium place at least.
“I have completed my preparatory program for this season including refurbishing of the car, which I believe is now fully ready to compete in this event,” Team Toyota-Alrabie’s Sabban told Arab News on Sunday. New to the car, which he first drove during last rally season, he thought that his winter training program acclimatizing him to the Toyota had improved his chances considerably and so balance out his disappointing season last year.
Extremely experienced, Al-Sabban is the driver with the highest number of entries in the Middle East Rally Championships in which he first competed in 1991. Last year he participated in four rounds of the championship in Qatar, Syria, Lebanon and Dubai, as well as in Al-Sharquia Rally the first multistage rally, under the umbrella of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), which took place in Saudi Arabia in November last year.
The Kuwait Rally, the 150th in the history of the regional rally series, is back in Kuwait for the first time since 1996 and has attracted some very serious competitors. Among the entrants received thus far are several previous winners of rounds of the championship, including Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, a winner of 30 regional rallies who is chasing the unprecedented total of 60 wins set by the UAE’s Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Other previous winners present in Kuwait include the UAE’s Sheikh Khalid and Sheikh Abdullah Al-Qassimi, Oman’s Nizar Al-Shanfari, Cypriot Nicos Thomas, Qatar’s Sheikh Hamed Bin Eid Al-Thani and Lebanon’s Michel Saleh.
The Kuwait Rally ran for the first time in 1974 and was won by Roger Taylor in a Honda Civic, and entered the regional series for the first time in 1984 when Saleh mounted the top step of the podium for the first time with Lebanon’s Tony Samia co-driving.
One Kuwaiti driver who will be determined to finish as high as possible is Eid Falah. He has secured backing from Rima Motors for his challenge this year with Khalid Khalifa and will be one of several local drivers in the hunt for honors. Falah finished fifth overall in last year’s candidate rally.
Kuwait’s return to the FIA regional series, after an absence of 13 years, will feature 14 timed special stages and a total of 250.32 competitive kilometers, split equally between legs one and two.
Leg one gets under way tomorrow with the traditional ceremonial start that will take place under the world famous Kuwait Towers at 4 p.m.
