Red Bull King of Drift challenge is back in Dubai

Sport360 staff 08:00 27/11/2014
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  • Smokin’: Ten per cent of the points will be awarded by the judges for tyre smoke.

    The 2014 Red Bull Car Park Drift comes full circle tomorrow (Friday) when the Grand Final gets under way at Meydan Hotel’s G12 park­ing lot, where one of 16 drivers will hope to be crowned the ‘King of Drift’.

    – Action-packed Festival of Speed hits Meydan Motor Village, Dubai

    However, fans this year will first get to witness the UAE qualifiers today when 26 drivers will face-off hoping to seal the last five spots up for grabs in the Grand Final.

    The UAE qualifiers will also be held at Meydan Hotel’s G12 park­ing lot with Jihad Hassan, Faisal Al Zaabi and Sultan Faisal tipped to be among the hot favourites to make it to the Grand Finale.

    The remaining qualifiers were held in Jordan, Lebanon, Mauri­tius, Tunis, Oman and Kuwait over the course of the year.

    Spectators, for whom the event is free to attend, are bound to be kept on the edge of their seats as they watch the Middle East’s top drifters put pedal to metal in a show of high-speed and powerful gear-shifting, steering, braking and power sliding techniques.

    The sport has reached new levels of popularity since the day a Red Bull manager caught the drifting fe­ver in a car park drift event in Hong Kong and decided it might take off in the Middle East.

    As a result, Lebanon hosted the first-ever Red Bull Car Park Drift event in 2008 at the City Mall car park, making it possible for all underground drifters to put their skills to test and the rest, as they say, is history.

    The first-ever ‘King of Drift’ emerged in Michel Feghali after what many agreed was a thrilling shootout amongst some of the best in the business.

    The Red Bull Car Park Drift event in 2009 showed that the discipline would quickly grow strong. Garo Haroutiounian became the second winner of the Red Bull Car Park Drift contest after an extremely fuelled competition.

    From then on, drifting grew in­fectious. The following year, 2010, marked the first-ever regional competition series with 15 quali­fiers from 10 countries, with the final event held at Forum de Bei­rut where Lebanese driver Firas Khaddaj was crowned the first ‘Regional King of Drift’.

    In 2011, Red Bull Car Park Drift evolved to establish itself as the core developer of drifting in the Middle East and North Africa with 19 qualifiers and 11 participating countries.

    The number of drift-thirsty fans grew five-fold, and the Regional Finals held at Forum de Beyrouth in Lebanon saw Saudi Arabia na­tional Said El Mouri drive off with the crown.

    Last year, the Regional Finals were held in Dubai for the very first time at the World Trade Centre and returns this year to be held in the parking lot of the prestigious Mey­dan Hotel.

    Sixteen drivers will go head to head with their eyes on the coveted ‘King of Drift’ title in a showdown that promises to be an all-round high octane finale.

    During the competition, the drifters are required to negotiate a challenging course dotted with ob­stacles, and will be judged ac­cording to a set of six criteria. Uncontrolled spin and driving in the wrong direction will get the drifters penalised.

    Rally champion and the face of Red Bull Car Park Drift Abdo Feghali, who presided over design­ing the track for this year’s finals, said: “Year on year, Red Bull Car Park Drift is getting tougher and the calibre of drifters is improv­ing, making competition fiercer. We made sure the track, which has a 40/60 split between closed and open areas of the Meydan Hotel parking lot, will push the drifter to the limit.”

    The festival returns to the Emir­ate for a second successive year and brings with it the popular Du­bai Grand Parade. Starting at 15:00 from Meydan, the parade will visit Downtown Dubai and Madinat Jumeirah where some of the most exotic cars from over 50 brands will be showcased.

    Meanwhile, for the UAE quali­fiers, gates open today at 13:00 with the contest set for 13:30, while tomorrow (Friday) gates open at 19:00 with the Grand Final from 20:00 onwards.

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