Throughout the past couple of years, motorsport fans in the Middle East have been marking their yearly calendar, awaiting two paramount dates. The first usually comes in the middle of the year when every country doles out its top drifters, after filtering them from the local round, to represent their countries in the big event. The second date is the big event itself, which usually comes at the end of every year, as the finest drifters from all over the Middle East gather on a wide piece of road surface suitable for the business and start battling each other while entertaining some 7,000 lively spectators. Each driver makes sure he brings with him the right weapon to the fight. It's usually a Godzilla, more precisely a drift machine, a car that out-boosts from 400 horse power and 400 ib-ft of torque to 900 horse power and 600 ib-ft territory. This akin to a bull rider in Madrid or Texas struggling to hang on for a minute on the back of a maniac bull, however, instead of one mad bull you get 800 wild horses under your feet that you are supposed to tame, else you might keep on spinning till you drop out of sight. That is how difficult it is, just as each drifter should keep on going sideways right and left throughout the assigned track, getting through orders such as figure of eight, clipping points, and drifting inside a box. In this year's event, like every year, the drifters are technically judged out of 100: 40 per cent on drifting skills, 10 per cent on box, 15 per cent on clipping points, 10 per cent on car sound, 10 per cent on tire smoke, and 15 per cent on car look and design. Points are given by judges who are well known professional drifters like Aleksandr Grinchuk, Ken Gushi and Dai Yoshihara, who this year gave the event an even handed look. Egyptian drifter Haitham Samir had some problems before heading to Dubai to participate in the finals, missing the deadline to ship his car which was not ready. However, in the last minute, his friend the Jordanian drift champion Rafat Haroun generously offered him his 325 Turbo drift machine. "I can't express my appreciation to Haroun who made sure to ship the car all the way from Jordan to Dubai, and for his efforts standing by my side till the end," said Samir. On the first day in Meydan Dubai, it was the track tryouts for all the participating drifters from Egypt, Mauritius, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. From Egypt alongside Samir, Ahmed Tarek who came first in the Egyptian local championship qualifiers, had bad luck from the first day as he missed the tryouts. Coming the second day, the finals, Tarek continued the curse streak, getting ruled out from the first heat. Getting back to the brighter side of the story, Samir ironically had it going the way he hoped from day one of the tryouts, despite finding out he broke the car's gearbox, which he later fixed. Samir was on the pole trying the track, a move which attracted attention on the second day of the finals. Starting the first heat, "the track was ridiculously tricky as its road surface was divided into three different kinds -- slippery, rough, and moderate -- a fact that put a lot of pressure on me and required a lot of skills in order to set up my driving style throughout the track," added Samir. The Egyptian ace managed to qualify second in the first heat of the finals with seven other drifters. With a perfect track all in all despite a minor hitch in the box, Samir shouted his presence from the start. "I had a shock at the starting line before I took off when my car decided to shut down several times, but thank God she was just kidding me," Samir laughed. Between the heats Samir took his time concentrating and calming down, while the mechanics took care of his machine. "My team made sure to keep me chilled throughout the heats leaving me busy with my driving, nothing else.” The second heat kept Samir in the battle to be the king of drift. However, when he reached the third and last track, complicated drama arrived. In the third heat, Samir did the job literally perfect in style with his unique red tire smoke, but at the end when he reached the last order, "the box", his car overheated and turned on the safe mode. That forced him to lose some good points, enough to knock him down, to eventually finish third on the podium with 236 points after the new drift king Ahmed Daham from Jordan with 257 points and second best Ali Al-Bloushi from Oman with 256 points given by the three judges. "It was my life's dream to raise the Egyptian flag up high on the podium after such a tough encounter with 18 drifters from all over the Middle East. Thank God I made it happen,” Samir said in gratitude.
