Lack of sponsorship and awareness hinders progress of talented team drivers CAIRO: As a teenager, Ahmed Hamada fell in love with karting. He would ask all of his family members and friends to drive him to the nearest track. Little did the 14-year-old know that he would win his first car racing championship cup at the age of 18, but would be denied the chance to compete in a second championship due to lack of funds. Hamada, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student at the American University in Cairo, explains that he grew up with a passion for cars, something that led him to one of the country s few karting tracks. For some cars are just toys; for others they run in their blood, says Hamada. The boyish hobby first turned into a career when the owner of the karting track spotted Hamada. Medhat Badawi, the owner, had noticed a couple of young drivers and decided to train them professionally. Hamada, together with Adham Bakir, a 15-year-old high school student, have trained under Badawi s supervision since a young age. Bakir says that what started as a game for him turned into a serious pursuit when Badawi began training him. Sherif Al-Mahdy, marketing director of Thunder Arabia, the first Middle Eastern company working professionally in motorsports, notes the importance of starting this sport at a young age. He explains that car racing has different categories, the first of which is karting and the last and most prominent is Formula 1. Many of the current F1 champions started their careers in karting, he adds. Thus the opportunity to train these young talents could not be passed up. Badawi, along with Mohamed Gamal, the current team manager, put together a karting team and started competing on a local level with other teams. Gamal recalls that the small society of competing drivers hardly exceeded 20 in number. He says that in the period between 2001 and 2004, the competition with the biggest number of participants drew 32 drivers. The opportunity to take the team to a higher level came when Thunder Arabia organized a car racing championship in Bahrain in 2005. Until I stepped onto the plane, I didn t know what type of car I would be driving, says Bakir. And even if he had, it wouldn t have helped him; in Egypt drivers have access to only one type of racing cars: karts. In Bahrain, it was a different story. The Zip Formula 1.6 championship featured different type of cars. Hamada and Bakir took a two-day training course prior to the championship. Gamal notes that they were the first two Egyptians to take such a course. But it wasn t just the training course that got the two excited. Being on a track that hosts the prestigious F1 race was enough to leave the two speechless. Bakir recalls being literally speechless for a day after their arrival. For Hamada, it was a dream come true. Gamal says they were so impressed by the skid marks left by F1 champ Michael Schumacher s car that they took a picture of the team standing next to the pit. I can t find words to describe how we felt, adds Hamada. This fascination, however, didn t hinder the team from its intended goal: compete and win. The latter, winning, was a bit difficult, since they were competing with drivers who had regular access to racing cars, not first-timers as they were. But it was not an impossible mission; Hamada won third place and later received an invitation to join the Arab team competing in the Formula Renault 2000 in Europe. The Cinderella story, however, ends here. Hamada has a lot of stories to tell - not happy ones but those wrought with disappointment. His frustration arises from two main challenges: funding and red tape. Al-Mahdy explains that participation in such championships requires registration fees, racing equipment, accommodations and transportation. It s an expensive sport, he says. In an effort to boost motorsport in the region, Thunder Arabia has reduced the costs of a full season of participation to $50,000. Usually, one season of racing, which includes time-paced rounds, costs up to $80,000. Sponsorship is vital to this sport. Due to many reasons including the lack of awareness concerning the sport and its still minimal popularity, sponsors are not easy to find. Hamada attended one round of this year s championship series and could not find enough money to go to the second round. It isn't difficult to detect the tone of disappointment in his and Bakir s voice, although they remain hopeful that they will eventually find sponsors - their teammate Mohamed Misho Hamdy, got his father to sponsor his participation in the ongoing Zip Formula 1.6. Unfortunately, this is not the only problem. Aside from their parents initial rejection of the sport, citing safety reasons, the all-men team faces the red tape associated with mandatory military service, which limits travel outside the country for male university students. Since their operating federation is the Automobile Club, they are not classified as a sports team and consequently don t enjoy the benefits and the exemptions. Hamada, who once missed a flight because of such red tape (he manages to get permission to travel on an individual basis), is still looking for sponsors so he can catch the start of the Zip Formula 2000 in November. Meanwhile, Bakir and Misho can t put enough stress on their need for sponsors.
