Roller-coaster ride with Sheikh Khalid is full of thrills

Know that feeling when you are riding a roller coaster, and you hit that first drop and then all of a sudden you are moving faster than you can imagine and you are twisting and turning and flipping so quickly everything becomes a blur?

And you close your eyes, just for a couple seconds, to make sure you keep your head on straight?

Riding with the Emirati rally car driver Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi, I may have closed my eyes once or twice, just for a couple seconds.

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Kind of like a roller-coaster, actually, the afternoon builds a little slowly to its peak.

We – media, a few select fans, racing industry people – are collected at Yas Marina Circuit to see Sheikh Khalid put on a little bit of a show.

The 2004 FIA Middle East Rally champion and member of the Abu Dhabi Citroen Total World Rally Team is going to drive a few individuals around the circuit. I am going to be one of those individuals.

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The relaxed feel of things, before Sheikh Khalid arrives, belies the sense of excitement that will build once he hits the track.

We wait in a garage that, if you were not explicitly aware it was not in fact a lounge, you would be convinced is a very racing-theme-heavy lounge.

There are long leather couches. Coffee table books. Abu Dhabi racing pillows. Hors d’oeuvres and soft drinks and a DJ.

It is all kind of a little surreal and I forget for a minute why we are here again. Until Sheikh Khalid does arrive, and then it all comes flooding back as he suits up, climbs into his car and starts putting rubber to road like only a professional driver can.

An unnerving mixture of excitement and maybe a little bit of fear bubbles up inside as I watch the car, a Citroen DS3 WRC, literally drift around the track.

Perhaps a little more fear than I would care to admit.

Ron Cremen, the motorsport manager for Team Abu Dhabi, tells me as I wait that the car can generally reach 180mph on dirt, that the tyres on it today are specifically designed to grip gravel and that Sheikh Khalid can complete a course like this in just about two minutes.

Watching him accelerate, break, slide around a corner, kick up smoke and accelerate again, I translate that information into, basically, “Sheikh Khalid drives really really fast, and really really hard.”

As Sheikh Khalid pulls back into the starting point after three runs around the circuit, it is time for my go in this machine. Fully decked out in my own race suit, I clamber in and a team of three straps me up.

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I make a little small talk, or try to at least, with Sheikh Khalid. He assures me I will not get sick. I ask him about his season.

“Always in a season you have ups an downs, you have good events and you have bad events but overall I’m happy, not just with the season but because everything is going the right way we want,” he tells me.

And then we are off. He drives us calmly down the straightaway, turns us onto the track. And then he punches it.

At this point I would be lying if I said I could accurately describe the next two minutes. I can say that we were constantly in motion, though which way and at which moment I have no idea.

I can say we would speed up and slow down and turn and sometimes just go in a full circle and that it was all incredibly loud.

I can say that it is hard to appreciate driving skill from just seeing it on TV, but that watching a driver use one arm to shift gears – with such speed and force that it would break my arm if I tried the same – while the other arm spins his car 360 degrees will make you appreciate the skill in a hurry.

All I can say is that pulling back in after the two minutes out on that track, it felt exhilarating.

Someone opens my door and asks me if I am OK. “Oh, yeah, that was so cool,” is the most eloquent response I can muster.

Leaving Yas Central, where the racing school is located and the event was held, I have a clear view of Ferrari World off to my left.

It seems fitting.

Ferrari World is home to the world’s fastest roller-coaster, and I’m sure it is a barrel of fun.

But there is no way it is anything like a ride with Sheikh Khalid.

jraymond@thenational.ae

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