Red Bull Car Park Drift Final to be held in Oman

Muscat: Oman will host Red Bull Car Park Drift Final 2016 for the first time, where winners of the region’s greatest drifting series will compete, in December.
The event will held at Port Sultan Qaboos on December 9 in association with Oman Automobile Association.
Earlier this year, local drifting qualifiers kicked off across the region in Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Mauritius, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco and Jordan, opening a whole new season of heightened challenges.
In the coming weeks, the qualifier series will continue in Bahrain and the UAE to conclude with the Red Bull Car Park Drift Final at the end of the year in Oman.
Suleiman Al Rawahi, Managing Director of the Oman Automobile Association said that it is the first time a motorsports event of this magnitude will be coming to Oman, and we are proud to see three of our talented local drifters – Ali Al Balushi, Haitham Al Hadidi and Tareq Al Shaihani - in a position to represent the Sultanate against the region’s top competitors.
“Motorsports, especially drifting, are popular throughout the region so we have no doubt the Red Bull Car Park Drift Final will be extremely well received by the public here in Oman,” he added.
The event puts the competitors’ skills to test as they are expected to deploy a high level of expertise and courage to push their engines and car bodies to the limits, while maintaining exceptional car handling skills, all at high speeds.
“There will be a lot of excitement in Oman in December as the Sultanate will be hosting the final leg of the Red Bull Car Park Drift event for the first time,” Fadi Ghosn, Chief Marketing Officer of Nissan Middle East, said.
Nissan will be the partner of the event which will present a number of unique challenges for the drivers as skill, control and an exciting performance will determine the champion of the 2016 series.
The specialised track will be designed by “King of Drift” and Red Bull Athlete Abdo Feghali and the competition will be judged by a panel of professional motorsports athletes and experts.
Drifters will be judged on a detailed criteria including: drifting skills I (80 points), drifting skills II (80 points), car sound (40 Points), tire smoke (40 Points), box (40 Points), car look and design (60 Points) and clipping point (60 Points).
Official partners for the event include one of the world’s leading motor companies Nissan, global oil and gas company Total, online shipping delivery service Shop and Ship, ultra high performance tires Falken Tires GoPro, Ministry of Tourism, Hi FM, Hala FM, Times of Oman, Shabiba and Bank Muscat.
The winner of each Local Qualifier and the top three from Oman will form the pool of drifters to compete in the Red Bull Car Park Drift Final. So far, the winners include:
Abdelrahman Fakhroo (Qatar) with 293 points, Mesyar Abu Shaibah (Kuwait) with 356 points, Maged Abo Selim (Egypt) with 326 points, Emmanuel d‘Hotman (Mauritius) with 375 points, Mohammed Khalil (Tunisia) with 383 points, Ahmad Karaki (Lebanon) with 364 points, Zaki Lafquiri (Morocco) with 347 points, Mohammed Shaker (Jordan) with 396 points, Ali Al Balushi (Oman) with 387 points, Haitham Al Hadidi (Oman) with 385 points and Tareq Al Shaihani (Oman) with 382 points.
Winners for Bahrain and the UAE are yet to be announced. The country finalists as well as semi-finalist images can be seen on redbull.com/cpd.
The Red Bull Car Park Drift Final will be a ticketed event.