Twelve out of the best drifters in town, both amateurs and professionals, participated in the Red Bull Car Park Drift event took place on Friday, April 1st with nearly 2000 attendees around the track. Driving a Nissan 240sx, Mesyar Abu Shaibah was able to take a dominant win against his opponents after a two-hour competition. Alive with excitement and adrenaline, the event was organized by Bassel Salem Al Sabah Motorsport Club, in partnership with Nissan, Shop & Ship, Falken Tyres, Total and Acqua Eva.
Splendidly, Abu Shaibah came as near as possible with the clipping point (pendulum) which gave him an extremely high mark of 356 points. The second place went to Fahad Al Jedei who was driving a Nissan Silvia, notching 351 points while Mubarak Al Rumaidhi rounded the podium scoring 295 points on his Nissan 350Z.
Like the previous years, the drifters had the added challenge of touching the pendulum square to score extra points with a panel of judges scoring out of 400 points, 160 points for drifting skills, 40 for car sound and 40 points for tire smoke in addition to 40 points for the donuts in the box. Judges also kept a watchful eye on car design with 60 points and proximity to the clipping point without hitting it, each accounting for 60 points. The judging panel consisted of elite experts in motorsports such as Pascal Hayek – Automotive Expert, Nawaf Al Safi – Kuwait International Automobile Club Representative, in addition to Nail Gunn and Nigel Colfer – both are Drifters and Event Organizers.
Legendary drifter Abdo Feghali who holds Guinness World Record for the longest vehicle drift has supervised the setup and the qualifier on Thursday, March 31st out of which 12 drifters qualified towards the final the next day. “Drifting as improved in Kuwait quite a lot lately, I highly encourage drifters to maintain professional and safe drifting practice. The drifters performed amazingly well and congratulations to the top three winners”, he said.
The audience also enjoyed a Trial Biking Show which Red Bull athlete Brian Capper performed on his motorbike – a special appearance that pushed the levels of adrenaline to extremes.
Mesyar Abu Shaibah qualified to the Final Red Bull Car Park Drift to compete along with winners from other countries in the regional final held in Oman this upcoming December.