Tasting the thrill of speed
Newly mobile Saudi women embrace high-octane driving
RIYADH: Donning a helmet inside a pearl silver sports sedan, Rana Almimoni skids and drifts around a Riyadh park, engine roaring, tyres screeching and clouds of dust billowing from the back.
For Saudi women, such adrenaline rushes were unimaginable just weeks ago.
Speedcrazed women drivers are bound to turn heads in the deeply conservative desert kingdom, which overturned the world’s only ban on female motorists in June as part of a muchhyped liberalisation drive led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Rana, a 30yearold motor racing enthusiast, is defying the perception – or sexist misconception, depending on who you ask – that only dainty cars in bright colours are popular with women drivers.
“I adore speed ... my dream car is more than 500 horsepower,” she said, slamming the accelerator of her silvery sleek Kia Stinger inside Riyadh’s Dirab motor park.
She said she was awaiting an expected government decision that would let women obtain a “racing licence” so that she could hone her passion in motorsport competitions.
That includes drifting – oversteering the car to slip and skid or even spin, and other highspeed daredevilry – which is illegal in public but tolerated in the controlled environment of Dirab park.
Author Pascal Menoret’s acclaimed book Joyriding in Riyadh described the highoctane Saudi obsession for drifting, seen as a symbol of revolt among restless youth, as all “about being a real man”.
Now Saudi women are embracing what was previously deemed a male entitlement – speed.
Auto showrooms tapping new women clients have rolled out a lineup of cherry red Mini Coopers, but sales professionals say many exhibit an appetite for muscle cars like the Camaro or Mustang convertible.
Many new drivers seek inspiration from Aseel alHamad, the first female member of the kingdom’s national motor federation, who got behind the wheel of a Formula One car in France in June to mark the end of the driving ban.
Some women are also training to ride motorbikes at a Riyadh driving school, a scene that is still an anomaly in the conservative petrostate.
Transport authorities have rolled out racing simulators to help firsttime women drivers get a feel of being behind the wheel.
While no overt incidents of street harassment have been reported, many women are wary of sexism and aggression from male drivers despite warnings from authorities.
Also testing nerves is the government’s sweeping crackdown on women activists who long opposed the driving ban and a longvilified system of male “guardians” – fathers, husbands or other male relatives, whose permission is required to travel or get married.
“The Saudi government is expanding entertainment options for Saudi women, but eliminating space for political expression,” said Kristin Diwan of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“Lady drifters can feel the speed but not free speech.” — AFP