Pedey stops in Dubai for a little rest and relaxation
I’m sitting at the airport right now, and I’m extremely excited. Sure, I’ve taken my fair share of flights over the last six months, but the journey ahead has me pumped. Why? Because my ticket reads DXB to AKL: I’m coming home for summer! Although I’ve spent the last half a year meeting people from scenes all over the world, there’s nowhere quite like home and the people who populate it. I can’t wait to see not only what Red Bull brings to the party this year for Drift Shifters, but also all the new builds to hit Nationals, the cruising over summer break and, of course, our own S30 Datsun, which has recently seen a little love down at GT Refinishers and is now freshly regoed and warranted, ready to rock the moment we land.
The trip from Sweden (where I have been living for the past month) to Auckland is, for lack of a better word, a real asshole, coming in at about 28 hours long, generally with two stopovers just to make it that much more painful. So when we learned that one of those stopovers would be Dubai, also known as ‘DXB’, we thought, why not break the journey up and spend some time in the United Arab Emirates?
As a result, for the last five days my wife and I have been tearing up this amazing country, checking out the local scene and experiencing its rich car culture which, as it turns out, isn’t all oil money and supercars. Though that mega-money image of Dubai is certainly rooted in truth, that’s not all there is to this place and the other cities in the UAE that surround it. The local Emirati people actually only make up a very small percentage of the population here, and that means there are plenty of foreign regular Joes like you or me, working on and enjoying their cars — Kanjo-styled Hondas, big-power drift cars, vintage Toyotas and Nissans, time-attack weapons and everything else you can imagine — it’s simply that these cars live in the shadow of the cliché supercar scene Dubai is known for.
Over the last few days we’ve been to car meets, checked out some excellent tuner workshops, absolutely flogged a GT-R up the most amazing hill climb I’ve ever seen, dodged camels in the desert in a GSXR-powered offroader, and even had a few cheeky late-night highway tangles with various supercars for good measure. Dubai has left a lasting impression after a short time here — it seems to be a place of limitless possibilities and opportunities, provided you know the right people, of course.
It’s certainly been a grand old time, but I have to say that there’s no place like home, and I find myself sitting here in this departure lounge, waiting for that boarding call and absolutely fizzing at the bung. I can’t wait to be back where ‘everybody knows your name’ for a little familiarity and, of course, one of the very best car scenes in the world. I’ll only be home for two months or so, but I plan to make the most of it. See you at the events!