Soomar takes second place in UAE rally, Hamid third
AL FUJAIRAH: Omani rally driver Khalid Soomar and his codriver Issa Alwardi won the second place in UAE rally championship 2017 group “N” after the last round of the rally, which been conducted in Al Fujairah. Meanwhile his colleague Hamid al Qasimi and his co-driver Mohamed al Mazroui clinched third place in-group “N” despite his early retirement during the first stage in this rally. Stages; The rally has started from the Beach road in AL Fujairah, where the chief guest has conducted the flag off ceremony and then all rally cars shifted their ways to the real stages where the first stage was in AL Fujairah dam for about six kilometres.
Khalid Soomar has did a good timing in this stage, where he was the third fastest driver recording a better timing than the leader of the group “N” Shaikh Mohamed al Qasimi from UAE. An early retirement happened in this stage when Hamed al Qasimi on Mitsubishi EVO 8 left the rally after his engine caught fire after only 2.8 kilometres from the start point of this stage.
The rally continued in the second stage at Asfai for about 8 kilometres, where the stage has many challenges crossing narrow roads and high mountains. In this stage, Khalid Soomar did again good job and became the third fastest behind the Czech Republic driver Vojtech and Emirates champion Shaikh Abdullah al Qasimi.
Problems stared to face Omani rally champion Khalid Soomar in stage 3 in Shawkat village for around 15 kilometres, when his car was not going up to the required speed leaving him behind the slower car, where he lost almost 1 minute and become fourth overall after he was leading the group championship.
The rally cars went back to the service area where our champion Khalid Soomar maintained his car for a better performance for the remaining three stages of the rally and after leaving the service area Soomar again did well in the fourth stage when he recorded the 3 fastest in the overall.
The car performance was moderate with some difficulties in speeding up, but still Soomar was in good mood and took the third place from Shaikh Mohamed al Qasimi in Asfai stage, where this stage was the type of driving Soomar likes.
Problems hit Soomar’s car again in the last stage of the rally when the car had the same problems as stage three when the car was not giving enough speed and power meanwhile other cars recorded better timing than Soomar.