Feature: F1 Fuels Car Fever in Bahrain

Forget camel racing. The hottest pastime in the small Gulf state of Bahrain is racing cars and the imminent arrival of Formula One is set to fuel that passion.

"Bahrain used to pride itself on having the best Arabian horses," says Mohammed Mohsin Kayani, editor of Arabia Motors magazine on the island state. "Now we pride ourselves on having more knowledge about horse power."

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone signed a deal last year to hold a Grand Prix in Bahrain in 2004, the first in the Arab world. Work has already started on a $120-million state-of-the-art track in the desert south of the capital Manama.

"The biggest challenge is the time frame," says Sheikh Mohammed bin Isa al-Khalifa, chairman of the racing circuit committee. "They're working 24 hours a day. The workforce is up close to 1,000 people now," he says. "We're slightly ahead of plan now but it's still early days."

Construction workers are blasting through the rock to carve out the track and foundations have been laid for the main grandstand and other facilities. Sheikh Mohammed says the track is designed to be challenging for the drivers and to be a showcase of traditional Arab architecture.

"This area of the main grandstand will be landscaped like an oasis. You can go out into the desert and back to the oasis," he says, standing where the track will run down the main straight.

"From the driver's point of view we have the changes in elevation. Part of the track is behind the hill and we have some nice elevation changes to make the track more exciting."

The track will have six layouts including a drag strip.

Bahrain won the Grand Prix despite fierce competition from Dubai, Egypt and Lebanon, thanks to the efforts of one man.

"The crown prince is also a motor sport enthusiast," says Sheikh Jaber bin Ali al-Khalifa, a car fanatic and racing driver. "He owns a collection of cars that he keeps for himself and that's one of the major reasons we have the Formula One track being built, because of his enthusiasm."

Speed Sensation

A cousin of the crown prince, Sheikh Jaber is an F-16 pilot who trained with Britain's Royal Air Force. He has been racing cars since the age of 14 and is looking forward to testing his Extreme Racing Team on home territory once the track is built.

"I tell people I exchanged my camel for a Ferrari," he says of an obsession that has led him to build up a collection of cars. His latest favourite is a customised Nissan Skyline.

"The car is modified to go from nought to 300 (km/h) very quickly," he says, wearing a red Michael Schumacher baseball cap that contrasts with his traditional white "thoub" robe as he shows off the gleaming engine which looks barely used.

Sheikh Jaber says the sensation of speed is greater in one of his cars than when he's flying an F-16 at the speed of sound. "Both have the same feeling of power," he says. "But at 300 or 330 (km/h) you feel like you're going at the speed of sound."

So what's the main difference? "This doesn't have missiles."

Another Sheikh, Abdulla al-Khalifa, describes his purple Lamborghini Diablo as his "first wife".

But Sameer Zuhair Uchi, publisher of Arabia Motors, says motor sport is not just for the rich in Bahrain, a country of around 650,000 which is the least wealthy Gulf Arab state.

"You get all kinds of people interested in cars from low-income families with salaries of $700 to $800 to high-income families," he says. "We like speed in cars. Regardless of how much they cost they can be modified to have enormous speed."

Tariq Hadi, a 33-year-old IT specialist at a petrochemicals company, bought his drag racing car for around 2,000 Bahraini dinar ($6,000) a decade ago. He has since spent another 30,000 dinar on various modifications and new parts, much of the work carried out by his friend Hussain al-Muhandes at a local garage.

"We built this car from A to Z...We've worked on it year after year until we reached this state," says al-Muhandes. "It will be so, so fast, and a big noise," he says with a glint in his eye.

Illegal Races

Hadi's Black Tiger racing team is a small operation with no sponsors but they are planning a trip to Kuwait next month for a race that will last a little over five seconds.

"My wife doesn't like this, she's always afraid of accidents. But she can't do anything, this is in my head. She can't force it out of my head," Hadi says.

Since the closure of another race track two years ago Bahraini car fanatics who send their cars to Japan or the United States for the latest upgrades, or those who toil away themselves to tune up their vehicles, have had nowhere to open up the throttle and test their toys. At least not legally.

Arabia Motors editor Kayani, the first Bahraini jailed for speeding, says that despite the best efforts of the police to clamp down on illegal street racing, it still goes on.

The latest gossip among car lovers is of a recent race in the early hours of the morning involving two cars that hit speeds of more than 300 km/h on a highway that leads to Saudi Arabia. Word is spread by mobile phone and spectators gather on the side of the road to watch the cars flash by.

"Obviously once somebody has modified his car he wants to go and check it out," Kayani says. "These are things you just can't control. You can't monitor every road in the country."

Competition is fierce. "I've known people who will stop talking to each other, good friends become arch rivals, it's all a matter of whose car is faster," says Kayani, who admits he used to take part in such races a decade ago.

Sheikh Jaber says he is looking forward to having the Formula One track so he can drive his cars to their potential.

"I exceed the speed limit just before I go into third gear in this car," he says of the Skyline.