Competition For Places In Oman Youth Rally Cup Enters Final Phase

Muscat, Oman, 10 February, 2013: The prize of a place in the inaugural Oman Youth Rally Cup is now one step away for 36 young hopefuls who enter the final phase of an intensive selection programme this week in which fitness provides the ultimate challenge.

Many young Omanis were originally attracted by the launch last month of a project which uses motor sport as the platform to boost road safety awareness, while also creating future champions.

Ultimately, 30 successful candidates will be picked later this month to enter the 2013 Oman Youth Rally Cup, forming three teams of ten – each consisting of a driver, co-driver and four technicians, plus a team manager, test driver, a marketing executive and finally a PR executive – to contest all five rounds of the Oman National Rally Championship.

The first winners of the Oman Youth Rally Cup will be decided by a scoring system based not only on rally results, but also by each team’s performance during community activities designed to encourage the wider public to become safer drivers. 

The Oman Youth Rally Cup was conceived by the Sultanate’s top rallying figure, Hamed Al Wahaibi, founder of Safety First, Oman’s leading, independent, not-for-profit, road safety campaigning organisation. The project is officially supported by Oman Air Cargo and Oman Sail.

“I’m very excited by this project, not least because it allows me to give something back to Oman, and thank my country for supporting me in my international rallying career,” said Al Wahaibi.

“Above that, it will help to grow awareness of, and support for, the main objective of Safety First which is to contribute to the future prosperity of Oman by making its roads a safer place for all road users.”

Over the last week, Al Wahaibi has supervised the penultimate phase of the selection exercise to pick the three 2013 Oman Youth Rally Cup teams. Short-listed from the initial flow of applicants, 56 candidates underwent driver, co-driver and technician selection assessment programmes at the Oman Automobile Association facilities in Seeb.

Those already engaged with motorsport and rallying in Oman were channelled into driver and co-driver programmes. A written test was combined with kart laps and slalom exercises ending with a drift exercise using a Toyota Yaris car.

The drivers were assessed by multiple Lebanese rally and hill climb champion Abdo Feghali and Al Wahaibi, while the co-drivers were assessed by international rally co-driver, Allan Harryman. Candidates currently involved in engineering studies went through a series of practical and classroom mechanical tests and were assessed by Chris Hodgson, an experienced international rally team engineer, along with the Al Wahaibi Motor Sports technicians’ team.

“We have been very impressed with the level of interest and enthusiasm shown, and the performance of all those who took part in the selection programmes this week was extremely encouraging,” said Al Wahaibi.

The 36 candidates selected now progress to an intensive three-day fitness assessment programme at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher starting on Monday. The three teams for the 2013 Oman Youth Rally Cup will be announced at a media conference in Muscat on 16 February.  

The final teams will then undergo professional training in first aid, fire fighting, CPR, defensive driving, road safety, rally driving and navigation. They will also receive training in communication, sports psychology, media relations, presentation, sponsor relations and commercial aspects and undergo continuous fitness assessments and interviews. 

Using specially designed Toyota Yaris models built and tested in the Sultanate for rallying, the three teams will compete in their own category in this year’s Oman National Rally Championship, which gets under way next month and reaches its conclusion  in December.

The winning team will automatically qualify for the 2014 Oman Youth Rally Cup which will be expanded to take in additional teams. Members of the other teams can choose to participate in the Oman Rally Championship on their own by securing sponsors, or look for employment opportunities in their preferred industry. 

Safety First campaigns to reduce road accidents and fatalities in Oman by 50% by the year 2020 in line with the United Nations’ Decade of Action for Road Safety. Initiatives like the Oman Youth Rally Cup are planned and executed to help Safety First realise its end goal.