The final results of the Kuwait International Rally Championships can be found here.
Several cars did not make it thru the Rally... running out of fuel, technical problems and unfortunately also accidents.
One of the most likable drivers, A Sheik from Oman (Sheik Hammad Althani), had a terrible accident on 'my' stage in which his car flipped over several time and his Co-Driver (Arif Yousuf, UAE) received injuries to his neck and shoulder. As far as I know, both had to be carried to the Hospital for treatment. I don't think he will ever read this blog, but I would like to wish both of them the best for their recovery! The Kuwait times mentioned the accident today with a two line quote without giving any details or names.
Another car flipped causing the total destruction of the car but thanks to the safety gear both passengers got away with no or minor injuries.
"My" team and I had lots of fun helping at the event and taking care of timing, safety and other things for 2 stages of the Rally (Salmi and Mettla).
One rather funny fact of the Rally is that the 0 (zero) car got stuck on the stage in Mettla in a rather bad position. Now the 0 car is the last car of the organizers that is checking the stage for safety and the race is not supposed to start until it reaches the finish and reports that everything is clear. The stage was cleared despite the fact that the 0 car didn't make it all the way to the finish. 4 Rally cars where already on the stage and 1 of them already finished it and just 30 seconds before I was about to start a Kuwaiti team, the stage was closed to get the 0 car out of the way. It took them over 30 minutes to get it out of the deep, soft sand close to the finish. That gave us plenty of opportunity to chat with drivers and co-drivers. We took plenty of pictures with them and in return gave them water and cigarettes (I hope FIA doesn't read this... :P ... No one is supposed to smoke during the rally, specially not close to the cars!). One of the Kuwaiti drivers (I think it was Meshal Alnejadi, a super friendly and like able guy) told me I am his good-luck-charm since i started him on another stage the other day were he drove an amazing time and he asked me if I couldn't start him on ALL the remaining stages...
A British driver (David Scialom) even found the time to invite me to the after party 30 seconds before I started him.
All in all it was a great experience and worth waking up at 4 am in the morning to prepare the stages for 5 days. I got a decent tan, a lot of great memories, met great people and can proudly say that me and 'my' team made this Rally happen despite some organisational problems!
In a few weeks the local Kuwait Rally Championships will be held and I am looking forward to assist again... maybe at a different position this time! :)
P.S. I will post pictures and maybe some videos soon! Just need to collect the good ones first! :)
The organizer, Kuwait Racing Club, put up all information on their website.
Everything you might want to know you will find there incl.:
- Maps
- Time Tables
- Regulations
- Live GPS tracking of the cars
- Results
- ...
Click here to see all the info's.
See you there!
At 4.30 pm today the Kuwait International Rally Championships will start at the Kuwait towers. According to the time table, the 00 and 0 car (kind-a-like test cars) will be on the stage at 15:50 and the first Rally Car is supposed to start at 16:30...
i bet you that it will be quite difficult to find parking... so try to come early!
Today was the first time the drivers and co-drivers were allowed on the first 2 stages of the Kuwait International Rally 2009 in Salmi and Atraf. Each driver was allowed twice on the stage to scout the terrain and to complete their road book (telling them where the can drive how fast and what turn will come next). We were expecting 15-20 cars but 33 showed up. Even the event organizers where surprised by the amount of drivers taking their chances today.
This was the first time for me to be part of an oficial Rally and it was great!
We met very very early at the Kuwait Shooting Club and then left to the Salmi stage. Without getting too technical (and too proud), I am on a position called SSS (Start Super Special) and my job is basically to start the cars! :) You know, counting down form 5 and giving them the "go"!
Tday we didn't do that since it was not a race but a inspection of the stage... maximum speed for the drivers is set to 60km/h.
I met a german fellow (which whom I practiced my german again) who provided GPS tracking systems for each car. With this system Race HQ can see if they used a short cut and the respective speed at any given time and place on the stage. He's been doing this since 6 years in Europe, Middle East and Africa... another dream Job! :)
All drivers and co-drivers seemed really nice and I was surprised by the high number of Brits taking part... (mostly as co-drivers).
At noon we closed all stages and went back...
Tomorrow we'll have the same, just on differnet stages. :)
Thursday is the start at the Kuwait Towers!! Try to be there!!! Bet you I will be nice!
Friday and Saturday is the actual race... I put a time table earlier (here) but I will try to give you some more info on where exactly to go and where you see best!
First of all sorry for being absent for a while and not coming back to all questions asked from my previous entry.
These pictures were taken yesterday afternoon in front of the Kuwait Shooting Club on 6th Ring Road just before the Doha Spur exit. As you can see, some of the bigger teams have already arrived and started preparing their cars. All of them are super friendly and didn't mind me taking pictures at all.
The Qatari Team (picture on the very top and middle) came with a total of 5 cars with mostly young talented drivers. The Abu Dhabi Team showed up with 3 cars (picture at the bottom).
If you pass there today, you will see much more teams with their cars, all busy setting the cars to the stages they will find in this Rally. Go pass by, say hello and wish them luck! :)
Found this picture in the Kuwait times today. Looks like U.S. President Obama has a younger brother who is concerned about the working class in Jakarta! (or is it him?)
And no... this photo is not tampered with... the funny drawing is the sign he holds up at the demonstration!
A great way of getting traffic to your site is by having your readers digg your post!
Blogger doesn't let you add Java Script in your post or anywhere, but this is the only way to get a button with script from digg.
As you can see in this post, there is a workaround for this.
I found this very helpful blog explaining it step by step here.
So please ... if you like what you read here... DIGG IT !! :)
"Today, I get two texts from my girlfriend. First one says everything was over. Second one says that the other message wasn’t for me. Jinxed!"
"Today, I see a friend on the street. He doesn't see me, so, just for fun, I call him on his cell. He took his phone out of his pocket, sighed, and didn't answer. Jinxed!"
"Today, I was having a romantic dinner at my place with this boy I've just started dating. My phone rang, but i decided not to pick up. The voice mail started recording, and we could hear "hey there, quit f**king and pick up the phone, it's your dad, hahahah"Jinxed!"
More of these great stories you can find here!
This is a new blog with the aim to reduce the damage caused by internet scams.
If you receive any obvious scam email like the ones I have already put in here, please feel free to forward them to 'my' email address itsallscams@hotmail.com
I already thank you in advance for your submissions and comments on IT'S ALL SCAMS!
click on the picture to see it bigger
Going thru my archives I found more cartoons about Kuwait.
Some of them related to driving others to general things an expat will notice about life here.
i will start posting them later today... :)
Got a car and want to participate?
Always wanted to look behind the scenes and assist?
Wanted to wave blue/yellow/checkerd flags??
The organisation team for the Kuwait International Rally Championship 2009 is still looking for volunteers and if you and your car qualifies also for teams to participate!
You can go here and contact Aliaa Hassan or here.
You can also fax a short CV with some notes what you would like to do to 2461 3402
See you there!
If you are interested in finding E.T., a cure for cancer or AIDS or help predicting the climate change you should continue reading this post.
I am sure some of you might have noticed this little graphic with some cryptic stats at the bottom of my blog. It's my stats for BOINC.
BOINC is an open-source software platform for computing using volunteered resources on PC's/Mac's/Linux/Solaris/... systems.
The basic idea behind this project, thats been going on for a few years already, is that there is a lot of unused computing resource thruout the world. These computers could be used to do something useful while on idle or while not being used.
All started with a project called SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). A giant radio telescope produced so much data that it was not posible for the scientists to go thru all of it. So they came up with the idea of involving the public by having them download parts of the data and having their computer do the work for them and then submitting the results back to the scientists. This is the basic concept that stands behind BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing). BOINC has almost 565,000 active computers (hosts) worldwide processing on average 1.287 PFLOPS as of December 2008, which tops the processing power of the current fastest supercomputer system (IBM Roadrunner, with a sustained processing rate of 1.026 PFLOPS).
With this enormous computer power it is possible to calculate very complex things like climate change or physic theories.
By now there are plenty of projects in which BOINC users can participate. From searching for ET to a cure for cancer and AIDS or the prediction of climate change or ... or...
All you need to support them is a computer with internet connection and their software running in the background.
It's safe, secure, and easy:
Choose projects
Download and run BOINC software
Enter an email address and password.
Or, if you run several projects, try an account manager such as GridRepublic or BAM!.
Currently there are 88 people registered for Kuwait. Unfortunately they are not all active.
Here are some of the results of various projects run by BOINC.
Hope you'll participate and give your free computer time to science! :)
Child elopers' Africa plan foiled 
