Saudi Arabia has first women-only rally, banned from driving until 2017

The starting line for the Jameel Rally was drawn in 2017, when women in Saudi Arabia won the right to drive cars. Last month, the ceremonial green flag was finally lowered over the kingdom’s first all-female rally, at Qishlah Palace in Hail, by the hand of Prince Abdulaziz bin Saad bin Abdulaziz, and Saudi Arabia marked another historic start for women.

The rally (Jameel means “beautiful” in Arabic) ushered in the era of women’s motorsport in the kingdom. The rally originated in the early 20th century. Racers drive long distances, often in stages, over rough off-road terrain and with modified vehicles. Often, courses, such as the famous Paris-Dakar Rally, include checkpoints or waypoints where drivers and navigators accumulate points as they plan their route to the finish line.

“Getting here and being at our first pilot meeting gave me goosebumps,” said Atefa Saleh, 41, an engineer at Siemens in the United Arab Emirates. “I’m excited to be the driver. But we’ll switch if something really goes wrong,” she joked.

Saleh’s co-pilot, Eleanor Coker, 48, is an American living in Saudi Arabia. She had an unusual method of preparing for her sailing duties. “My son came home from school and caught me on the PlayStation making the Dakar game,” Coker said, referring to the Dakar 18 racing simulator.

Prior to 2017, Saudi women could hone their piloting skills just by playing video games like Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo. It was time to play in the dirt and have some fun.

Competitors from 15 countries participated in the rally in mid-March, including Great Britain, Germany, Oman, Spain, Sweden and the United States. There were 34 teams of two women, and more than half had at least one Saudi.

I am a writer and rally driver and I was invited to compete with a delegation of three American teams. We knew that some participants would be professionals who already understood the joy of the rally. But most had recently gotten their driver’s licenses and were new not only to the sport but also to off-road driving. What we all experienced exceeded expectations.

The Jameel covered over 1,100 kilometers, about 340 off-road. Competitors collected 141 waypoints from roadbooks delivered to teams the night before each of the three stages. A Stella III EVO rally computer, a high-tech odometer attached to the dashboard with Velcro and tape, included a digital file of the course and tracked the speed and location of teams via GPS. Stella opened each waypoint at a distance of 800 meters (half a mile), and when drivers were 90 meters from the center of the target the waypoint was validated by the computer and the points were issued.

Four time, speed, and distance challenges, called average speed challenges, were instituted for additional point opportunities. At hidden intervals within pre-announced distances, each team’s rally computer recorded its speed and penalties were imposed if drivers were not accurate. If you thought driving fast was difficult, try going exactly 38 kilometers per hour for 20 kilometers on soft sand roads, sharp turns on gravel roads or on steep slopes.

The Jameel Rally was conceived and sponsored by Hassan Jameel, vice president of the conglomerate Abdul Latif Jameel and Bakhashab Motorsports Development, and himself a champion rally driver. It was also sponsored by Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Stage 1 of the rally challenged competitors with a round-trip route from Hail in northwest Saudi Arabia to Mount Jabal Umm Sinman, east of the UNESCO heritage site of Jubbah, where petroglyphs and inscriptions dating back nearly 10,000 years can be seen. be found in the rocks of the desert. However, the team’s schedules didn’t include sightseeing, as penalties were issued if you didn’t return within a restricted time frame — and no speeding was allowed.

In the world of rallying, the speed and precision of navigation decide who goes to the top of the podium. But Jameel imposed a speed limit of 70 km/h off-road, and the posted limits applied to the roads. Without a successful and secure inaugural event, there would be no sophomore year. The organizers also knew that if they had introduced speed, the competitors would need a race car equipped with a roll cage. Accessibility for more women governed the rally’s main goals, so the vehicles were cars you could find in any garage.

The second leg of the rally consisted of a transit from Hail to a “glamping”-style camp 600 meters above Al Mithnab, province in the Qassim region, not far from Antara’s Rock, a famous rock that appears to have been split in two by a razor. In its shadow, it is said, Antarah ibn Shaddad, a 6th century poet and warrior, met his love, Abla.

The vast, barren landscape of the Saudi desert didn’t look too different from the desert near my home in California. Other competitors could easily be old friends, sharing rally tips and driving techniques, rolling their eyes at husbands and children and drinking too much coffee to sleep well. The other side of the world suddenly seemed less distant.

For Manar Alesayi, a Saudi divorced mother of two teenagers from Jeddah, who drives a 2016 Jeep Wrangler, off-roading wasn’t new, but competition complicated things.

After day one, his team was in second place, but on day 3 it was 13th. “It was a harsh reality for me,” Alesayi said. “I thought we were doing so well. But I learned a lot.”

Alesayi used to take his father’s car at night and drive around the farm, before he was of legal age to drive. We have a lot more in common than I could have imagined.

“My mother told me I’m a daughter of the desert,” she said. “Now I just want to drive the rally as much as I can.” As Rod Hall, the legendary American off-road racer, used to say, “First you learn to finish. Then you learn to win.”

The organizers of the Jameel Rally modeled their vision on the Rebelle Rally, the longest map-and-compass navigation rally in the United States, which happens to be for women.

Emily Miller, founder of Rebelle and rally champion, aimed to organize an event where women could challenge themselves off-road.

“Having a successful rally doesn’t mean winning,” said Miller, who served as a steward and mentor to Jameel. “It’s about how you work with your teammate, how you prepare and present yourself. It’s how you learn from your mistakes and move on. These are skills you use in everyday life.”

But not everything is serious. “The most important thing in rallying,” she continued with her mischievous smile, “is having fun.”

For the third and final stage, the teams sailed around snorting camels through the endless and intimidating dunes to Riyadh, the capital. Undoubtedly, the rally’s most challenging driving took place within city limits, on highways where lane lines and speed limits seem like mere suggestions.

Arriving at our final base camp, I found Lauren Bradley, Alesayi’s co-pilot, a Scottish gym teacher who lives in Jeddah, shaken, red in the face from crying. “That traffic was the most terrifying thing,” she said in her soft accent. “Someone tried to hit us a couple of times.”

As women find their place behind the wheel, not everyone in the kingdom is sympathetic. However, the government seems committed to protecting them. Several competitors mentioned that if they felt harassed or intimidated on the road, they could report the incidents to the police and that there would be repercussions for the aggressors. While the Saudi political climate remains complex, opportunities for women are growing.

Dania Akeel has a rare distinction in her native Saudi Arabia. She is a rally champion in the T3 Cross-Country Baja class and drove at Dakar 2022. Her Toyota Land Cruiser, emblazoned with the emblem of Jameel and its sponsor Toyota ALJ, also sported a rallying cry in the form of a unique sticker. : #begin.

“The Jameel Rally is the next step,” said Akeel. “Women have been on the road for a few years now. Now they have the option to get off it.”

At the end of the rally, two Swedish professional drivers, Annie Seel and Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky, took the podium in a 2022 Toyota RAV4.

My co-driver, Sedona Blinson, and I won Stage 3 and placed fifth overall. But the most satisfying result could easily have been that of two Saudi women, Afnan Albediny and her co-driver, Fatmah Al Shamri, who took 22nd.

The achievement evident in Albediny’s wide grin had nothing to do with his place on the leaderboard.

“Before I was a driver. Now I can say I’m a rally driver.”