'The road has a rhythm': Emirati rally racer and motorcycle biker Nora al Jassasi

The young and restless adventure junkie from Abu Dhabi, Nora al Jassasi looks for reasons to hit the road be it in the UAE or India. She says: “The road has a rhythm.” The Emirati rally racer and motorcycle biker has just been featured in a documentary titled Nora, shot in the mountainous terrains of India by director Shanawaz Nellikunil.

With her penchant to drive, you may presume that Nora’s interest in cars began in her childhood. But you’d be wrong. Nora credits the Almighty for her path. “God made me take a big detour in my life as a motorcycle biker. The sport introduced me to myself and I said yes, despite my fear. I guess it was internal conditioning that I had to combat, and I did and won. And the rest followed,”she says.

In fact, she can clearly recall her first drive. At 12, she stole her dad’s car and crashed it while trying to reverse park it with her sister. Her cousin tried to teach her to drive a manual car at age 15 in Saudi Arabia. “My first car was a Renault Koleos and getting my driving and motorcycle licenses were challenging,” she recalls.

“And as for bikes, the first time experience of offloading through sand and negotiating the wadis was exciting,” she adds.

But while she’s used to putting her foot on the accelerator and enjoying the zipping and zooming that comes along with the activity, she makes a clear distinction between speeding and racing. “Racing is an art, speeding is reckless. Racing is filled with careful strategy and preparation and operating with the right attitude. In the desert, only the strongest survive,” says the Abu Dhabi-based rider.

Her day job though is miles away from her image as a racer. A student of business administration, Nora is a financial inspector at a major company.

Driving has traditionally been a male-dominated sport, but Nora has carved a niche for herself over the years. “You get minimised and can be threatened for being on the scene.” But here is her advice: “Pay no attention to the noise, focus on you.”

So how does she manage the physicality required to pursue her passion? And how does she prepare for long rides? Nora believes that endurance is not only physical, but also mental and when the race begins, “the body shuts down the adrenaline and your mental spirit overrides you.”

Nora loves driving, but admits that she’s not much of a car collector. “No, yet I have a number of bikes that each I find special,” she says.

The documentary Nora, which was shot in India, premiered at Al Serkal avenue in December. For Nora, it’s a special project. The words that appear in the documentary are her own. “It was infused with every feeling I had [during] that trip.”

She calls it a special journey because she was physically and mentally challenged by the terrain and the altitude, and conquered her fears and exceeded her own expectations.

Her words in the documentary read: ‘The world doesn’t shrink when we step forward, it expands.’ She explains: “The world is your oyster and when people judge you before they see your work, you work hard and wake up to yourself and that is a self-aware and self-fulfilling journey.”

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