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Sat, Dec 28, 2024 | Jumada al-Aakhirah 27, 1446 | DXB
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Dubai: Emirati driver on the verge of winning world title in self-created car
Khalid Aljafla, who is going for his first world championship in Dubai this week, has spent around Dh800,000 on his car
Khalid Aljafla ahead of the Dubai International Baja. — Supplied photos
If Khalid Aljafla were a boxer, he would have brought a no-holds-barred approach to the ring. It’s with the same fearless spirit that the Emirati hits the dunes as a motorsport driver, even locking horns with a rally as bone-chilling as Dakar.
Remarkably, for a man who breathes motorsport, Aljafla can’t recall exactly when he first fell in love with it. But he knows that the thought of taking on the challenge of driving in the desert first crossed his mind when he was not even 10.
“I come from a motorsport family in Dubai so I was born into it and grew with this sport,” he says.
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What started as a passion soon became an obsession as Aljafla built a track in Dubai along with his friends where he rode until a shoulder injury stopped him.
But it was that fighting spirit again which got him back on his feet.
He soon turned his attention to cars before becoming a rally driver.
It’s a journey that has taken him to some of the most iconic events and now he stands on the cusp of winning his first world championship at the Dubai International Baja where he needs a strong finish to lift the trophy on December 1, the final day of the event.
Special event
Now that the final round of the global event is in Dubai, Aljafla says winning the world title at ‘home’ would be a dream come true.
“We were kids when we first watched the Dubai Rally. We grew with this rally, through different stages of our lives. It’ a special event for us. So winning it here would be emotional,” he says.
While there have been many champions, not all of them can claim to be in Aljafla’s league.
The Emirati, who also owns a transport business and a garage in Dubai, builds and designs his own cars to compete in events.
“I started to build the cars for these races in 2010 when I first participated in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. I took part in the event with a buggy car built by me in my garage. I have continued to race with it,” says Aljafla who has also taken part in four Dakar Rally events.
Khalid Aljafla competes in the Dakar Rally.
For more than 15 years now, Aljafla has made painstaking efforts to build the buggies in his garage — Dune Bike in Ras Al Khor.
“These cars are built and designed by me as per the FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) regulations. They have very tough standards to reach to get the passport for the car,” he says.
“The car which I will be driving for the world championship in Dubai was also built by me.”
Not an easy job
Aljafla then revealed how he puts all the pieces together to get a car up and running for high-profile rally events across the world.
“You need to have the chassis engineer, body engineer, designers, so many things, it’s not an easy job,” he says.
“The car I am going to race now, it cost me around Dh800,000. All the items, the special brakes, safety things, so you need so many things which are so expensive and you have to meet the FIA standards.
“But you know, we know what we need for our car, size, weight, power, so many things, so I build these cars from the experience of what I have learned over the past 20 years."
While he develops the car as per the demands of desert driving, there is something he cannot change.
"It's the the engine," he says. "The engine is 1.0 turbo, you cannot do anything in the engine, that’s the standard."
Mohammed Al Balooshi, a highly accomplished Emirati biker who is going for his third world championship in Dubai this weekend, revealed what makes Aljafla, his friend, so special.
“He is the only Arab who is doing it (building cars for rally events), properly from his own garage. He is also the only designer in the Arab world,” Al Balooshi says.
“At the start, we used to criticise him, you know, because it’s a lot of money he was investing, a lot of money and a lot of energy is involved. We used to ask him, ‘Why are you doing this?’
Aljafla with Mohammed Al Balooshi
“But today he is sitting here and going for a world championship. When everybody thought it’s not possible, he has done it, he has shown it that it’s possible.”
Great impact
We do not yet know if this self-funded motorsport venture will end up making Aljafla a world champion this week.
But what we do know is that his impact on the sport in the UAE is far greater than any podium finish.
“I first opened the garage to keep the bikes for my friends and myself, and then it became bigger and bigger and the business grew,” he says.
“The sport was also growing with us. We built a track, we rode and we trained. And all the bikes were maintained in my garage. At that time, there were not many such garages for such bikes. And now there is nobody else apart from us who are building cars for these rally events!”
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Rituraj Borkakoty
Rituraj Borkakoty is Sports Editor and has spent more than two decades writing on his sporting heroes. He also loves an underdog story, so if you have one, share it with him. He would love to bring it to life.
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