Tuesday 23 / April / 2024
As we entered the Oman Automobile Association compound, I heard a faint buzzing sound that grew louder as we made our way past the roundabout to an off-road track I'd never noticed before. There I discovered the source of the strange sound — nitro and battery powered miniatures of 4WD and 2WD race cars zipping around the track, kicking up streaks of dust.
As the racers, Abdulbasit, Mohammed, and Ahmed, manoeuvred their machines around the rough track with hand held remotes, they all shared the expressions of excited young boys. Ahmed and Mohammed are teenagers, while Abdulbasit is a 47-year-old engineer with the PDO, but on that track, age didn't matter.
After an hour of racing, the tiny vehicles were covered with dirt, some of them with missing parts after some violent roll-overs. Though they look like toys you might find on a hypermarket shelf, these ferocious mini-racers whip around turns at 60km per hour and fly over the bumps to an airborne high of two metres. And they aren't cheap. Abdulbasit’s nitro powered machine costs over OMR400.
“After a race of 30 minutes on this track, your vehicle is in a very bad condition. You have to unscrew every part and component and clean and re-fix them. It is painful to play with our costly machines on these worn tracks, but we are left with no other option in Muscat,” he said. Abdulbasit built this space as a practice track sometime back with the support of OAA but, at present it is in a very bad condition thanks to Oman's severe weather and a lack of proper maintenance.
Abdulbasit has been pursuing this hobby for more than 25 years and remembers when the hobby began in Muscat in the eighties. Some companies supported the hobby and sold RC products. By the beginning of nineties the hobby was struggling due to a lack of shops, spare parts, and other facilities, so enthusiasts had to go to Dubai for servicing and purchasing new cars.
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These cars are maintained, serviced and fixed like any other real race cars. “It is not just a kind of toy you can buy and play with. You have to learn a lot of things if you want to pursue this hobby. You have to buy a lot of gadgets if you want to run it the way you want to run it. These kits and engines we buy separately and have to be assembled, every bit, on my own. It is almost like fixing a real racing car or bike,” Abdulbasit said.
You have to understand how to manage the weight distribution, a skill critical to making any racing machine perform at its peak. The cross-weight, left-side weight, and rear-weight must all be balanced correctly. And attention must be paid to the shock absorbers and tyres.
And these are not cars you can buy off the shelf, as each one is customised. Abdulbasit's machine features an Italian nitro engine on a US kit. There are currently two shops in Muscat that cater to the needs of RC hobbyists; Hobbyland and Speed Hobby, where one can find cars starting at around OMR50 and selling for as much as OMR400.
Daniel Rowlands had been racing cars for about 30 years when he moved from Newcastle, UK to Muscat with his family in December 2010 to work for PDO. He brought his hobby along with him.
“I started a section at the PDO Ras Al Hamra Recreation Club and held a race. With Hobbyland we put together packages to enable new people to purchase cars and I set Hobbyland up with relationships with several RC manufacturers. We held a race at the PDO club. I then looked for areas for a permanent track in Muscat and decided that the Qurum City Centre car park was a good option as it was covered. I presented a proposal to the mall management and Hobbyland and then looked for sponsors. I prepared a 3D computer cad model of the circuit and we then built it and had Red Bull at the opening event which attracted many competitors,” he said.
Adbulbasit remembers that there was a large community of RC racers back in 2010 when Daniel's track was launched in Qurum City Centre. That track has since closed, and there are none remaining except for the I-race track on the mezzanine floor of the food court in Muscat Grand Mall, and his well-worn track at the OAA.
“I contributed to building a racing track in Al Khuwair near the Hobbyland shop with their help. It was an off-road racing track. But last January, a wadi flood washed the track away completely. So we approached the OAA to set up a racing track and they allocated a space for us. We managed to build a track, but it is not at all a professional one, though we still race there. We could build a real professional track. Experts like Daniel and me could provide them with a proposal and sketches, and the OAA has been positive on that front, it just hasn't happened yet, likely due to lack of funding,” Abdulbasit explained.
Passionate RC hobbyist aren't detoured though. Groups of RC racers cross the border to Al Ain almost every weekend with their cars to race on the professionally laid tracks there. “Now we go to other GCC countries for races and to pursue our hobby. If we had a good track here I am confident we could organise big races with the support of like-minded people. Many of the racers stopped pursuing this hobby only because there wasn't a proper place to run their toys and gather,” Abdulbasit said.
Daniel says that the weather in Oman is a major hindrance to pursue the hobby. “It is too hot outdoors for six months of the year and also very dusty. Also locals prefer full size motor racing than RC racing, which is, in my opinion, just as adrenaline pumping and much safer and cheaper. As my efforts to further the sport have failed so far in Muscat, I now collect and restore RC cars from 1985 to 1994 and display them. I also compete in an international race each February in Bangkok and am racing in the UK at the end of July. There is no racing in Oman at the moment. Me and my friend Lee still take our large scale RC trucks out to the wadis sometimes, but racing is what I love, not playing.”
Daniel and Abdulbasit agree that for this hobby to thrive in Oman, they need to secure a permanently sponsored professional indoor-covered venue, build a track with on site facilities such as power and toilets, and advertise it properly so that they can hold organised and timed races.
“The hobby faded away mainly because of the lack of facilities in Oman," Abdulbasit explained, "But, if we get supporters and sponsors, I'm sure we can bring this hobby back to Muscat tracks.” —[email protected]
Take Up RC racing or Buy a car 2. Speed Hobby
1. HobbyLand Oman
[email protected]
+968 2448 3938
hobbyland-oman.com
+968 2449 2594,
+968 9700 3357
rc968.com
facebook.com/rc968
Go Race
1. Oman Automobile Association
+968 2451 0239,
+968 2451 0630
[email protected]
[email protected]
omanauto.org
Cost: Free
2. Muscat Grand Mall
i-Race track
+968 2200 0000, 2200 0022
[email protected]
muscatgrandmall.com
Join
Muscat RC speedway
facebook.com/mctspeed
