The region’s motor sporting attention turns towards Jordan for round three of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship from May 5-7, after Nasser al-Attiyah put on a driving master class to clinch round two in Kuwait at the weekend. The Qatari 11-time regional champion eased to victory after winning all 13 of the timed special stages to cruise home with a winning margin of 11 minutes and 24.9 seconds.
And with Kuwait in the bag, the regional road show will begin to wind its way across to Jordan where one of the best routes in the world of rallying is being finalised by organisers, Jordan Motorsport, which has officially announced that entries are now being taken.
“I always look forward to Jordan immensely because it is such a memorable occasion,” said al-Attiyah. “It is probably the most difficult round of the Middle East Rally Championship. The stages are never easy and provide a great challenge. For several reasons, I didn’t have much competition in Kuwait but I hope my rivals will all be in Jordan.”
Held under the patronage of Prince Feisal al-Hussein, the Chairman of Jordan Motorsport, rally regulations have now been published and it shows a testing route including many of the competitive kilometres used by Jordan when it hosted the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2008, 2010 and 2011.
The overall distance is 643.28km with 222.74km to be run over timed special stages held on May 6 and May 7 through the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley areas. A ceremonial start and spectator event will be held on the afternoon of May 5 in Amman at a location to be revealed.
The itinerary also reveals that there will be a return to the world class King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre managed by Hilton – Dead Sea where the headquarters were based during those memorable WRC years.
Work is also continuing unabated on the stages, which are being repaired following a Jordan winter which brought heavy rainfall.