Saudi Arabia's Hail Baja gets underway with a timed 6.5km prologue stage on the outskirts of Ha'il City on Tuesday afternoon. The Kingdom's premier off-road motor sport event has attracted 30 starters, with the Czech driver Miroslav Zapletal topping the list of overseas participants issued by the Saudi Arabian Motor Federation (SAMF) at a pre-event press conference at the Maghwat conference facility in Hail on Monday afternoon. The bulk of the competitive action will take place in the Ar Nafud desert to the north of Ha'il on Wednesday and Thursday, with teams set to tackle 499.50 competitive kilometers in a route of 823.24km. The event is being organized under the patronage of Prince Saud Bin Abdul Mohsen Bin Abdul Aziz, Governor of Hail, President of the Supreme Commission for Hail Development and the Head of the Supreme Commission of the Hail Rally. Czech driver Miroslav Zapletal was one of the stars of the recent Dakar Rally in South America and he and co-driver Tomas Ourednicek head the entry list on this occasion. Zapletal took part in the Hail Baja last year and finished fifth overall, but that excellent result was totally eclipsed by his stunning seventh overall in the Dakar in a Mitsubishi L200. There are no FIA Baja points at stake on this occasion, but the Czech driver should be the favorite for outright honors this week in a Mitsubishi Pajero. Last weekend's Qatar International Rally runner-up Yazeed Al-Rajhi tops the local entry of 22 cars. He has recruited the services of Belgium's Overdrive Racing to supply a powerful Nissan Navara for his first ever Baja-type rally challenge and will be able to call upon the services of French co-driver Matthieu Baumel to assist his challenge for honors. Baumel finished ninth overall in the recent Dakar Rally in an X-raid BMW X3 CC and won last year's Hail Saudi Baja alongside Qatar's Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah. Saudi Arabia's Majed Al-Ghamdi and Abdullah Al-Dossari will form a two-car team of Isuzu D-Max turbo-diesel-engined cars that were built in Italy. Al-Ghamdi was one of the young local drivers to be nurtured in the regional rally series by former FIA Middle East champion Abdullah Bakhashab and he will benefit from the experience of Italian co-driver Nicola Arena on the road book. Arena is better known for his rallying exploits with Jordan's Amjad Farrah in the region's special stage championship, while Ghamdi finished a fine second overall in the T2 category of the FIA International Cup for Bajas at his first attempt in 2007. Other front-running local drivers are likely to include Ahmed Al-Sheqawi, Farhan Al-Ghaleb and a host of entrants from the local Al-Shammeri family, which took victory in the inaugural Hail Baja in 2006 and repeated the feat in 2007, with Rajeh Al-Shammeri winning the first ever international status motor sport event in Saudi Arabia in his Toyota Land Cruiser. UAE-based Mark Powell endured miserable luck here last year and UAE Desert Challenge, but the Briton is confident that recent work on his Honda-engined Buggy will pay off and he will be able to challenge for the top five on this occasion with new co-driver Paul Richards who replaces the injured Tim Ansell. The British crew of Ian Barker and Lee Marshal also bolster the UAE challenge, with Dubai-based David Mabbs also on the entry list in a Toyota FJ Cruiser. The 1993 FIA Middle East rally champion Sheikh Hamed Bin Eid Al-Thani succumbed to transmission woes in last weekend's Qatar International Rally, but Sheikh Hamed prefers longer cross-country-type rallies and is relishing the start of the Ha'il event on Tuesday. The Nissan Patrol driver clinched the FIA Baja T1 title in 2007, has a good track record on UAE national rallies and is a veteran of several UAE Desert Challenges. Likewise, the UAE's Abdullah Al-Herais, Ali Al-Shawi and Matar Al-Matsouri should feature strongly and have useful desert experience. “Obviously we are not a counting round of the FIA Baja series this year, but interest from competitors and the media proves that our event in Hail is going from strength to strength,” said Mishaal Al-Sudairy, President of the SAMF. This year's ceremonial start will take place at the Maghwat Conference facility at 15.30hrs Tuesday and competitors will head straight into the 6.5km Prologue stage from 15.44hrs. The result of this opening competitive action will determine the starting order for the entry into the Nafud desert. __
