It seems that Bloomberg News finally caught up with our report last month on the cabal of mega-rich Arab playboys who made London the world’s supercar capital this summer, shipping an estimated $80 million worth of eye-popping vehicles to the city while waiting out the heat in the UAE. As we noted at the time, Bugatti Veyrons have been seen cruising in Knightsbridge and making Mayfair seem more like Le Mans, while both the Bugatti a Pagani Zonda Cinque, one of only five in the world, are often parked at the Dorchester Hotel where some of the super-rich studs are staying. Rolls-Royces, custom Mercedes-McLaren SLRs, Lamborghinis, Koenigseggs, Ferraris and more are commonplace in certain posh neighborhoods, where protest groups have been formed to combat the problem. Of course, all those powerful machines in a densely populated area sometimes leads to trouble. Check out some of the video footage assembled by Bloomberg on the subject.

I recognized the parking lot of the Dorchester and all the license plates were from the UAE and Qatar. The image that these guys are projecting of the GCC countries is just horrible, these guys will never really learn. Before these guys it was the Russians that were going crazy in London but these guys over run London in the summer.

Friday I had a little vibration as I was speeding above 80 kph in the Landcruiser, usually the car is pretty smooth so I wasn’t sure what was going on. Friday night I didn’t enough time to check out the balance and alignment. I’m 100% sure that the alignment is off since I have been a little rough with the car, and any bump or hole is fair game when I’m driving in the Landcruiser.

So I decided to pass by Hunter to check my alignment and wheel balance, since they are the best at it in the market. They took off the tires on the right side and my front tire had this little bump coming out of the side, seems like I hit something a little too hard. He saw my front tires and said I drive aggressively since my front tires had very little tread left and my rear tires still had some life. After about 38’800 Kms I decided to change all four tires, but I thought I would do it at a later stage but to my surprise he had the tires that I love. Recently Michelin/BF Goodrich have brought in the BF Goodrich All-Terrains which are the best all rounds tires I have ever used, thats what I used while in the states. And they have just started bring them in, in different sizes to Kuwait not just for the H2.

My Yokohama Geolanders lasted a very long time, they are good tires overall, more street oriented and for overall use. But they weren’t too goo on wet surfaces or for use in the desert or dirt roads. Now the BF Goodrich All-Terrains are fantastic in the rain, have an aggressive looking tread but is very quiet, its great in the dirt, and fantastic traction. My original tires were 265/65/R17 but I went for the larger BF Goodrich 275/70/R16 which a bit wider and taller, and it fit snugly in the Landcruiser’s wheel well. With the difference in size there isn’t too much of an effect except that when reading the speedometer your probably going a little slower then what is stated, but other then that the car is perfect. I drove about 120 Kms today without it rubbing in any situations and I was a bit aggressive with them today, and I was happy with the extra traction, and I especially love the aggressive look in comparison to the older tires. After the tires were installed I no longer had the vibration issue and all is well, but I still need to an alignment which I will do later. Got each tire for 60 KD for a total of 240 KD, and an alignment with the Hunter computer will cost an extra 20 KD which I will do at a later stage. I love these new tires.

What a beautiful machine from Ferrar, the 599 GTO, and Chris Harris at EVO is the lucky guy that gets to test drive it. It is marketed as a pure race breed machine, a monster on the track and worth the price. As mentioned before all 599 of these cars have been pre-sold before production, and you can’t even get your hands on one at this point. I enjoy how Chris is driving at the 2:30 point and onwards, its a wild horse from Ferrari. He does go into the detail of describing his opinion of the car, but I don’t really care, I just care to see this beautiful machine in action.

Monday night I was driving to see some family around 7pm heading to Shamiya on Airport Road (50), at the light its two lane wide and I’m on the right lane. We are all going to make a left, nothing much to it simply going forward and making a left. As we turn to straighten, I’m in the middle lane of the 2nd ring road which is a 3 lane wide road. This car on my right being driven by a female (wearing a hijab) and she is having a conversation with the gentlemen on her right, her car gets a little too close to mine and I move a bit to the left when she laughs and pulls left to hit my car. Her side view mirror flew off, I heard a thud and I was very annoyed, any further left and I would have hit the car on my left. I really didn’t want to stop and head to a police station, she freaked out, I stopped and took a picture of her license plate. I told her I’m not going to the police station since its your fault and I don’t want to bother waiting for paperwork. I think she was afraid I would start shouting but I was pissed and left. I honestly don’t know why my luck is like this, statistically speaking 90% of all my accidents and close calls involve women with hijabs, seriously this is just driving me nuts, no attention to the road, and not paying attention the cars on the roads but maybe its just my luck. I thought she dented my door, but she dented my fender just under the light. I was lucky it wasn’t a hit to the light, so it was a dent but on the protection where I head my Huper Optic protection.

Now for the interesting part, the Huper Optik protection did its job, it protected the paint from getting damaged and its only one dent albeit a sizable dent but still manageable. And the black line is the plastic which rubbed onto my car, it comes off with some elbow grease. One of my friends said that since there is no paint damage that I can take it to DentXpress and they could take it out easily, so I’m going to try my luck and hopefully they can get it clear out.

I have rarely called the 777 emergency number, only during an accident or a real emergency and they reply but never like this experience. I was on the fifth ring road taking Gazali Bridge to Shuweikh, if you continued straight on the same exit it would take you to the Avenues entrance after going under the bridge. Traffic was backed up all the way to Yarmook, I got around the cars and noticed that they were all piled up at the entrance, when I got closer there was a VW V6 which crashed into a four door Honda or Toyota, and it looked like a hard hit since the front left tire of the VW was crushed all the way into the engine. I pulled over on top the left side walk and got out, saw a woman in the VW on the phone, asked her if she was ok when I knocked on her window, she was crying and on the phone with someone from her family it seems and waved me off, the other Indian driver was standing outside his car which was spun around and on top of the side walk on the right side.

I called 112 and within two rings a woman answered, I told her I’m calling from an accident scene and she asked if I was in it, I told her I was just a passer by. She asked for the location and my name, I gave her the details, she said to hold and she will call Police Central Station and transfer me to the Ambulance Office. I spoke to the Ambulance Dispatcher who took the details and direction, the woman seemed ok but I told them she didn’t get out of her car and was crying, but nothing seemed wrong. So they were now on their way, and then he shut the phone which then transferred me back to the 112 operator and she told me the traffic police are on the way and will be calling you. I shut the phone and within a minute a police officer called asking for the exact location, and I told him where it was, he asked a couple of questions and said thank you. I shut the phone then another call came from another police officer who gave me his name and rank and said that he was coming from another direction and I gave him the location. After 5 minutes I could see police lights, and so I got in my car and was about to leave since there wasn’t anything else for me to do, and then I got a call from a 1800 number and it was the 112 dispatcher checking on the progress and the police. Told her I spoke to both of them and they are on the way and the ambulance as well, thanked her very much for everything she did and left.

I was honestly very very proud of how efficient they were, and how much they followed up. This is a drastic change from what the 777 reaction and procedure was, this felt professional and concerned and helpful. My hat goes off to the people who put this new system together and those are keeping this operation going.

I had my car worked on recently with a few modifications, and they repainted a part of the car so I no longer had any protection up front. So I decided to get it done at HuperOptik since they did a great job last time, and a the protection on the Landcruiser is holding up to the beating of roads across Saudi and other baren countries. Dropped off the car in the afternoon, they were working on a few cars and one more was outside.

There was one Porsche Panamera S being worked on for tint and protection, they were done with the tint and installing the protection at the time. This is the first time I see a Panemera up close and I kind of like it but really don’t like the rear of the car, the interior looks amazing though. I could tell it belonged to woman because it had a lot of jingly items inside the car, and some pink ribbons. They were also doing tint and protection on a Ferrari California, I really love the look of this car, they were installing protection at the time when I dropped off the car. The reason I like taking my car back to them isn’t just about the product but about the way they handle the work on the car, making sure to cover all the sensitive areas, and the difficult part on my hood is working on the carbon fiber which requires a sensitive touch. I was told to pick up my car the next day at 6 pm, which isn’t too bad.

This is just ridiculous, I got a clamp on my tire when I stepped out of the car for exactly 3 mins, I walked in to get measurements for a dishdasha and walked back and saw the cop running away. He was literally running away to his car, even when I called out to him he looked back and jumped in the Ford Excursion and took off. I was in the city by a street called Salhiya Street which is close to where the old Samsung store is now called Centro, there is also a Casio store there, just opposite the tall communications tower (Burj Al Tahreer). When I was looking for parking I circled the area twice looking for parking with nothing available, so instead of blocking traffic I decided to park on the sidewalk thinking that I wouldn’t be too long and I was out quick to see that scene.

I could understand the fine, and I will pay it as I was parked illegally but so was 30 cars behind me which turned the road into a one lane road instead of two and lanes and some parking. Now why do they have to inconvenience people to get the clamp off, and the correct process to get it done is very annoying. You have to wait for Ministery of Interior office to go pay the bill their which is only open in the morning, then you have to wait for the guy to unlock the clamp which can take anywhere between 2 hours to the next day which you will not know. I called a few people and got someone to help me out and told me to sit tight, I had the car on and I was listening to music and bbming people. I was honestly not in a bad mood but it was a waste of time. He called back and said a police car will be back in 10 mins, he even knew the details of my car from what they were told. Now I have been through the legal process of the clamp, and it isn’t a deterrent from parking illegally. In the states I made the the mistake of parking in a handicap spot when I first move there and cop came over and gave me a $360 ticket and I never parked in a handicap spot ever again, I even when to the judge to make the payment over installments which they were more then happy to do. In this case it was a 5KD fine and the police car came after 65 minutes while I had the car on and sitting inside having a conversation with a friend on the phone. And I continued on my way and thanked him for opening even though it was the guy who ran off earlier. I was fine but it looked like he was walking the walk of shame for some reason, maybe because he was called back to unlock it. I’m lucky who called a friend but what about people who can resolve this quickly, give a simple quicker process but for a higher fee and people will pay. I don’t blame the police but the law that does not make any sense instead of motivating people to go about it the right way and the other matter is the nonexistence of parking in the city but thats another issue.

I’m usually not the type of person to generalize but its hard not to feel there something very wrong when my car always gets hit by a woman, specifically muhajabah (Those who wear scarfs on their head), or they try to kill me while I’m on the motorcycle. I honestly don’t think any female has an intent to kill any person while on the road, and oddly enough its always a muhajabah who takes me out or hits me. This time it was the most annoying accident I have ever had, I’m happy it wasn’t a bad one but I was pissed as hell when my car was hit.

I’m in the left lane by the main Mishref Co-op and the right lane isn’t moving because a car is waiting for another car to exit. I’m moving about 5 kph per hour, snails pace and stopping when they stop when I hear I thump and painful metal screech. I moved and heard my car screech from the rear, I got out to find that a woman in a gold Jaguar four door hit my right rear passenger door. I pulled forward away from traffic and told her to stop behind me. I was pissed, very pissed, how in the hell could she hit me, I wasn’t moving and neither was her side. Her front left fender was bent and front left light was broken, while my door and rear right wheel well has a nasty dent. I spoke to her and she automatically said that I was moving too fast and she didn’t see me, I answered saying that I wasn’t moving and the car in front of me wasn’t moving and you hit me in the rear so if we go to the police station you would automatically at fault. She then said she is sorry because she was turning left when she was looking right so she won’t hit the car in front of her so instead she hit me, I tried to calm down because I saw she had a child in the car with her. I asked to speak to her husband and I will sort it out with him, I told her the damage is minimal on both cars please pay attention next time, then I spoke to her husband. I told him what happened and to check on his wife but everything is fine except for the damage, I asked him to come to the police station with me to state that I wasn’t at fault and I wouldn’t want anything from them except the police report as my insurance would cover it. I told her to go home and not to worry about anything, I calmed down but I was still really annoyed, its annoying that she wasn’t paying attention and tried to blame me right away but what calmed me down quickly is seeing the child with her and didn’t want to make the kid upset so I told her to go everything will be fine. Went to the police station three days later with the husband and sorted it out, we had to wait an hour for the accident investigator which is a short time from my experience, he was apologizing and asking to fix the car, I thanked him and said this is more then enough, I’m lucky that he was a good man because I know that being nice and letting the lady go I could have been screwed but I wouldn’t do it any other way. Still its very annoying, why don’t women pay attention, that is what freaks me out the most when driving people who don’t pay attention to the rode.

One of the best GulfRun’s yet all compressed into a few intense minutes, again my hat goes off to NegativEffect for doing such a great job with this video. The best part for me was watching some of those guys drift, the guy with the ISF took his car to the extreme and that car can really drift. The Z4M did an amazing job on the track as well, some interesting surprises there. I really had fun at the autocross but I started drifting instead of trying to get a good time. So much done in an intense few days, I can’t wait for the next one but I need to improve my driving skills to get better on the track. The Vimeo version is the same but in better quality, I tend to like Vimeo more because of the quality but here is both.

Link: GulfRun Blog

After GulfRun I get the urge to go on the track again and improve my driving capabilities, I want to have more time on the track and keep cutting my lap times. Its been a while before that since I have been to the track, before GulfRun it has been over a year since I have been to the track but I plan on going more often these days. During track days you get to meet people, get more familiar with your car, some times its an aggressive crowd but your never sure of all the other drivers but it helps sharpen your skills. Yas Marine is one track I really want to try, but I keep noticing that there is almost very little run off unlike BIC, but I still want to try it from the look of the track and how its been put together. Right now there is one open track day for Feb 27, and I don’t think I can make it since my Beemer is in the shop getting fixed up from my mishap in GulfRun but luckily it was only cosmetic, still I really want to go to that track as soon as possible.