UAE’s Balooshi stars in Jordan Baja opener

The Portuguese Can-Am duo of Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro led the Jordan Baja by just 3.5 seconds from Emirati Taurus T3 Max driver Khalid Al-Jafla and his co-driver Andrei Rudnitski after the first day of the Aqaba-based Jordan Baja on Friday.

MX Ride Dubai’s Mohammed Al-Balooshi romped to an emphatic stage win in the motorcycle race after two punishing sections of 200.60km and 133.53km through the legendary Wadi Rum region that was split by a refuelling stop.

The Emirati took a lead of 12min 51.5sec lead into the overnight halt over Lebanon’s Rafic Eid with Saudi rider Abdulhalim Al-Mogheera in third.

Yamaha rider Abdulaziz Al-Shayban leads fellow Saudi Abdulaziz Al-Atawi and championship leader Hani Al-Noumesi in the quad category.

Ferreira said: “It was super long and my first stage in Jordan. It was very tricky navigation since the beginning. There were a lot of stones at the start and it was difficult to find the right way. We finished the stage with a puncture because there were some rocks even hiding under the sand. I enjoyed it a lot and Filipe did an amazing job on the navigation.”

Balooshi said: “Good but very difficult navigation today. We caught the guys around 40km in. I was quite surprised but not really ready to be opening this soon. There are many notes without caps so it was a difficult task (to navigate). But I am really happy to bring the bike home and to finish on top. Tomorrow, I need to bring the bike home and hopefully it all pays off.”

Dania Akeel was handed road-opening duties in the FIA car section with Thursday’s Prologue winner Diego Martinez of Argentina opting to start in seventh between the two Santag Racing Can-Ams of Ferreira and his team-mate João Dias.

Akeel stayed out in front for the entire first part of the stage where the win went to Al-Jafla from Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari. Khalifa Saleh Al-Attiyah retired his Taurus T3 Max early on with transmission and clutch-related issues and returned to the service park in Aqaba.

Despite his puncture, Ferreira managed to snatch the overall lead and the SSV advantage on the second part of the stage with Challenger front-runner Al-Jafla, Dias, Eduardo Pons, Rashid Al-Muhannadi and Miroslav Zapletal rounding off the top six when Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari suffered problems in the afternoon.

Balooshi had opened up a lead of 10min 01.9sec over Eid by the end of the first part of the stage with Al-Mogheera holding third. Prologue winner Abdullah Abu Aisheh suffered some arm swelling after a fall and Martin Chalmers also took a tumble and handed in his time card before the end of the first stage, as Balooshi stormed into a comfortable lead after the second part of the day’s action that ran close to the border with Saudi Arabia.

Briton Steven Holt also retired while Jordan’s Tia’at Al-Shishane and Abdullah Al-Batayneh were running a long way behind in a decimated FIM field.

The local crew of Taha Masoud and Emran Taha continued to lead the National Baja in their Can-Am Maverick.