We’ve all had late nights scrolling YouTube, the spiralling entertainment that usually starts with a knowledge-growing search for a how-to guide and generally ends with watching Huskies howling or guys two wheeling down the motorways in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and doing fast tipins. My end-point has been much like the latter, so the question is: what happens when you decide you have to see this madness in real life? Stuck in a loop on YouTube, and suddenly, five years later, you are at the event. Here’s a quick spectator’s guide to dune-bashing events in the Gulf, brought to you by late nights of YouTube and a touch of extremely overpriced Christmas airfares.
FIRST STOP: LIWA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2023, ABU DHABI, UAE
If you’ve ever seen videos of tent pits among dunes with LS-powered Safaris and Hiluxs being rebuilt or tuned on the desert ground and drag raced up a tall dune, then you would know about Liwa Festival. Held on and around Tal Moreeb, the UAE’s tallest dune, the racing takes keen (and a touch of crazy) drivers 300m high at a 50-degree pitch in The Empty Quarter, also known as ‘Liwa’, of Abu Dhabi — pedalling usually LS-powered anything while wheel spinning and ditch creating, with the aim of reaching the timing mark up
