Bill Gwynne Rallyschool visits Saudi Arabia

A competition to find a future champion to win a three year factory contract is Saudi Arabia’s equivalent of some of the UK’s young driver schemes, but it’s scale and value are world’s apart.
Initial entries in the Toyota/Mobil backed scheme, numbered twelve thousand. These were reduced to one hundred before Rallyschool founder Bill Gwynne, and leading instructor Nick Pollitt, were invited to Saudi Arabia to select the winner.
The 100 drivers were reduced to fifteen early in the five day finals in Jeddah, before the winner, Saleh Al Saleh, was awarded his incredible prize. Al Saleh will drive a Toyota T6 V6 in the 2009 Middle East Rally Raid Championship before moving up to a full factory specification, space framed, Lexus V8 engined car, currently being built in Lithuania for the 2010/11 season’s.
Competition organiser Abdullah Bakhashab:
“Bill Gwynne selected me as the winner of a similar competition early in my rally career. I subsequently won several Middle East rally Championships so he was the obvious choice for such a specialised job, with an extremely valuable prize. Our sponsors are very pleased with the response to the competition and are looking forward to Saleh Al Saleh achieving great success.”
Bill Gwynne will be following the young winner’s progress closely:
“It was a privilege to be invited to judge such a prestigious competition in Saudi Arabia. The competition was very tight in the top fifteen drivers but Saleh Al Saleh was very fast and extremely smooth. I look forward to watching him capitalise on this great opportunity.”