Today's Edition
KUUMAR SHYAM (DUBAI)
Nasir Syed is an entrepreneur, who founded and found success in Dubai in the industry of scaffolding, a temporary structure of wooden planks and metal poles to provide a solid footing in the construction of something.
But when he is not in office, he is a free-wheeling spirit on his sports bike, having started at the age of 41. He has also built together a thriving series of events for motorsport lovers – D Super Bike Championship (DSBK), the only racing series in the UAE for motorcycle enthusiasts.
"When I came to Dubai and bought my first bike – the Honda CBR 600 – I happened to come to the Dubai Autodrome to take part in a community race," said Syed in an interaction with Aletihad.
"This was two years after getting a license and four years since arriving in Dubai to work in a company."
Syed has participated and won 38 races held in the UAE and the wider region in countries such as Bahrain and Qatar. His expertise extends to competing in prestigious events such as the UAE Championship and the Bahrain Superbike Championship.
"As you know there are many nationalities here and I might have not won some of the races, but I am still the fastest Indian even after all these years," Syed says as a matter of fact.
"There have been a few crashes, injuries… like many in the community, but we get up again and want to race."
But the fact that MotoGP, the pinnacle of bike racing, is not held here in a country which also hosts the premier Formula 1 race, the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix, or anything similar was not available for racers like him bothered him, especially in the immediate months after COVID-19.
"The UAE is all about quality infrastructure, but the Dubai Autodrome is wasted in many ways. And so when many people agreed with me that something should be done about it, I decided to host a championship for one year and put in a lot of resources [money, time and effort]. I could not take part myself, but it was very rewarding to give something back to the community," Syed said.
Since then, the racer fraternity has not allowed Syed to stop even as the man himself is itching to take part himself, but he cannot as the organiser.
To raise the profile of the event, Syed hosts a round only for celebrities which was held last week, and will not host the final two rounds in April (5 and 19) to conclude this season's series. Notable participants from the film industry included brothers Arbaaz and Sohail Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Gauhar Khan and Zaid Darbar.
Syed is not content looking in the rearview mirror with the DSBK series. For him, this is now part of a larger movement to promote responsible riding and nurture the motorsport culture in the region. There are two major initiatives being set up towards that goal – the UAE's first-ever superbike training academy, and a community engagement programme for enthusiasts as well as their families, thus extending beyond racing to include education and entertainment.
On the personal front, Syed's journey was made possible with the support of his encouraging wife Anila. "It helps that she also likes the speed thrill of the sport," says Syed who has four children. His son Abdul Sami is also on the way into the sport as a promising bike racer.
