Champion motorcross rider Balooshi to give international facelift to Fox Hill racing track
View(s):Sri Lanka’s most celebrated race event, the Fox Hill Super Cross, will receive a full track upgrade when Red Bull’s champion motocross rider Mohammed Balooshi helps complete a course rebuild, which will draw it level with top international race circuits.
The Dubai-based rider began his work in late February with a full survey of the track and will soon feature as an integral component of the design and construction phase leading up to the Fox Hill Super Cross on April 18 and 19.
Mohammad Balooshi
Riders at the event can look forward to a novel and challenging route, which will, in the short-term, award the two-day race extravaganza undisputable foreign credibility. In the long run it help nurture a new, greater skilled motor sports generation more attuned to the demands of top-flight competition. In addition to the course alteration, Balooshi will draw on his considerable race experience to educate riders and builders on the relevant finer points of their trade through a series of workshops, which will precede Fox Hill.
Primarily, the fresh design will grind away the circuit’s excessive pace and replace it with a more technical layout. This will enable the course to meet with accepted international standards as well as add a heightened dose of action and adrenaline to the domestic motor-mad denizens in the Fox Hill Super Cross stands.
As a champion motocross and desert rally rider, Balooshi knows as much about racing at the top level as he does about the above mentioned action and adrenaline. The winner of many coveted titles, including the Arab Motocross Championship, the Bahrain Championship, the Tunisia Cup, the Kuwait Championship and the Umm Al Quwain Championship, Balooshi is also the first Emirati to take part in the Dakar Rally,
Away from the track, Balooshi has played an active role in helping develop the sport in his country. He made a significant contribution toward this goal when he coached seven emerging riders from the UAE in the Red Bull Under My Wings project.
“What Red Bull and Mohammed Balooshi will do is give the track an overall upgrade. Usually when Japanese and other foreign riders come here they are way ahead of our guys because they are riding on tracks prepared to top standards. So by improving the track he is also helping to improve local riders,” Mahesh Gammanpila, the Treasurer of the Sri Lanka Association of Racing Drivers and Riders (SLARDAR) stated.
Balooshi is due to arrive in Sri Lanka on April 11 and will be involved with track building and track build workshops from April 12 to 16 at Diyatalawa. On April 17 he will conduct a ride and mechanism workshop before competing at the qualifying rounds the next day with the intention of competing at Fox Hill on race day.