Dubai, UAE, December 17th, 2024
It was the end of November 1988 and I flew into Dubai for the first time after the Lombard RAC Rally on the fledgling Emirates Airlines. I rented a Hertz car from what was then a small provincial airport and somehow found my way via empty roads, close to midnight, to the Hyatt Regency Hotel. We had no satnav or Google Maps in ‘88.
As a staff writer for Motoring News in London I had arranged a deal to be a guest of the new Dubai Commerce and Tourism Promotion Board – the emirate was keen to start putting the place on the tourist map! Sheikh Mohammed had a plan.
At the time the Hyatt was one of five or six 5-star hotels in Dubai and hosted the final round of the FISA Middle East Rally Championship. The tallest building in the city was the World Trade Centre at the top of Sheikh Zayed Road. The in-places in town were Thatchers, the George and Dragon at the Ambassador Hotel and nearby Pancho Villas. The Hatta Fort Hotel was the weekend retreat and the Emirates Golf Club was up and running.
Over the next 15 years we visited the Hyatt every year for the rally and it also hosted the Marlboro Desert Challenge from 1993 until the turn of the Millennium. We set up media centres in the squash courts and hosted press conferences in the Premiere nightclub next to the ice rink on several occasions. One year – I think it was 2001 – I arrived direct from Montreal and a rally in Quebec straight into a quick shower and hosting the pre-Desert Challenge PC.
I even got electrocuted in the media centre one year when I tried to pull a sticking plug out of an extension socket and it split open in my hand.
The rally then moved to the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel and the Desert Challenge headed off to Abu Dhabi and was renamed the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.
I guess it’s 20 years since I last visited this hotel and ordered a beer in Carpenters. When I lived here briefly in ‘93, the bar was also one of my locals.
Defo a memory lane moment tonight … many great memories. The bar has now moved to the ice rink area – I just spoke to the bar manager and he wasn’t even born in ‘88. lol
