Abra drivers get set for race day

After midnight, the Dubai creek turns into a practice track.

Around midnight, when the water is free of dinner cruises and Iranian dhows, Malek Qurban Hussain, 53, and his crew of abra drivers turn the creek into a race track.

They wind through Shindagha and then run the gauntlet towards the waterfront Sheraton Hotel in Deira.

They follow the same course used every January for the annual abra race that takes place as part of the Dubai Shopping Festival.

The race is the biggest event of the year for the city's drivers, with most of them competing more for bragging rights than the Dh6,000 first prize.

Yet Hussain could not care less about victorious finishes and prize money.

These nightly practice sessions and the grand race itself are about the only way for him to bring back the memories of racing horses through the mountains in his native Pakistan.

He insists that going full throttle on an abra has the same weightless sense of freedom as clinging to a galloping horse.

"Anybody can race an abra like a car," he said while milling about the Sabhka abra station in Deira."

"But to race an abra like a horse is to race with dignity. It goes beyond just using the same tactics."

On land, it is hard to tell if he is just using his fading equestrian memories to mask his competitive spirit.

After all, he does command tremendous respect around the abra stations, not just because he hangs his old military uniform in his bedroom and swings his short arms like a soldier — both remnants of a lengthy stint with the UAE military — but because he owns more abras, at 12, than anybody else.

A staff of 23 pilots his abras through the creek's waters.

It would almost be unjust if one of his abras, brightly painted green and white in homage to the Pakistani flag, didn't finish first in January.

Almost in secret preparation, he has already started fitting out his abras with brand new engines and cleaning barnacles off the hulls.

Both can shave seconds off your race time, he admits.

Out on the water, though, his indifference for victory seems to completely dissolve.

During a rare afternoon practice session, he coached his driver through the Shindagha turn, stressing the necessity for a tight, land-hugging turn on the inside track.

As the abra raced down the creek, Hussain focused his eyes on an imaginary finish line, and then said, almost surrendering, "Racing is more in my blood than anybody else on this creek."