hi Glen
the crowds werent massive by totb 4 uk standards, but its the first time they have ever run anything like this over there. we also had around 60 competitors sign on in total, which is great, we only had around 70 for the first ever totb uk. They had to turn people away on the day who wished to sign on as no late entries were allowed.
i'd have thought there were similar crowd numbers to our first totb uk event by the look of it. the cultural differences were also obvious, many of the competitors/spectators arrived later on in the day to start running, but were mad keen to get runs in on all 3 events. at the 10am start time for the handling we'd only got around 45 competitors of the list arrived, many came down as we started the handling. we also had to stop at 12.30pm for a prayer period, and restart after lunch, the drag and top speed being run late afternoon and then under floodlights! (excellent venue btw, although new it blows away anything in the uk for this type of event.) They are building a proper 3km tarmac cct for us to run timed "attack" type laps next time, plus extending the main drag strip to include a 2 mile straight. Top speed distance was reduced down to just 700m with around the same for braking, the strip itself was a proper FIA strip which is glued if reqd. one of the probs that they get is that sand blows down the track and sticks to the glue! The strip and handling areas had purpose made seating, and the control tower was air conditioned. the pit garages (30) are all new and built for this event, and will be air con for the future, altho they were a lot cooler than outside (25-28c most days we were there). the Sheik had obviously invested a hell of a lot of money in the venue. the entire paddock was block paved and floodlit, with floodlights all round the venue etc.
one of the many good things to come out of it was the Sheik and his management were apparently blown away by the response to the event over there, and want to run qualifying events monthly if they can in preparation for what should become a great annual event over there. Gear One TV from the area filmed the event and have said they were impressed with how well received it was and how many cars competed, they'd seen nothing like it.
If anyone wanted to take a car over to copmpete themselves in future they'd be given a very warm reception as we were, its also only an hour from Dubai which was superb. food and drink were readily available, and cheap, the sheik also allowed us to have alcoholic drinks at the after-party outdoors, which was a very nice gesture after a long hot day, as normally its drinks only inside their hotels and restaurants!