Action
RIGHT ON TRACK Clockwise from top left: Betty burns rubber with a pre-lap doughnut; Palestinian flags adorn the start /finish arch; a young fan catches the action from a raised viewing platform; Hadeel puts her mechanical engineering lessons to good use; one of the souped-up race cars competing in Jericho; Betty and Noor commit the course to memory before racing begins; one of the male racers tackles the obstacleladen track; Noor captivates the crowd; Noor’s bedroom is a shrine to her motorsport success
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to race regardless, proving to be one of the top women drivers in the country, not only beating the other women, but finishing in the top 10 overall. Now she’s proven herself, they’re starting to come around. “Now they see it as a sport they have started to change their minds,” she says, “but it’s hard.” Changing these sorts of attitudes is one of the reasons the Speed Sisters team officially came into being in 2010, when an employee of the British Consulate General in Jerusalem heard about the small number of women racing and decided to help. The Consulate brought out British race driving trainers and donated helmets, race suits, an old BMW for practice, and came up with the all-important name to give the girls a stronger identity, which would also, they hoped, attract more sponsors. Motorsport is expensive the world over and Palestine is no exception. Just one set of race tyres costs well over €1,200, and finding funding here is no mean feat. All the Speed Sisters rely on help from their families in addition to every spare shekel from their wages to keep them in competition. For Marah and fellow Speed Sister Mona Ennab, 25, a self-professed tomboy who stands next to her wearing an oversized jumper, the cost of fixing their damaged cars has proved too high to race tomorrow. They have still travelled from their West Bank hometowns to Jericho to cheer on the team from the sidelines and celebrate the end of the season, but Marah’s hopes of defending her title have been dashed. Despite their disappointment, evidence of the positive effect the team is having is close by. On the other side of the car park a smartly dressed slip of a girl is clutching a clipboard to her chest and trotting to keep up with a team of middleaged officials in dirty overalls who are doing the rounds of inspection. Hadeel Jaradat is a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student and the Speed Sisters’ latest recruit – despite the fact she can’t drive. Her chess-expert father has finally given in and is giving her lessons. “My father says in chess always imagine your opponent is the most clever person in the world,” Hadeel laughed earlier, “and on the road 57