‘Eating dust’: Pakistani woman rally racer finds her way on a less beaten path

KARACHI: During a rally race in Gwadar last year, Mahum Shiraz Qureshi’s truck did a double rollover on the 240 kilometer high speed track, smashing her windscreen into smithereens and injuring her hands.
There were still 70 kilometers to go in the race, and Qureshi decided she would finish it, driving ahead on the desert track without a windshield, the dust and dirt beating against her face.
Taking on challenges has been the story of Qureshi’s life. In a country where motorsports are already a rarity, the 22-year-old law student from Karachi is breaking the glass ceiling and hopes to prove that women in Pakistan can do anything they want.
“One feels proud, and strong together, when you see young women coming together, and being able to follow their passion,” Qureshi told Arab News, saying she was proud to race in Pakistan and dreamt of participating in international competitions like the Dakar Rally, considered one of motorsport’s most dangerous and grueling events.
“There are many such rallies happening all over the world … and I think it’s great that more women are entering these races and I would love to be one of them as well, once I have that experience and once I’m on that level.”
Qureshi, whose inspiration is her father, said she grew up seeing him race.
“My father has been racing for seven or eight years now, and he is the reason I got into it. Once I started, I fell in love with the sport itself,” she said.
Her first rally race was in February 2020, in Cholistan, and she has since participated in around eight races on her Toyota Tacoma One GR.
She remembered the Cholistan rally as one of her “favorite racing moments.”
“When I finished the race, and went back to the camp, all the seniors, senior racers, senior members of the racing fraternity, were at the camp and they brought a cake for me and flowers. And they completely celebrated me ... I think that was very special for me.”
“The second has to be definitely my experience in Gwadar in 2021 when I rolled over twice and then got injured but somehow still managed to complete the race,” the racer said, describing driving a “broken car, no windscreen, no windows.”
“We were eating dust throughout. There was a lot of dust. It was quite an excruciating, stressful time,” she said. “When I reached the finish line and met my father, we both just hugged each other and cried ... we were just very overwhelmed.”
Qureshi’s father Shahzad Qureshi, an avid racer himself, said he battled a mix of emotions when it came to his daughter’s passion for racing.
“It was [difficult] at the initial stage obviously, even today whenever she’s driving, it is a little problematic, a little traumatic if something happens to her, but it is a great experience,” he told Arab News. “It is absolutely a super pleasure to see your child doing the same thing that you actually love doing. So that’s the catch to it!”
For Qureshi what keeps her going is a belief in the power of dreams.
“If you have a dream, if you have a passion for anything, be it racing, be it anything in the world, you should follow it of course, and especially women in Pakistan,” she said. “Now we see so many women from different fields coming and succeeding in those fields, racing being one of the examples. We have so many young female racers, and I think it’s great.”
“We should continue to motivate each other and support each other.”