Officials from the country of Bahrain, near Saudi Arabia, said Monday that they want to host a NASCAR race at their Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), a road course.

Hosting NASCAR is on the minds of the management at the BIC, said BIC director of PR and government affairs Shaikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa who has just returned from the US after heading a fact-finding delegation. As part of their fact finding officials attended a NASCAR race and that seemed to peak their interest; its not known which race they attended.

We did go and see a NASCAR race and an Indy 500 single-seater race there. We not only looked at things from the racing side, but also from a marketing perspective, said Shaikh Salman speaking at a BIC Press conference at the Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain Resort and Spa. The NASCAR race was very good to see, but we are yet to look at how that system would work here because we dont have an oval. But it is something that we are looking into.

 

Its not to say that it only works on an oval. I think we will go through our checklist and see if everything makes sense, he said. I would rather go to a person who says I am dying to go to Bahrain than someone who says how much are you going to pay me to come. The decisions that we do make are put on a business model and feasibility decides, he added. There is an interest in North America. Generally, here in the Middle East, we look to Europe. Everyone used to say if you are going to bring a race, look to Europe, look at what they are doing, and try to do the same. But we have already shown that we are different by looking East instead of West.