Stunts at autoshow outshine flashy cars, bikes

Management unable to control participants performing stunts in the parking lot.

LAHORE: The owner of a 1990’s Mercedes performed a burn-out stunt so wicked that the car’s tyres completely wore out at the end. Though the organisers of the Fifth Pakwheels Auto Show at the Liberty Market on Sunday ran to stop him, they appeared pretty much helpless with all the doughnut, burn-out and drifting stunts being performed smack in the middle of the Liberty Parking Lot. 

Rasiq Muhammad, the owner of the rogue Mercedes, was visiting the car show with his friends who had brought 17 cars including Mercedes, BMWs and souped-up Civics to the show. As the management tried to take Rasiq Muhammad to task, he said that they had not been informed about whether or not they were allowed to perform stunts.

Hundreds of people thronged the Liberty Parking Lot to look at the flashy Lamborghini, Mazarati, Nissans, Mercedes, BMWs and a Corvette standing alongside stately-looking 1960-era vintage cars.

Ahsan Hashmi, the owner of a Nissan Invader, said, “I’m the first one in Pakistan to have imported this 4x4 beast of a vehicle.”

But it was the stunts being performed in the middle of the dough-nut shaped parking lot that attracted the most visitors.

Jaws dropped, the audience whipped out their phones to make videos of the stunts being performed. A motorcycle rider dangerously tilting sideways to perform doughnuts fell but wasn’t seriously injured.

“I have visited several autoshows but have never seen such unruliness before,” said Ather Hussain, who had brought his Yamaha R6 to the show.

There are children here, he said. “The organisers should have laid out the rules for decorum earlier.”

Several members of the management were seen running after stunt riders asking them to stop, but no one paid them much attention.

Traffic police had set up a stall to give out learners’ licenses to visitors.

When asked why they weren’t trying to control the situation, one of them said they had not been given directions to bring the participants to order.

Pakwheels Chief Operating Officer Ahmad Saeed admitted that the situation had gone out of control. He said that they were trying to prevent vehicle owners from performing stunts but no one was listening to them. He said the traffic police was present,“they should have done something to bring situation under control”. To a question about whether the management had asked the traffic police to control the situation, he replied that they had not.

Ali Kamran, a business man who had brought his son and daughter to the autoshow, appreciated the organisers’ efforts but deplored the fact that the stunts were being performed in a public area. “You never know when a vehicle loses control,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2015.