Al Haboob challenged Olympians, Team USA athletes and endurance racers to beat the time of a professional racing camel on the Porsche track
Following overwhelming demand, OUTRUN THE STORM is now expanding to new cities and launching a dedicated running community
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Porsche Experience Center Los Angeles has hosted countless high-performance experiences. Until September 21, its racetrack had never hosted a footrace. The opponent was a camel.
Al Haboob (الهَبُوب), the world’s first professional camel racing team, brought OUTRUN THE STORM to the iconic Porsche track, challenging athletes to beat the time set by Hajma, one of its elite racing camels.
More than 120 athletes, runners, creators and cultural figures came to take on the challenge.
Ahead of the event, Hajma completed the same two race distances, establishing benchmark times for competitors in Los Angeles to beat. Competitors – including Team USA and Olympic athletes, marathon runners, Ironman competitors and American Ninja Warrior athletes – then took their turn.
Over 900 feet, one athlete managed to beat Hajma’s time.
Over 1.3 miles, nobody did.
The challenge translated one of the Middle East’s oldest sporting traditions into a universal language: a starting line, a stopwatch and a time to beat.
“Who would have thought a camel could set a time that people in LA would be trying to beat?” said Paul Pogba, global ambassador and shareholder at Al Haboob. “That’s what I like about OUTRUN THE STORM. It’s something different, it’s competitive and it makes you want to try it yourself. We’re taking a sport with so much history and finding new ways to make people around the world want to be part of it.”
What followed surprised even the organisers.
Participants flooded social media with videos, stories and posts from the event, helping introduce camel racing to audiences far beyond Los Angeles. As content spread online, runners from across the United States began asking the same question:
When can we try it?
One of the participants, Haley Videckis, said, “We had the best time! Watching my son, Mylo’s, excitement around the camels was already so special, and now he cannot wait to see a real race in Saudi Arabia. It was the perfect day to celebrate the sport and the culture surrounding it.”
From Los Angeles to New Cities
Following the response to the Los Angeles event, Al Haboob is developing OUTRUN THE STORM into an ongoing series of community runs and live experiences, with plans to bring the concept to additional U.S. and international markets.
Alongside the events, Al Haboob is also developing the Outrun the Storm Run Club, a running community built around group runs, training sessions, social experiences and future opportunities for runners to test themselves against professional racing camels.
“We came to Los Angeles wanting to introduce people to camel racing in a way they had never experienced before,” said Omar Almaeena, Co-Founder and Creative Spark at Al Haboob, who also took part in the activation.
“What happened exceeded our expectations. People didn’t just watch. They raced, they shared the experience and they immediately wanted to know when they could do it again. That’s when we realised this could become something much bigger than a single event.”
Beyond the Starting Line
OUTRUN THE STORM extended far beyond the race itself.
Guests took part in Camel Bootcamp, an interactive introduction to the technology, training, welfare standards and performance systems behind modern professional camel racing, including the robot jockey technology used in competition.
Attendees also watched Camel Quest, Al Haboob’s Netflix series co-produced by and starring founders Almaeena and Safwan Modir. The series follows the team’s journey inside one of the world’s oldest and most culturally significant sports.
Together, the experiences offered American audiences a rare introduction to camel racing – not simply as spectators, but by experiencing the sport for themselves.
“Al Haboob was born from a belief that heritage belongs on the world stage,” said Modir, Co-Founder and Head of Operations at Al Haboob. “Bringing camel racing to Los Angeles at the Porsche Experience Center is a statement of ambition: we honour where we come from, and we are fearless about where we can go.”
OUTRUN THE STORM will return soon to a city near you.
The challenge remains:
Can you outrun a camel?
WATCH: OUTRUN THE STORM LOS ANGELES
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd1eApdpAqp/
FOLLOW OUTRUN THE STORM
Follow @alhaboobracing on Instagram and TikTok for announcements about upcoming OUTRUN THE STORM experiences and the Run Club.
About Al Haboob
Based in Saudi Arabia, Al Haboob (الهَبُوب) is the world’s first professional camel racing team, blending heritage with elite performance and advanced veterinary science. Founded by Omar Almaeena and Safwan Modir, the team is on a mission to modernise camel breeding, elevate the sport to a global stage, and build it into a broader sports and entertainment platform – laying the foundations for the world’s first professional Camel Racing League.
Website:
www.alhaboobracing.com
Social Media:
Instagram: @alhaboobracing
TikTok: @alhaboobracing
LinkedIn: Al Haboob Camel Racing Team
YouTube: @alhaboobracing
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SOURCE Al Haboob (الهَبُوب)
