My research almost came to a crashing end during a freezing night in February, while I was following a drifting (tafhit) procession in Riyadh. Drifting is the practice of using stolen cars to skid at full speed on urban highways – a high-octane gymnastics that is for cars what dressage is for prize horses. I was driving my car, a worn-out Jeep Cherokee, behind the red lights of a Toyota pickup that was careering from one side of the street to the other. Its driver, ‘Ajib, was skillfully playing with the steering wheel and the handbrake. My informant Rakan was pestering me to salute each skid with a flash of my headlights in a gesture of appreciation. I complied, also using my blinkers to convey what I was told were messages of enthusiasm. A zigzagging pickup followed at full speed by a flashing Jeep was not an uncommon scene in suburban Riyadh.

Soon ‘Ajib turned off the main street onto one side road, and then a second. He swerved into the wrong lane and I followed, alarmed by his carelessness but determined not to lose him. “He is testing you,” declared Rakan. We were headed to what some local youth call Tariq al-Ba‘arin (“Dromedary Drive”), a six-lane thoroughfare in the east of Riyadh. The road's nickname came from the corrals on both sides of the street, where families kept herds of dromedaries for their enjoyment or profit. Located on the outskirts of the city, the wide thoroughfare was an ideal spot for joyriding and car drifting. ‘Ajib was driving expertly through a maze of side roads so as to avoid the police patrols. I was in a mixed state of excitement and fear; this was my first night of joyriding.