COVID19 Compliant - Morning Intermediate Desert Drive - Solar Park to Ghantoot - Dubai - 16 Jul 2021

[Looper]

A massive thanks to @Kailas to persist with the drive in spite of his troubles with the car. Even though the traction control was not working you did not let it show in the drive at all. Except for a lone time I had to tow you out you just had only one other refusal that you self recovered.

I was behind at the him at the 2nd position. This was my first drive with new shoes. The BFG Goodrige 285/70R17s KO2s I installed just a few days ago. Following the footsteps of our Lead I haven't yet got any lift on the car yet, but will have it very soon. I had a mild issue of tyre rubbing but hopefully my next drive will be with a lift and won't face these issues. A weird thing was, I had not one but 2 pop-outs on my rear passenger side tyre. I am used to driving the manner I drove and never had any issues before. Took the car to the place where I bought the tyres and they cleaned and wheel balanced the tyres free of cost. Apart from that I had 3 refusals of which 2 I could self recover and for one I needed a bit of digging. I had to take 3 loops today because I slipped out of the track I was supposed to take. Yes, as I had declared on the drive, I changed my username to @Looper.

@Thomas Varghese was behind me. He had an interesting first hour or so. Had to dig him out a couple of times and self recovered himself a couple of more. Had his fun time taking pictures obviously. Rest of us carry water in our front seats, he carries a suitcase full of camera gear. Thanks for those pictures, intermediate drives give hardly any time to take pictures.

@Arman was driving at 4, and had a flawless drive until he crested his car behind me. That place was quite sharp and we had back to back crested cars. I hope you are feeling well now.

@Niki round up the drive as the Sweep for this drive. As I mentioned during the drive, the convoy was so small that he was at a sweep position at #5, but if it ware a normal strength drive one might get to see center-forward about #6 or #7 position. We have driven three more times before, but never had as much interaction, and it was nice to catch up a bit today.

The area we drove today was mostly new for me, and had not been to these areas. The last bit was the most promising and playful and perhaps we should have been driving from the beginning, but alas we could not, and could only see it while exiting safely.

We drove for 60km which is higher than usual around this area. The drive time was 2:45 hours of total 4:33 hours, which was about the usual ratio have seen driving here. You can see the Gaia GPS recording from my device here.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Looper

[Niki]

@Looper I love the new name  

being such new tires may explain the pop out… watching you there were no harsh movement or turns or heavy sliding so was a surprise they popped out twice.  Likely could be that the seal didn’t have enough time to set as you mentioned only a few days running them in.  Get them run in this week as much as possible and enjoy the coming weeks ride even more.

I completely forgot you are our data guru, webcam guru and now can add car fridge guru  .. was nice to finally get to chat properly and genuinely appreciate all the advice you share as you take research to another level! 
 

@Kailas I am going to say this again… massive thanks and kudos for leading that drive without the ability to disable traction!
 

@Arman hope all 100% well and no top up Tetanus shots needed!