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GM @Krishna R @Emanuel @Davie Chase @RiaanJH @Amr Aydin @Rajat Verma @george charbel @Ron.P @takeshi sobue @Abdelghani Masad @Pacific @Yerem Davtyan @pramod @Haitham Khattab @Andrei S @Thian @Imteeaz @Ben Lee @Yaseen87 @Ignacio Quindos @imranaasghar81 @Farook Veettil @Issaa @Karthikeyan Govindarajan @shailendra singh vilkhu @Savio Fernandes Quick update .. thanks to @Chaitanya D and @Hisham Masaad help, I am happy to confirm extension of the drive RSVP and accordingly all WL is now confirmed. We will have 2 convoys, details will be shared tomorrow. For now, please let me know by a message and removal of your RSVP in case of any change of your plan. Stay tuned!

Dear Riders! please find the convoy list for tomorrows drive. Sunrise is expected at around 6:03 am. See you all deflated, flagged up with a happy smile at 5.45 am. Fewbie Tawi Nazwa 9th April GauravSoni Lead Kailas @Kailas SL DP1011 @DP1011 Joji varghese @Joji varghese Naim Aoun @Naim Aoun Manoj Soman @Manoj Soman Rajiv Sam @Rajiv Sam CF Mark D @Mark D Anoop Nair @Anoop Nair Chintaka Ruwan @Chinthaka Ruwan Thomas Varghese @Thomas Varghese Amir Amiri @Amir Amiri Ranjan Das @Kailas SW

Lovers of driving in the desert, good evening. happy to accommodate all applicants to tomorrows adventure. Below is the list of names, hoping all will like his position. We will be meeting at 6:00 am, hoping all will be ready in a short time, to start moving. Radio channel will be 2(446031), my mobile is 050 631 8834. Please note at the same point another convoy is meeting, which is good to say good morning, but please try to check the cars and gather on the lift side of the track. @Simon Dawood @Joseph Raju @Warren Flay @Mohamad Anwer @Daniel Rodas @Karthik Raptor @Michel Van Woudenberg @Rob S @Gilbert Khalil @Waqas Parvez @Vaibhav @H3 Joe @Zixuan Huang - Charlie Look forward to see you morning, Hisham

Welcome to Grand Iftar Drive - It's once in a year opportunity for all off-roaders in UAE to meet and sit in one place to enjoy Grand Iftar together. It's being held in coordination with most off-road clubs and approx. 400-500 off-road cars show up every year at Iftar bowl near Tawi Rifadah in the Bidayar area. Iftar bowl, got its name because long ago (till 2008) all off-roaders use to park inside the iftar bowl and break their fast, but with today's growing numbers everyone parks outside the bowl, but in a closer vicinity. Whether you are fasting or not, it's a must-drive to attend to watch the union of off-roaders and witness the love and respect that everyone shares in this small world of off-roading in UAE. Please feel free to join us with your friends and family with your Iftari & a little extra to share with others. Please do not litter as kills beautiful wildlife, so please carry enough garbage liners to pack the trash. Drive Details Level: ALL LEVELS ARE WELCOME When: 16 April 2022, Saturday Meeting time: 4:30 PM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: https://goo.gl/maps/oKKoJgPeaPdQVJsD7 Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 8-10 inches of ground clearance. What to bring along: Iftar food and drinks for yourself and a little extra to share, camping chairs, mat, etc. Approximate finish time: 9:00 PM P.S. Only join if you have a compressor to inflate your tires after the drive. UNLIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE: PLEASE RSVP ON THE BELOW CALENDAR EVENT

Dear Desertnauts let's prepare our drive tomorrow by sending out a few information about the terrain we'll cross. The meeting point is on a sabkha (those very flat and wind-swept flat areas between adjacent areas of dunes), just north of Faqa Town, which you can reach making a right turn off the Dubai-Al Ain Road, just before the actual exit to Faqa. Follow the tarmac, lined up by a mix of dunes and camel farms, until you'll see the convoy meeting up. In general, we'll expect to find soft and warm sand. Therefore, we'll need to deflate accordingly, in my opinion between 14 and 10 PSI (deflate to low PSI's only if you have tires with relatively high and thick walls, while very powerful cars - the big trucks - may deflate a little less). We'll start the drive entering a set of soft technical dunes located between the proper Faqa "plateau" of ling range cordons, and the newest Solar Park developments (the very visible solar "chimney"). We'll be driving across the soft slip-faces, so we'll minimize the criss-crossing in these area, and will prefer to drive along the dunes as much as possible, to find suitable open corridors between cordons. After sometime, this area will open up, allowing faster driving, and easier crossings. We'll eventually reach one of 2 sabkhas (a nearer and a further one, depending on the convoy's behavior), which we'll use to loop back toward the Faqa Plateau. Here we'll find taller dunes, with some deep bowls, and very long cordons and ridges, that we'll try to ride and cross whenever suitable. We plan to exit just before sunset. The convoy order, at the moment (barring drop-outs and new entries) looks like the following: @varunmehndiratta in Second Lead @Jessica Lambert in place #3 @Paolo Morresi at #4 @DP1011 will be at #5 @FiNaR at #6 @Pierre de Maigret will be in the center of the convoy @Gerrit Bus will drive at #8 @Felix Obst at #9 @Harshal will take position #10 @Beide Worku will be #11, and @topgear will Sweep. The Carnity Radio channel we'll be using is #2 (446.036). Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow afternoon (please do not be late).

Dear desert wanderers, half day left and will be deflating tyres preparing for a new adventure in sand. Having 12 members, is the limit we can reach. However, having 3 names in the WL and all are first drive for them, making me feeling bad not to add them to the drive. However, since we have another FB drive in the same area and same starting point lead by @GauravSoni, would really appreciate if only one can move to the other drive, and I will be then adding the WL names, making all happy. This will make the convoy 14 cars, which I hope will not be an issue. Karthik Raptor @Karthik Raptor Waqas Parvez @Waqas Parvez Simon Dawood @Simon Dawood Charbel @Charbel Gilbert Khalil @Gilbert Khalil Vaibhav @Vaibhav H3 Joe @H3 Joe Rob S @Rob S Joseph Raju @Joseph Raju Zixuan Huang - Charlie @Zixuan Huang - Charlie Warren Flay @Warren Flay Mohamad Anwer @Mohamad Anwer Waitlisted Attendees Tareck @Tareck Daniel Rodas @Daniel Rodas Michel Van Woudenberg @Michel Van Woudenberg

@Ale Vallecchiyes confirmed and looking forward

this is the most awaited drive i’m looking for to take my family. Will join for sure Inshaallah

Evening all, unfortunately cannot make it. In Saudi and have a feeling I'll be overly and irresponsibilly tired when I get back to fully focus on drive. Enjoy! Imran

hi @Hisham Masaad. i see very high demand for this drive. i will sign out to leave my place to an FB+ driver. see you next week, hopefully on an IM drive. cheers 🤘

Drive RSVP is now closed. @Sunny84 @Mike Merdinian @Sivaprasad Gopalakrishnan @Jonny90 @Stan Hassett @Elsinno @Looper Convoy order below. Please go through the tutorial video on the drive post and also make sure your cars front and rear tow hooks are in order. See you all tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM sharp and we will be using Radio channel 1, 446 006. 25. For those who do not have a radio, one will be lent to you for tomorrows drive. Make sure you have a tire deflator, pressure gauge and a compressor to inflate after the drive as the one at the fuel station does not work for the most part. If you need to contact me in case of an emergency, my number is O52 6771O76.

Dear @Krishna R, even though you are #1 in the waiting list, precedence goes to those drivers with no scheduled drives during the weekend. As it looks like this would be your second drive, those without drives will move ahead of you, if someone drops out. Let's see if anything opens up, before being able to evaluate. Thanks for asking.

Awesome! Thanks for the effort! See you on Sunday!

Thank you @Islam Soliman, Appreciate being inclusive of all the waitlist. Unfortunately i wont be able to make it due to other commitments that came up. i will remove myself

@Islam Soliman thnks Islam. looking forward to our drive on Sunday.

Thank you very much @Islam Soliman! Looking forward to hitting the dunes again.✌️

Thank you very much @Islam Soliman! If possible, could you please arrange myself and @Andrei S in the same convoy, please?

Yes, we all made it!! @Ale Vallecchi And Thanks for opening up this otherwise "advisor exclusive" recce drive for normal people ...i was just a silent observer to the whole drive as you kept sharing snippets for @varunmehndiratta 's lead coming saturday, which gave me a different perspective of how you guys do the route planning, exit points, choice of different routes based on convoy response etc. It was indeed a welcome re-start for me after almost a month's break , a chill and relaxing fewbie track , a very short convoy - 4 cars to start with and later 3 cars when @GauravSoni had to exit due to a work site call - hope all is ok. All the best to both @varunmehndiratta for his partial lead on Saturday and @GauravSoni for his first independent lead...Go rock the sands!! See you all soon !!

Yallah! Push! I'm on!

Hi Hisham, im available !

Dear @Daniel Rodas and @Michel Van Woudenberg please confirm availability to add you to the drive

@Islam Soliman Sorry I cant make it and have to remove myself from RSVP

Hi @Paolo Morresi. Yes, my mistake, the correct frequency is as indicated above. Thanks for noticing. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Confirmed @Islam Soliman

Differential problems can be at time a devastating issue especially to the off roaders . I found this link that can be of a help understand what can be the cause .

I missed my previous drive for an emergency. i don’t wanna miss this.

@GauravSoni plz add me also to this drive. I’m at WL now

@RiaanJH congratulations. 👍

No worries Asad! Hope to see you soon!

@Ale Vallecchi I need to cancel... sorry,I hope someone can step in Have fun

@Gaurav SoniI am on WL for the afternoon drive. looks like I might not be able to get in. Do you have an extra slot for this drive?

Thanks @Hisham Masaad, I hope I can make yours. I appretiate Gaurav's drive, I would like to focus on the FB+ though.

@Ale VallecchiAny chance of including me?

Thanks Alessandro, I will be there. Can you confirm on the radio channel just to make sure? My #2 is as per the below. No problem to switch the one you suggested, my

Ciao @Ale Vallecchi, unfortunately I am only slowly recovering from an illness which might still make it a bad idea to drive tomorrow, so I am dropping out now to let somebody take my place from the waiting list. Have a great drive all of you, Andrew

Drive Details Level: Fewbie and above (all levels) Meeting time: 3:00 PM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: Dropped pin https://maps.app.goo.gl/KpNVJmVnV8NpnqQx5 Action Plan: On account of the long waiting list for the drive scheduled this coming Saturday, it has been decided to post a new drive, like a preview, to take place in midweek, and open it up to the waitlisted members, who may not actually make the convoy on Saturday. Same drive, same spirit, less crowded, and more exploratory. Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 8-10 inches of ground clearance. What to bring along: Loads of water, snacks (for yourself), smiles, face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Approximate finish time: 6:30 PM P.S. Only join if you have a compressor to inflate your tires after the drive.

Thanks for all the prep and hard work

We all made it, eventually 😅. @Sunil Mathewsorry for the delay.

Am at the location @Ale Vallecchi... cant see anyone here...

Sorry guys for the late post. Once again thank you all for joining the drive. I enjoyed every bit of it. Thanks @topgear, @Looper, @Chris Wing & @GauravSoni for your support. We had a mixed the experienced drivers along with others. Towards the end of the drive ( last hour), I could feel most of the drivers were tired and we had more refusals. Night drives are more tiring than day drives. Hence for my future drives, I will be posting drives with drive time less than 3 hours and probably 30 minutes break to enjoy the sky. Please find the stats below:

Got in😃

@Mark D I have been going to hi way auto wash in Jebel Ali for the last couple of years. 52 aed for full body wash ( lifting the car and underneath as well) I tip the washing guy 10 aed and he cleans the engine bay with some chemical. Makes it look brand new. I am a regular client so after my desert drive, I first go to the detailing station, open the hood and get it blown by compressed air, nooks and corners in the engine bay, clean the air filter with compressed air and then to the washing station. Not crowded. 30 mins in and out. Really good for 50 bucks. I also make sure they remove all my off roading equipment, clean the interior thoroughly and keep everything back. The quality of the wash is much better than the wash in the fuel station. Hi Way Auto Service https://maps.app.goo.gl/VoD2bZGuvCz2US5y8 The Google pin is correct but the directions is wrong. You need to take the exit from szr not from discovery gardens/furjan. Call them for directions

For the regular body wash we go to the ADNOC station nearby Remraam. Its a new station so not too very busy. 45Dhs and the guys do a good job. For the underbody stuff i head to Umm Suquim Grand Service Center, which is more expensive, but these guys do an immaculate job. I usually slip them a tip if they did a good job (which is usually the case). And quite often i wash my cars in my own drive-way with the hose. I find it relaxing and i do my fluid checkups at the same time.

Not too crowded, it is called Good Stram Auto.

I go to a place in Al Quoz where they do the wash and cleaning for AED 45 (including under body and under bonnet) and quite a thorough interior cleaning and feel they are better. every 3-4 months I get a deep interior cleaning for AED 400. At auto pro they charge 55 for full body wash, and if you ask them to lift the car and wash underbody they straight up charge 105 for extreme wash. And the interior cleaning guys indicate it is done expecting tips which I don’t like.

@GauravSoni apologies had to pull out as the car wont be ready by at at-least tomorrow afternoon. Hope to see you again soon.

Hi everyone, I'm afraid I'll have to cancel tomorrow morning due to schedule conflicts 😕 I'll join you in two week's time.