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@Shaz Shah thank you for a great fun challenging drive at Faqa which as described by @Thomas Varghese you are the king of Faqa. Title well deserved. It was a good experience for me to get crested and have to replace my LC70 tyre for the first time in 40 drives, as they say there is always a first time for everything! Thank you @matt for the physical support and @Ashok chaturvedifor the tools supplement, we know when you are around there is everything in your FJ. This drive had some challenges for my LC and @Tom B 's, however, the great support of the team left us with some fun memories and a great experience. 👍 @Ranjan Dasand @Looperthank you for your great support, always there to assist 👏 👍 @Simon Dawoodyou were very relaxed at the front and drove your Pajero beautifully 👍 👌 To the rest of the team thank you all and looking forward to seeing you again

Thanks @Looper for the write up. It was different and more challenging than some of the other drives which I have been recently. The car is in the garage and hopefully they will get to the bottom of the starting issue. I think it is time to put up the looper sticker which I have kept carefully until now.☺️

Ahh… I thought it was just my blindness 😂 The rules are puff puff pass…

@Srikumar + JEEP + night drive ===

I can vouch for that @Srikumar, have been 2Lead in two of your IM drives. Hope the rear break lights are working...

gonna put an Apple Air Tag on your Jeep during briefing, then launch the app Find My Marshal 😁

Epic Drive tribe from lead @Shaaz Sha to our sweep @Looper….. great cloudy day 😎 didn’t need to take out my sunglasses 🕶🤓….thanks everyone for supporting each other all the way to exit point …… @Zed we need to get along with more biryani drives once this covid restrictions are gone 😋…..

Emission from srikumar’s Jeep 😄 makes me high

Great summaries of the weekend drive. As usual, plenty of valuable guidance by @Ale Vallecchi on a challenging route which had a fair share of criss crossing, technical sections and long range sabkhas. Thanks for a great drive! @Sunil Mathew great to see you and the yellow Wrangler after many months! And even more pleasing to see you move up the ranks to Intermediate. Well done! Your instructions for recoveries is crystal clear. I also (kind of!) miss my manual Wrangler but do not miss the headaches that came with it. For the sake of my marriage 😅 I could not take the family LC on more "motivated" drives so happy to cruise around in Newbie and Fewbie. But hope that will change in the future with the FJC 😀 Great driving by all, made the role of sweep very easy. I uploaded some pics of the drive on Saturday in the Gallery.

What are you smoking bruh..!

Well so much has been said for this trip and some have written good legit reviews here, but i'll add my 2cents anyways just to keep this thread at the top 🤣 Initially the words "Exploration" and "Intermediate" intrigued us, so much so that it lured me (and possibly another Abu Dhabian @Mus_hus78) to come out from my comfy summer hibernation 😅 When the venue changed to Faqa, i told myself "lucky i had front+rear bumper trimmed and front+rear steel skid plates installed!" I remembered Gaurav telling us something always happens in Faqa while we were entering the initial technical dunes. My second Faqa drive was with Angela where we... uhmm, surf 🏄‍♂️ & fly ✈️ on the dunes close to Abu Dhabi border ☺️ I prepared to support @Looper as he was center-forward in the original list, but when Hisham couldn't make it and Looper was moved to keep the mighty ducks in-line from behind, i had to be ready in case anyone needs support from middle-to-front. Alas it was already a good convoy! first one for refusal was @Mohamad Anwer's crested at high dune, but from my view it looked like a bit of shovelling and blip-blip to the right will invite gravity and pull his Lightweight LC70 down. Great self-recovery 👍🏻 Second one was @Tom B to be crested also, but again constant left-right-left-right rowing in the sand helped the V8 boat escaped downhill 👍🏻 Third was @Ranjan Das to be crested, but @Simon Dawood managed to tug him down. Fourth was @Shaaz Sha to be crested but Ranjan pulled him down in a blitz. So with no support needed from the middle, all I could do was take photos of these events 😂 (see the gallery) I do have a blame to share though: as a V8 LC owner driving a V6 Patrol (aptly called "DragonMart Patrol by @Srikumar) , I was sure the V8 LC200 behind me could handle any obstacle thrown at it. In hindsight, I should have talked and warned more on the radio, especially when making early exits down. No matter what, the @Tom B's LC200 was following my track... maybe my car was drifting sand at him, maybe he didn't see me exiting early down, maybe he didn't realize i made it to the ridge at 6000rpm, things happened so fast that i only realized something is amissed when i didn't see the V8 LC in my rearview mirror, and that dreadful radio call "LC stuck on a slope". When I looped down to see the car from the flat ground, that stuck position was really really tricky... i followed the 2 Winchers Looper & Ashok in case they needed additional support and to watch the recovery in close to learn from it. Overall it was a good fun drive. It extended well over 9am but that was because of the extra time needed to fix numerous stucks and pop-outs. @Mohamad Anwer hope speedy recovery for your wife and @Ashok chaturvedi hope your appointment was ok to reschedule. Good to see some friends and familiar faces too: @Ranjan Das: was in Liwa or Gaurav's Faqa drive last time @Mus_hus78: we need to restart our Abu Dhabi club again! @Looper: saw you in numerous drives already, but the one I remembered vividly is the unofficial drives 😅 @Matt.T: last time it was in Anish's Lisaili drive, great to see you transforming into a support role 👍🏻 @Anoop Nair: long time no see buddy! I still call your Jeep yellow although you corrected me many times it's not yellow 😂 @Ashok chaturvedi: good to have a fatherly figure in our convoy, now i know why i hear good things about you 😊 @Thomas Varghese: there's not a boring moment without you man, reminds me of the CB radio craze in the 80's 😂

THE UNEVENTFUL DRIVE - IM LEVEL. Looks like @Shaaz Sha's faqa adventures are uneventful. Of course for a convoy consisting of @Ranjan Das, @Simon Dawood, @Mus_hus78, @Zed, @Tom B, @Mohamad Anwer, evercool @Matt.T, @Anoop Nair, veteran @Ashok chaturvedi, me & the not so looping @Looper this is business as usual. A split tire, a pop out and a non starting wrangler is not going to deter us from pursuing our adventure. Just business as usual. The crowning moment came when @Tom B's car decided to scare him with an angled stop at the slip face of a dune. There were 5 of us who had witnessed almost the same situation in a previous drive at LIWA and how the legend @Gaurav handled the situation to bring the car down to the flats. The lead @Shaaz Sha, @Ashok chaturvedi, @Ranjan Das, @Mus_hus78 & me were the witnesses and students. For us the situation was perfect to sharpen our skills which @Gaurav taught us. @Tom B was level headed to switch off the engine, cool to obey the instructions of the lead, and courageous to stay in the car and execute the necessary maneuvers called for by the lead. End result - A big grin on everybody's face and a sigh of relief to see a successful recovery. With this @Shaaz Sha has proved he is worthy enough to be a lead and to go on to be a marshal. Special thanks to everybody else in the convoy to climb up the dune and slowly shovel out the car to bring it angled perpendicular to the ground down and to let gravity help the car to slide down to safety. Kudos and cheers. Will not bat an eyelid to join a convoy of such strength and comradeship. @Mohamad Anwer had a split tire which was exchanged with his spare tire. I am amazed by the tool kit of @Ashok chaturvedi which had all the box wrenches, extenders and even a clutch ratchet. Got to shop for 1 and keep it in my car. This was soon followed by a rear right pop out from my car. Fixed in no time and we continued the adventure. Soon after @Anoop Nair's wrangler gave him a nail biting moment of not starting. My X had given me some tense moments like this before and I knew what to make the car start. @Anoop Nair please go to a good electrical shop and change the solenoid switch of your starter motor. The solenoid motor is now beginning to fail. All this only added to the excitement of the drive. Then came the tense moments at the slip face of a slide slope of @Tom B's car. Nothing deterred us to stop the drive. Thats why I called it an uneventful drive. This is all now routine to us IM drivers of @Carnity club. We go in as 1 unit and exit as 1 in the same convoy order. SEE YOU ALL SOON IN THE SANDS.

Much appreciated 😁 Thanks

I need to keep reminding myself not to look left or right, just follow the white dot infront.

@Gerrit Buscongratulations on your promotion, enjoy the pace 😉

@TT_Dubai thanks for the pictures, very nice indeed. Nice close telephotos - were you lugging a DSLR along or did you crop? From the perspective they look like they were taken with a proper telephoto lens!

Thank you

Congrats @Brett Eicher!

Great job @Jaro Tuzinsky!

Well done @Jad Moussalli!

Congrats @Gerrit Bus

Thanks a lot.

Congratulations @Gerrit Bus bus on your promotion to FB+ well done.

Congratulations @Brett Eicher on your promotion, enjoy your new level.

@Brett Eicher congrats, you and your toy deserve this promotion.

To all those who have signed up for the drive, I feel its only fair that I warn you guys upfront - That in IM drives I don't look at the rear view mirror and either way I am night blind.... Good Luck boys!!

Doc @Chaitanya D i've waitlisted myself for this drive, as I'm in Sri's 2nd Jul night drive already. If convoy is full, kindly consider extending the convoy size so I can show you my Y62 mods 😁

Thank you all! Congrats to you 2 Jaro

You need formula 1 driver reaction

Congratulations @Jad Moussalli you make the dunes look pile of dust!! Enjoy your new level. 👊👍.

Thanks for the awesome drive @Srikumar, this is my second FB+ night drive with you and it totally lived up to the expectations, and even more! Still remember the sound of the side airbags popping in a car in front during the first 5 mins of our Sweihan Adventures, my wife was adamant to turn back at this point but I managed to convince her 🤣🤣 Luckily nothing too extreme this time, but what an adventure! Big thanks to everyone on the team for keeping up the pace, and despite us finishing up late and me turning up home around 5.30am (its a long drive back to AD), was smiling the whole next day remembering excitement from the drive and my little mishaps. Thanks again, and see you on the next drive!

HIIT. A common acronym on posters of gyms that are constantly staring at me to get into better shape. Alas, I walk right past and into the seat of my gas guzzler. Why should I be subjecting my legs to the intensive interval training when I can effect the same from a hundred and some horses. That's what driving @Srikumar's FB+ drive felt like to me: High Intensity. Interval Training. We arrived at the meeting point, in complete darkness not just from the night that had quickly fallen around us but also of the convoy order. Hoping to not have to keep up with Sri, I was expecting myself to get a middle berth somewhere down the middle. I even had my windshield tinted in the hopes that a less than perfectly clear view would help aid him in putting me further back. All of my plans failed as Sri repeated to me "aap second aa jao" (you should come in second). It's not that I don't want to drive in the second lead spot with Sri. For any adrenaline junkie, this is exactly where you want to be - in the hot seat, right behind our very own "Maverick". Except, on a rollercoaster, you're just a passenger. Here, you need to scale up and match his movements. And that's where the real fear and thrill is. We went in to Area 53 hunting for close encounters of the third kind, but I went into it, chasing a UFO that itself darted from corner to corner in pitch darkness like it was powered by something extraterrestrial. In one of the stops, @Vaibhavand @Waqas Parvezasked me what it felt like up front. I replied, "like a rollercoaster". Because, that's exactly what it was. And I'm never going to ask for any other seat. From the second turn, he was riding ridges climbing up the pyramids. And I just tried to hold on and like the Top Gun exercises, did my best to just keep him in my sights. If it meant pushing with complete abandon, I did just that. And boy, what a thrill it was. To everybody else in the back, I can only imagine what keeping up in the short undulating, always ascending dunes of Area 53 would feel like. It's a constant thrill ride that tested every driver out there. Thank you @Ashok chaturvedi for ensuring we left nobody behind. And we were fortunate to have @GauravSoni in the middle driving new FB+ drivers through to stay connected to the chain. I do want to commend @AlexMfor his impeccable line in keeping up. As I tried my level hardest to not lose sight of Sri, he was always there, just a few paces behind me. And in some moments when he saw me struggling over ridges and in soft patches, he course corrected beautifully. I wish I had more to say about the rest of the convoy. I have some vivid memories from seeing the chain of lights snaking up and down the pyramids. And boy, was it a sight to behold. See you all out on the sands again soon. This time too, in pitch darkness. But this time for a more intense cardio training program. Not of our legs, but of the horses powering us on. [ 🐵 ]

Congrats @Jaro Tuzinsky. Well done and enjoy the new level.

Congrats @Jad Moussalliwell done. Enjoy the new level.

Thanks @ShereenMK , was a really nice drive, and I was privileged with another great convoy! And the jeep is really the one doing all the work, I'm just pushing the gas pedal 😂

Well done @Jaro Tuzinsky, congratulations on the promotion.

Well done @Gerrit Bus, congratulations on the promotion.

Congratulations @Jaro Tuzinsky on the promotion

Thanks a lot.

Congratulations @Gerrit Bus, enjoy the new level 🎊🎊🎊

@Rob S @Srikumar Appreciate Rob your comments, it was an honor for me to be the sweep that night and great experience. I am amazed how Sri sir handled it and twice could locate us, proves beyond a doubt that our marshals and senior leads are true experts. Incidentally, I am looking for a night vision device but how do I see over the dunes...

Well done @Jad Moussalli! Things get interesting here

Congratulations @Brett Eicher! Enjoy the new level

@Shaaz Sha thanks for the drive and for stepping in when @M.Seidam had to drop out of the lead (hope you are feeling better Doc?) Was an interesting drive with some unusual events though were all dealt with professionally and in good humour as one team. @Looper great work as sweep and well done @Ranjan Das as 2nd lead. I wont mention everyone as dont want to get in trouble for missing a Pajero or something! 🤣 Good effort everyone and see you all in the sand soon. Ps @Shaaz Sha can you fit in an Abu Dhabi drive this Sunday before your vacation?

Quite an adventure, with guys getting lost in the dark night in the high dunes, but towards the 2nd half of the drive everyone got the hang of it and kept close to one another and unrelenting pace with @Srikumar's crazy night shenanigans a night to remember for all. Thank you @munkybizness for your excellent 2nd lead and @Ashok chaturvedi for your duties at the back as sweep. I & @GauravSoni did notice a UFO later that night 😜. The UFO was quite bright and looked like a bright bird of prey and it faded away as it left the earth towards the alpha quadrant. Later a moon appeared in its place shrouded in clouds.

Great drive @Shaaz Sha, lots of learning on as you mentioned and thats the beauty of any sports. It was wonderful to be amongst such experienced driver especially @Looper our sweep, @Ranjan Das,@Ashok chaturvedi & @Thomas Varghese. @Thomas Varghese always nice to listen to you and read your report. But you didnt mention me. Just because the Prado had a relatively uneventful drive doesnt mean u ignore altogether 😂 @Tom B was a pleasure following u, u were brilliant and remained calm in a tricky situation. Its imp u reflect on what went wrong but get the event out of your system and not let it affect your driving next time. Hope to see u soon. @Mohamad Anwer i hope the Mrs is well now, wish her a speedy recovery. To the rest of the gang, was great meeting you all. Hope to catch up with you next time.

Don't be annoyed @Tom B. You provided us with an opportunity to practice what @Gaurav taught us and pass on to new drivers the skills needed very much. Situations like this happen when you do an extreme sport like desert driving. It could have been anyone in the convoy including me in that situation. The most important thing in these situations is give up all your intuitions on what to do. 1st thing 1st is immediately shut off the engine and wait for instructions from the team lead and others in the convoy without panicking. You did great in all the 3 areas. By the grace of God we tackled the situation with ease and you and your car came down unharmed and we continued our drive.