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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.

Thanks a lot. Look forward to flying together again in FB+ 😁.

Great work @Gerrit Bus! From the launches 🚀 (*ahem good momentum) I observed when following you, you’ll definitely enjoy the new level😃

Much appreciated 😁 Thanks

@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!

@Gaurav I'll be doing the morning drive with Brette and then the evening drive with you, I have kept it on waitlist till Thursday and if the drive is not full I will join in. But definitely count me in. Thank.

Dr @Chaitanya D Please share the meeting point when you can. Purely for planning purposes to see if I am able to join.

Thank you

Congratulations @Gerrit Bus

Congrats @Brett Eicher

Great job @Jaro Tuzinsky!

Congrats @Gerrit Bus

Congrats @Jad Moussalli, well deserved!!

Thanks a lot.

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

Congratulations @Jad Moussalli on your new level. Well Done.

@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!

Bravo Gerrit, promotion well deserved. You will enjoy the next level !

Well done @Gerrit Bus, congratulations on the promotion.

Congratulation @Jaro Tuzinsky!!! All the best buddy!

Congratulations @Jaro Tuzinsky on the promotion

Congratulations @Brett Eicher 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...

@Gaurav thanks a lot for the promotion, appreciated. Looking forward to many more drives and learning even more with all the capable and experienced leaders I have come to know. Very glad to be a Carnity member. 😊👍🛻 Thank you.

Well done @Jad Moussalli! Things get interesting here

Congratulations @Brett Eicher! Enjoy the new level

Congratulations @Gerrit Bus! Enjoy the new pace and level

Really sorry @ASAD.. As @Looper mentioned I was looking at the convoy list too to thank everyone. Thanks for helping me out with the pop out. By the way you had such an uneventful drive. Never heard you on the radio seeking assistance. Well done buddy.

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.