Leaderboard

Great drive @Srikumar, sorry it had to be cut short but hopefully you will have your car sorted for our next dose soon @Waqas Parvez you did amazingly well as 2nd lead, keeping up with Sri is no small feat @munkybizness great show of your skills all round, no wonder you have have been inducted in the support team and bet wont be long before you start leading as well @Matt.T & @Ranjan Das thanks for helping me out with the refusals and finding the way back when i took the wrong turn @Vaibhav @Zed @Mus_hus78 great driving guys, hope to catch you all again soon.

If the pre-drive hype was anything to go by, the drive itself very much lived-up to the expectations and more! Heady pace, fluid movements plus strong convoy was the perfect cocktail we all were looking forward to and thanks to @Srikumar, all of us got a good taste....and am very hopeful that Sri is going to plan a second serving very soon and I'm already looking forward to it. Thank you @Srikumar for the wonderful evening. @Waqas Parvez was perfect to the t as second lead and Mayank @munkybizness, our freshly minted support, demonstrated what a perfect support looks like. thank you guys. @Matt.T, @Vaibhav, @Zed, @ASAD. and @Mus_hus78 it was a pleasure meeting and driving with you gentlemen. Wish you all a wonderful week ahead

@Srikumar Thank you for the amazing drive. Pace and Switches were at a another level. We had an a strong convoy with SL @Waqas Parvez who did an amazing job by informing about the terrain . @Zeddriving his monster and being right behind my back. @munkybiznessbeing the Star of the night with an amazing support and being gentle on tugging you that almost went to sleep. @Mus_hus78 driving his pajero beautifully . @ASAD.having sand shower with just a small refusal @Matt.T and @Ranjan Das flawless driving at the back and supporting.

Thank you everyone for joining the preview of a Sweihan Night Adventures. With the superb convoy that we had, the drive was poised to be an EPIC but unfortunately my granny had other plans. I really appreciate the patience showed by everyone and a big shout out to Mayank, for an excellent recovery. I am planning a revisit of the Sweihan Night Adventures in the weekend after Eid, and I look forward to your participation to complete what we had started. Till then, take care..

@Srikumar thanks for an exciting drive on Saturday night, was great fun and tested my reactions and skills. Shame about your breakdown and I hope it gets sorted pretty quickly and cheaply. Good spirit on the drive from everyone with no real dramas. @Waqas Parvez good effort as 2nd Lead and @Ranjan Das tidily mopping up at the back. Easy tow out by @munkybizness finished off the night in fine style. See you all in the sand next time guys.

Dear Sand Sailors Thanks a lot for joining in for the drive this morning. Got back home with all gears untouched, almost full battery on radio and a smile on face - couldn't have asked for a better convoy to sail through the challenges weather and lovely dunes at Lissali threw at us. We covered around 55Km at a good average moving speed of 24kmph - which speaks volume about how well each of you handled the challenges (and special credit to new FBs). Very well done!! Thanks to @M.Seidam for all the support and guidance and especially for couple of lovely sessions on self recovery. Thanks to @Ashok chaturvedi - undoubtedly the most reliable SL and also for volunteering to get stuck on the ridge 😂 so that we can learn the power of shovel... Believe it's first time over several drives that i have seen Ashok getting stuck, but then that's the beauty of surprises that nature has to offer. Thanks @RiaanJH for handling the responsibility as sweep nicely, well done 👍 - and that demo on criss crossing was just perfect. Thanks @Tom BB for being our pillar of strength and reliability at centre of convoy. You ensured that all refusals were smoothly handled without any major challenges. @Stan Hassett and @Zulfikhar Naiyar it was never going to be easy being the least experienced FBs in this convoy full of experienced drivers, however you both handled it very well with only some minor stucks and refusals. Also we had a chance to experience the importance of right deflation - especially with sand getting super soft in summer. You both handled your rides well and looking forward to drive with you both at higher levels soon. @KAMALIO and @Senthil Kumar we have driven togather many times and glad to see you both grow in confidence and skillset. You have the perfect rides for the sand and you handle them well. @Sam K another perfect drive for you - you are really getting great at ridge riding. Hope your daughter enjoyed the drive. @takeshi sobue brilliant drive today - was good to see control taking over from speed 👍😊 Looking forward to drive with you all sometime soon. Till then have an awesome time and for those planning vacation, have fun. Cheers

Congratulations @varunmehndiratta for reaching the Expert Level with Carnity Offroad Club. Looking forward to seeing you growing further and helping others to learn the art of offroading in a safe environment. Please make sure your Carnity user profile is always updated with all the latest Emergency contact details. EXPERT - Carnity Exclusivity The expert level will offer you continuous improvement in your overall development by alternating between the lead and supporting the drive every week. This way, you will still learn and advance your knowledge by supporting other trip leads in different terrain to understand the complexity and challenges involved and practicing independent lead and convoy management. Carnity Benefits Full access to Carnity without any paid subscription. Join any drive in the “Manage” tab. Carnity Contribution Committed to driving with Carnity off-road club only. Lead a minimum of 6 weekend drives per quarter (3 months). Forum contribution to earn Carnity points. What you'll learn Navigating with or without GPS on the fly. Trip planning, safety exits, and recce skills. Response to vehicle breakdown and accidents. Skills required A resilient, calculative, and rational thinker. Self-reliance, positive attitude, and forward-thinking. Kind, selfless, and considerate of others’ concerns. Car Worthiness Capable 4x4 vehicle with a low range gearing. Suitable approach and departure angle. High profile tires. Off-road gear required Safety flag, tire deflator, tire pressure gauge, shovel, fire extinguisher, medical kit, radio (walkie-talkie), air compressor, tool kit, rated recovery rope and 2 rated shackles, GPS, Floor jack and jack board, tire repair kit, toolbox, tie-down straps, fluids. Drive teamwork Lead Fewbie, Fewbie Plus, Intermediate, or Extreme drives. Inspect the vehicle for safety before the off-road drive. Support all other level drives, proactively. Drive Joining All Levels. Forum participation Active participation in the forum. Share drive experience + feedback. Share drive pictures in the gallery. Post trip report after the drive.

@varunmehndiratta @M.Seidam and all fellow drivers. Thanks everyone for helping recover from a crest 'stuck'. There is a famous japanese saying "saru mo ki kara ochiru" which means "Even monkey fall from trees". My ego got a bit beaten to be crested on a short dune.. No excuse given the nearest I may say that I tried to fool around with my gears 4 High and 4D..did well upto the point. A Lesson well learnt. Also a lovely sight to see two 3-5 years kids climbing up to join the recovery though were kept at a distance... Anyway despite the heat and loose sand the drive was meticulously run by our lead Varun. I always enjoy watching him giving a crash course in Dune management using a toy car (Carnity must be loosing some masterclass oppertunity.. just kidding) but by the same token you having better informed drive members.

Thank you @Gaurav for promoting me to the next level. I will adhere to your request. I do get excited on the drives and will try to stay calm and focused. @Brette Thank you for the valuable inputs during and after drives, I've learnt a lot from you in this short span. I'm not the best of followers but your guidance and calm nature has got me this promotion. Thank you. P.S (Yes, I will follow the car ahead and will not deviate much from it's path.) @Vanessa8580 Thank you for encouraging me to apply for the Fewbie Level. 😈 Yes, now I can come with you on your drives. @Carnity thank you for the opportunity, to meet new faces and leads to learn and develop in this sport which we all love. Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

Sri no race for the fastest internet speed this time pls, we need to get priority 🙏🏻😅

Congratulations @varunmehndiratta enjoy and spread your wings now on the Carnity’s way 👍. Your last lead was fantastic

Thank you all for joining the drive. It was an eventful drive. We crossed the 1st part of crisscrossing without any issues and covered around 25kms in less than an hour. Just when we thought no stucks and refusals, the cusre of little sweihan was ahead of us. In the next hour we covered less than 5 kms. The sand was supersoft, we ended up having so many refusals and stucks. It was so much fun to self recover and find a way around soft sand. After a long hour of refusals we got out of the little sweihan area and took a long break. Then we had a fast paced night drive while headed to Faqa area where we ended the drive. Great teamwork where almost every one got a chance to recover or support. Enjoyed every bit of the drive.

Doc @Chaitanya D - thank you for your vote of confidence, and for consistently giving me opportunities to step up and then guiding me through them to learn. It has been these moments that have instilled the confidence in me. Thank you for seeing and nurturing it 🙏

It was my first ever drive in Faqaa and also with @JeromeFJ as the lead. Perfect combo and the ridge riding was ultimate. Thank you everyone for an amazing experience, look forward to returning there very soon.

This drive is organized in full compliance with the COVID19 guidelines. We expect every member that joins this drive to go through below information and and strictly follow these guidelines. MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: COVID19 Precautions Ban from Carnity Off-road Club Two Way Radio Guidelines Drive Details Level: Fewbie Plus and Above When: 08 July 2022 Friday Meeting time: 5:15 AM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: https://goo.gl/maps/vTrkgA6vTqRBHFYP8 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), face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Approximate finish time: 9:15 AM PS: COMPRESSOR ONLY DRIVE. LIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE: Limited to 10 cars only. RSVP will close on Thursday - 2:00pm If the RSVP is full and you wish to join, please mention your name on the drive thread to add on the waiting list. Latecomers will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Members without RSVP will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Please withdraw your RSVP, if you aren't joining, so your spot can be taken by others. Repeated no-show members after RSVP will have their account suspended for a month. Please RSVP on the Calendar below

Congratulations @varunmehndiratta .. well done my friend

Congratulations @Sunny84.. 👏👏

Congratulations @Sunny84 on the promotion

Congrats @varunmehndiratta. Looking forward to drive with you sometime.

While good marshals scale our skills, having the right company that you can look at directly in front of you gives you so much more to glean off of. And sharing convoys in my Newbie & Fewbie drives with you around meant that I had some of the best examples to emulate. Now, the sticker says it too. Congratulations @varunmehndiratta and I look forward to joining more convoys (in your lead) soon. P.S. We're also yet to blast loud Punjabi chunes on the airwaves

I thought I’d start a new topic regarding general advice with the Ram. Predominately I am concerned with progressing into Fewbie (and maybe even beyond) territory with the vehicle ‘as is’. It’s taken a beating in newbie level drives and even though I am officially now a fewbie I am fearful of risking it just yet. So, I just wanted to highlight the pitfalls of this car for other owners or potential owners. - the front bumper is super low, which makes approach/departure angle awful. The stock ‘bash plate’ has taken a beating and I’ve been quoted around 8k to get something decent put on there. It requires a whole front bumper change - the electronic transmission sucks! Coming out of 4L when trans temp is high is impossible. After any tug the 4wd system gets temporarily disabled - there is no ability to disable side airbags. The fuse for them is connected to the ECM. Removing it would disable the whole car - the break over angle is awful due to the long wheelbase. Prepare to crest many many times That being said, it’s so fun smashing round the desert in a big V8! It’s very capable in deep soft sand, rarely gets bogged down, and of course it’s weight and inertia helps to get through some very tricky spots. If any seniors have advice on dealing with these issues mentioned above I’d appreciate it, but I don’t think the car ‘as stock’ would be able to handle a fewbie drive.

Not advisable. This seems like another local market myth from lazy mechanics. I recently switched to waterwetter and spoke to Redline experts in US about the same and they advise that a thermostat is needed in all cars. It helps not only to raise the initial temp but also thermo puts the pressure inside the water jacket that raises temp slowly as opposed to free-flow water. My second argument also put to rest why race cars don't use thermostats then? He answered that the racecar engine has another system to control the coolant flow (it reacts faster than the thermostat) but still, it restricts the water jacket side to put more pressure to raise the boiling point for delivering efficient cooling.

Thank you Jerome, no need, I got it already 😊 from Karthik with the kind help of Mark

My testimony on this: Cause: My fan clutch was dying few weeks back so I replaced with a new one and topped the silicone up. Observation: The fan is much louder than before and ofc no more overheating now in the peak summer 😃😃😃, finally feeling what's like to be a Toyota owner but still flooring the mighty VQ40DE engine. The downside: is obviously a bit lose of power, (feel more like an additional ac compressor is working), fuel economy not sure because Pathfinder is no longer my daily. But it is nothing compare to solving the overheating issue permanently. Experiment on extreme condition: Did IM with Ale few days back climbing dunes in Badayer in the afternoon, with ambient temperature of 47c at the start, no obvious overheating issue except the coolant temperature reached 100c at the first climb, the rest of drive was cool and temperature never reached beyond 95c including climbing extremely softened iftar super bowls, and few minutes of 4low maneuver on a slope with no wind. And I don't think any drive can be more extreme than this drive. Additional benefits for Pathfinder is that the gearbox will not disable locking in low gears as the gearbox is cooler too.

@JeromeFJ would you have the Gaia gps route for yesterday's drive. Can you kindly WhatsApp to me 🙏 🙏

@Frederic - You’ve been one of my most cherished mentors here. You opened me up to what matters most. And your clarity of purpose is so refreshing. It’s something I hope I can borrow from in the days to come. Doc @M.Seidam - thank you for your vote of confidence, and the continuous guidance so far. I’ve learnt so much about how to negotiate the tightest dunes in your lead. And I hope to continue to learn more, with each passing day. @Islam Soliman - I often say that if there’s one person who know how to keep their car perfectly middle of sharp slip face, it is you. Every time I see you on the slippery slopes of Little Sweihan, I am filled with complete awe. I hope to learn this exact skill from you. And of course, how to tame a LWB while I’m at. @JeromeFJ- I hope I can be half as selfless as you are. And if I achieve that, my role here will already be off to the right start. @Brette - I can’t wait to join more of your drives and see you calm resilience, and have it rub off on me. I’m truly looking forward to your notes on how I can better myself, for myself and the convoy. @Looper - Effortless. That’s what I want to learn from you. You just make it look so easy and composed. @Gregory - just running into you puts a smile on my face. You have this steadfast spirit that I look to temper some of the misplaced machismo that sometimes gets the better of me. So much to learn from you in the drives to come. @Ranjan Das - indeed, I’ve been pinching myself constantly @imranaasghar81 - Dude, you’re the quintessential excitable child that we all want to keep alive inside us. I love the way you drive with so much character and fun all doled in. And with you, we’re always off to the races @Gaurav Soni “bhai” (because I called him Sir on a recent drive 😛 ) - thank you for seeing the level I can scale to, before I did. I can’t wait to be on a drive with you soon. @Vaibhav- thanks buddy, @Ranjan Das will also be on the drive… #justsayin @Anoop Nair @Jose Thomas @Joji varghese @Mike. @Sunny84 @Mark D @Haitham Khattab @Waqas Parvez @Thomas Varghese @Jaro Tuzinsky @Salim Akhtar @Tom B @Sunil Mathew @Morshedi - y'all are the reason why I go in and out of each drive with a massive smile plastered on my face. In the way you each pilot your machines and make them do amazing things inspires me to learn so much from each of you. Sometimes, I see a better line, better throttle management, less fear, better ridge riding and exit, and so on an so forth... You are all the reason that I wake up at a godforsaken hour to share this activity with people that lift you up. For this, and the drives to come, thank you

We started off at around 0620 am from the lisaili camel tracks, getting into some technical areas for a short warm up run, reaching the wider dunes of lisaili, when @Ale Vallecchi decided to push the envelope and get the maximum out of our fewbies with some ridge riding and criss crossing. Thats when we had our events of the day...3 pop outs and 4 tugs !! I hope @Paolo Pellegrini, @Joseph Sebastian had very important take aways from the drive. its not about getting pop out or getting tugged, but its about whether we understand why it happened and to fine tune our driving in order to prevent it from happening next time. When getting on and off ridges, i wish to add some pointers which i learnt during my earlier drives , from the man @Ale Vallecchi himself !! 1. If you overshoot the ridge on your first chance , please exit down and do not attempt to fight gravity and climb back up, its not going to work. You can always loop back and try again or rejoin the convoy safely. 2. Our technique should be to angle your car to smoothly get on the ridge and ride "square" on the ridge for sometime and exit down. 3. When you exit down, drive into the slope, not slide into it. These are exactly the words Ale uses to coach us - i still hear these ringing in my ears - "wheels pointing down", "dont slide into it, steer into it" etc 4. Be careful, where you stop your car and at what angle you stop. With soft sand all around , you never know where you are going to sink when you start moving again. Try to stop on flat areas or at an angle so that gravity helps you to ease out of the sand. 5. Stopping on a ridge is a strict no-no. If the driver in front struggles or gets stuck, please exit down while you still can, so that we have one less recovery to attend to. I have made the same mistake myself during my earlier drives. 🙂🙂 @Gerrit Bus with his loooong gladiator, crested once to be pulled out by @TT_Dubai..i saw you flying off the dune on your second attempt...😄😄.. pls post the videos Good to see and drive with Tim, @TT_Dubai who remains a fewbie by choice --- we started our @Carnity journey almost at the same time ..i still remember your manual wrangler, the LC and now you have an FJ...looks like you are now settled with your choice 😉 😀 Pleasure meeting and driving with the others @Andrew McCarthy - great SL @Imran Kashif - great Driving and involvement in our pop out episodes with his jack and sound advices.. Just to hint that at Carnity, we dont jump the convoy order even if the car in front gets stuck or slows down, struggles etc. unless it is required from the safety point of view, temporarily. @Federico Galbieri driving very well behind me..at couple of crossings , i think i made it a bit difficult for you while trying to avoid churned sand and altering the tracks slighly, apologies @Gurcharan Mehta our second drive together..as usual , very well at ease with your modified LC As per my GAIA stats , we did almost 78km when we exited at Qudra, good for a fewbie drive!! And thanks to @Ale Vallecchifor the opportunities to perform recoveries and all guidances during the same. Hope our paths cross again on future drives!! See you all!!