Leaderboard

Thank you @M.Seidam for an incredible drive and for instilling confidence in all of us throughout the journey (always been a fan of your briefs). It was a delight to reconnect with old friends and forge new friendships during this exciting trip. I must commend @Benjamin for his capabilities as the second lead, and my long-time companion @DP1011 for providing flawless support throughout the expedition, great to see you again . Thank you all for the teamwork @Pavel Pashkovskiy @Marketa Dobesova @Hugo @Sunil Mathew @Gerrit Bus @Anoop Nair. I want to emphasize an important point for all of us: regardless of our level of experience, it is crucial to keep the fundamentals in mind to ensure the safety of everyone during our drives. Stay focused and think about the entire team, including your own vehicle, the one ahead of you, and the one behind you. Clear communication plays a vital role in this, as we climb the ladder of experience and embark on faster-paced drives. It becomes even more imperative to work together and prioritize the safety and security of everyone involved. See you all soon.

Thanks @Looper for splitting the convoy and allowing me to lead the second convoy today, it was a great route we picked with a lot of different terrain. The Faqa Express passed by with ease as we were shoveling a crested team member. Well @Simon D and @Pacific were actually doing the shoveling :):) i was supervising from the comfort of my leather arm chair with AC on full blast the terrain that the convoy went through today was some of the trickiest I have seen for a while and powdery soft in places making it more difficult, @Pacific @Ignacio Quindós @Stumpy Paj @Yaseen87 @Simon D @Mark B &@Tareq Al Turq each and every one of you managed it with style and Panish, a very well done to all. @Ignacio Quindós what can I say, just wow and thank you, fantastic second lead, great distance enabling you to maneuver left or right as soon as I told you to, fit made the drive a lot smoother and safer fantastic support thank you. @Simon D excellent as always in the CF Role your calm instructions assisted to get the few refusals and stucks we had turned around safely and quickly well done and thankyou. @Pacific superb support in the SW position helping out Simon where needed in your usual calm and patient manner. Well done to all and thanks you for making my Sunday one to remember. some stats for those that enjoy knowing where we went

Today my camera was with @GauravSoni, and he took this masterpiece. This somehow depicts the chill-ness of the drive as well.

Hi @Davie Chase, it was the missing link in the journey with you that I a will be part of your first drive as a Marshall! It was a nice workout this weekend and when I look at the drive pics it seems that enjoying scenic view was @Loopers convoy and we were the shovel part of the title. Thank you @DP1011 was a pleasure as always to ride with you! I wish you all a nice recovery I hope you are not too sore and a great start into the week! Regards, Felix

Butterfly effect: In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. In my opinion above is the prevailing factor for everything that happens during a drive. Perhaps the first turn that I took into the dunes determined what happened in the rest of the drive. In that sense we as off-roaders should always be open to every eventual outcome that might occur during the drive and it is true for every single time for everyone without any exceptions. It was a full house and it was fantastic drive today. Everyone kept on with the pace with what I was trying to do throughout the drive and hopefully got the adrenaline rush that they desire. For me it is still the dopamine that was needed and I got a healthy boost out of the drive. @Mahmoud Taha you were excellent for a 2nd lead - you kept your distance and kept an eye on me and always made minor adjustments wherever necessary. @Benjamin while I did not specifically mentioned in the convoy order - you were in fact the centre forward for the drive. Without your help we would have taken a lot more time in the business of fixing things. @DP1011 it is always a fun experience with you in the drive. I appreciate the insight you bring to every drive and hope to see you next time. @Jessica Lambert thanks to your couple of pop-outs we three of us became a lot more confident in fixing pop-outs and it was an valuable experience and thanks for affording this opportunity. Just remember the Butterfly effect, there is not escape from it and there could not be any different outcome from the moment we started. We all passthrough these situations and it is part of the sport we indulge in. @Patrick van der Loo, @Bjoern, @Gary F & @Gurcharan Mehta you guys were excellent and did a great job in keeping up with the pace of entire drive, in both fast parts as well as the slow parts. See you all in the next instalment of Looper's loops. Some stats and pics: PS: I don't trust these stats. They are just indicative. e.g. we all definitely did more than 56kmph. this is just an indicative metrics just to see and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Tequila!

Thank you @Looper for organizing this drive and @Davie Chase for your fantastic lead. It was an amazing learning experience, specially on the technical dunes. I’m sure you are exhausted after this drive today. There were areas with very little margin for error, and yet you managed to find a way out. So congratulations on your new role. Hope to drive with you again very soon. @Simon D and @Pacific thanks for your support throughout the drive. It’s very nice knowing that no matter what happens, you’ll find a solution. Guys it was really nice driving with you today, and I hope to see you all again soon! Davie in action. Rest of the pictures in the gallery. Cheers!

Was a great drive today! Lots of variety which is always great, @Davie Chase great lead especially two days in a row! looking forward to the next one

thank you @Davie Chase. you are a great marshal! always enjoy driving with you. how are you guys posting pics to the gallery? for me it says error 200 and doesn't allow to upload anything

Thank you @Looperfor a great morning out. Very excited to see you leading drives and I look forward to many more! Very impressive driving by the big boys in these tight dunes as well!

Thanks @Davie Chasefor selecting this scenic route and making sure we all got our workout goals sorted for the week! Jokes apart we all had a great time with lot of small events along the way to keep things interesting. Great support from @DP1011 and @Felix Obst whenever one of us required guidance on a refusal or more direct help on stucks - you guys were a huge help to the rest of us. I had a hard time believing Davie was leading his first convoy - he was super confident, calm and efficient in getting us from start to finish. Many thanks to all the other team members especially @Ishakon second lead and thanks all for the lovely pictures!! See you all soon on the sands.

One of your great simulations @M.Seidam 😄

Thank you @Davie Chasefor a beautiful scenic safari drive 🤩! Thank you @DP1011and @Felix Obstfor your support during the trip, we always feel so safe driving with you with my 🌻🥰. Thank you everyone for a beautiful Saturday morning ☀️

Thank you @Amr Aydin for your kind words and valuable feedback on the emphasis on the fundamentals in off-roading which I absolutely agree especially in fast drives like Fb+ and IM , for this reason I always stress on these in the briefs and even more firm on it for higher faster drives .

@Looper what a fantastic drive! I’m really glad I didn’t miss out on this one! Thanks for the opportunity to take on CF for the first time! It was a valued experience for me even with some of my minor refusals today Like most drives I like to take as much away from these experiences to help benefit myself and others in being as safe as possible in the desert. This time around I got the opportunity and more-so experience on fixing pop-outs which is always something that should be practiced as often as possible @Jessica Lambert I’m sorry you had to be exited early still though you helped me get the experience I needed to understand the technique of fixing these pop-outs; I hope to see you in the next one! @DP1011 another great drive to tick off! As usual you performed amazing in the back! I hope to join you soon in support crew @Patrick van der Loo it was great seeing you again I hope to see you soon in some higher level drives @Bjoern always great to see a familiar face! You always have great control of your jeep. Hope to see you soon! @Gurcharan Mehta & @Gary F great drive! Performed amazing

@Stan not sure on the Error mate maybe @Frederic or @Gaurav can assist, I did it from my phone but two came out black although I did not get an error message hope you get it sorted and thank you for the kind words of support

It was a promised! It was scenic and there was some shoveling was involved! Thanks Gautham @Looper for a great drive! @Davie Chase for putting the plan together. I enjoyed the morning with the full convoy. See you soon on the sand!

It was a unique experience to drive in this terrain. I did not know what to expect - it was all new for me and was I not in for a surprise! I wouldn't exaggerate when I tend to describe my feelings but the terrain was super soft… often as soft as talcum powder. I found myself going ahead on top of a dune just to face a refusal. It was a nice challenge to navigate those dunes, and 2 of 3 refusals that I faced were that needed a bit of shovelling and of the last one a small tug. Scenic seemingly a codeword for full of bushes on the entire track, I did love the challenge!!! To back it up I had a fantastic convoy to boot. @Gertjan you were fantastic as second lead. knowing that it was my lead without a marshal behind me to auto correct any mistakes - you took care of the convoy with ease - also thanks for all the shovelling you did through out the drive. @Nadeem Ansari you drove quite well for the beast and had a smooth drive you performed quite well with your beast. @Mohit Gurnani you have driven with me few times till today while I was doing partial leads and I see you improving in every drive. You handled the terrain better than I can ever imagine. @Zubair first time driving with you, and man I couldn't even say you had any issues what so ever, excellent drive for you. @Senthil Kumar I knew I can trust on you for the Center Forward and you did what you had to do. @Glenn W you drive an unique car and I am glad to have you with me. It was nice to drive with you back to back from last week and hope to see you more. @Andrei S it was a smooth drive for you and glad to have you in the convoy. @Jaro Tuzinsky Thank you very much for the sweep and making sure we all move as an unit. I am grateful to @Davie Chase for selecting this location and doing all the legwork related to planning the track as well as convoy order. I just had to show and start driving. I had a fabulous convoy to lead and @GauravSoni at the far end a surprise addition was cherry on the cake. As per @Davie Chase's prediction we reached the first stop at the Watch Tower at about 8 am and from there moved towards the exit. It was hot by 9 am and touching 42 degrees C - it was hot as hell. Climate change fellas!! its El Niño time. We exited right about this time i.e. 9 am - a short duration to drive by any standards but still enjoyable and did everything what was needed to be done in this drive. some stats for the nerds!

Hi @Stan, you need to reduce the immage size. I use Picasa Photo Editor (long retired - still works fine) to reduce the size and upload. If you upload photo's to google photo with storage saver option and then download it should also give a reduced size picture. There are more tools available. Happy snapping!

Thank you, @M.Seidam for the opportunity to join you even for a half of your beautiful journey 🙌🙏 It was a pleasure to drive with you again ☺️ Thank you @DP1011 for your support and pics ☺️🙏 Thank you @Pavel Pashkovskiyfor a nice coffee break 🙏 Thank you @Benjaminfor the professional second lead 🙌 And thank you all for a nicely spent Friday afternoon 🌻☺️

@Ishak @DP1011 @Davie Chase @Felix Obst @Joseph Sebastian@Marketa Dobesova got some pictures for you.

Fellow desert wanders @Felix Obst @Andrei S @Frans M @Joseph Sebastian @Glenn W @Ishak @Mohit Gurnani @Zubair @Nadeem Ansari @Gertjan @Jaro Tuzinsky @Marketa Dobesova @Stan @Senthil Kumar @DP1011 @Looper @GauravSoni firstly thank you all for showing up on time it was great to see you all bright and early this morning. @Looper really appreciate you volunteering to take half the convoy thus allowing us to accommodate all the waitlisted folks this week. Secondly a big congratulations on your first independent lead and I look forward to more adventures tomorrow my friend. A big thank you to @GauravSoni for attending and supporting the second convoy as always, a pleasure to have you along for the ride. Our drive today (Convoy 1) had a little bit of everything, from Vegetation to Virgin sand, soft sand, hard sand, Camels, donkeys and Cows, a couple of refusals that were brilliantly self-recovered, as well as a couple of Stucks and of course a pop out. A big thank you to my second lead @Ishak you did an amazing job holding where necessary and then following instruction to move the convoy out of harms way left or right, and even re-routing at one point. Well done and appreciated the support. Thanks to @DP1011 as always a pleasure to have you along in support buddy. you were just simply amazing, you handle the refusals with calm tone and a knowledgeable approach that allowed most to be self-recovered. well done! @Felix Obst great job at sweep my friend you kept me well informed and more importantly kept the convoy together at the back. Also assisting with the recoveries, great job on the tug for @Ishak it was perfect. @Felix Obst @Frans M @Joseph Sebastian @Ishak @Marketa Dobesova @DP1011 @Stan without exception drove fantastically. you guys are amazing, I enjoyed the banter on the subkha, the teamwork with the shovels, and the patience as we worked through the last stuck and pop off. I hope you all enjoyed the drive today as much as I did. Thank you all. Have a great rest of your weekend Some stats for you from our drive for convoy 1