Leaderboard

Hej guys, it was a fantastic drive in a such beautiful area. @Frederic thank you very much for your safe leading of our convoy and everyone drove amazingly. @Jona and @Zed thank you for you support. Definitely well done @Looper to organise the second convoy to accommodate all of us. @DP1011 it was so kind of you your hospitality. Again, i will be ready tomorrow at 7pm:)

As we reached our meeting point, some of us found ourselves engaging in a mini self-recovery due to the soft terrain. Prior to our combined convoy briefing, I was reminded that Convoy One comprised all the Mitsubishi Pajeros on the expedition. It was then that I playfully brought up the selection process for the convoys, which involved grouping vehicles based on the number of drives and assigning them to Convoy 1 and 2 sequentially. The remarkable history of Mitsubishi Pajero, now known as the Montero, was not lost to me. These vehicles boast an illustrious rally sport heritage and are considered among the finest machines ever crafted. Although they may not be as forgiving in desert conditions as some other vehicles, when guided by a skilled driver, they can match any car stride for stride. While Convoy Two appeared to have a relatively smoother journey, Convoy One encountered the full wrath of the challenging terrain. Initially, I worried that I might have exaggerated the ruggedness of the area, but it soon became clear that the terrain lived up to its formidable reputation. It wasn't exceptionally soft, but it was undeniably technical. We experienced a couple of tire popouts and had nasty refusals in soft sand, necessitating the use of ropes to help pull the vehicles even before we had crossed the 4 km mark. However, as the journey continued, the convoy's performance improved significantly. I took the opportunity to explain the best approaches for handling this demanding terrain, and I noticed a significant difference in our drive once we resumed after overcoming the initial obstacles. Although I refrained from vocalizing it at the time (as I believe in avoiding jinxing things by speaking too soon), I found myself driving at a higher speed through even more challenging terrain than we encountered at the beginning of the drive. To my delight, the convoy exceeded my expectations, and we encountered no further issues in this area. I have highlighted the area in the screenshot above which is a must do area in my opinion. I looped back in the highlighted area one more time before we left. I plan to do it again in the near future. As we left this area, we encountered one of the densest and bushiest deserts imaginable. Hardly should it be called a desert even. I was practically scraping the dunes' base to locate enough sand to continue driving. At this point, my focus was to complete the drive as our scheduled time had arrived. Towards the end I discovered some nice spots where we could do side-sloping on long ridges. We took advantage of this, but just a few hundred feet from the exit, we faced another pop out. Convoy Two also exited at the same end location where Convoy One had completed the drive. @Bravoecho you were excellent second lead to me and perhaps had the most amount of driving done in the convoy apart from me, keeping up with me in all the areas without any issues. @Srilakshman Karthikeyan you too had a good drive. I will recommend that you start to notice what the desert sands are telling you on how to drive on them. The soft sands require that you either drive with very gentle gas or full force of acceleration. You should now focus on the same and understand how to respond to soft sands of the deserts. @Abhilash Kottakkal couple of advises for you. One - do not fret over anything that happened today. All the refusals and popouts are part of the driving experience. You need to focus on how to reduce them - in doing so try to get some reliable pressure measuring device because you told me that you were at 10-12 psi when I checked you were actually at 8 psi. Next try to be gentler with steering. Desert does not like anything abrupt and it will cause issues. You will not only lose control over your car, but you can find yourself in some nasty situations. My second piece of advice is that whenever you change something in your vehicle, start low and gradually go up the levels - without over doing it. @Emanuel you were remarkable with your driving today. @Stumpy Paj thanks for all the help with the popouts and refusals. It was great to have you on the drive as usual. @Mahmoud Taha you definitely had the most driving done today and had some nice skill presentation when the rest of us had our break. That refusal on the crest and self-recovery was quite an impressive showcase of your driving prowess. BTW we would have left you there on the top of the dune to fend for yourself, should you not self-recover yourself. @Benjamin thank you very much for the assistance with managing the convoy and the effort you always put into every drive you join. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank @Kailas & @DP1011 for joining and taking up the second convoy.

Great newbie drive today. We started deflating before the sun rise and started out after the first timers briefing. Lots of large flowing dunes to start with as the sun rose making for some spectacular scenery. As the day heated up we all got a chance to practice some digging and recovery work 💪💪 @Riyal Shareefgreat first drive. A couple of unexpected flying events but you keep going and delivered a strong drive! @Aser great work doing the second lead keeping us out of trouble, @Karthik_LC200 thanks for your sweeping and recovery guidance. @Asif Hussaingreat to do a drive in Abu Dhabi. Thanks for leading and looking forward to some more as the weather cools. Will drop some photos in the gallery tonight! Cheers https://carnity.com/gallery/category/1820-newbie-al-khatim-abu-dhabi-10-sep-2023/

PS: the black line in the prior post was my over ambitious drive plan. Except for the first part, the rest was a colossal waste of planning resources. I fondly remember when every second drive i used to do was in this area, but it changed drastically since 3 years back when i started to drive here. There is no more desert left in qudra except for the first part where we drove today.

Hey Luke thanks to @Asif Hussain and all of your support it was tremendous start for me, for sure lot to learn, as this was my first ever 4x4 drive as well as desert drive got so much confident after the drive. Will catch up on the next one c ya

10 minutes of morning drive speed up into about 90 second 😎

One amazing drive to start the weekend in a wonderful vibe!!! 🤩

Thanks @Looper for the drive. And my pleasure to everyone I met.

Thanks @Looper always a pleasure sharing the dunes with you and thanks for giving me the chance of Second Lead. Very different perspective from being further back and seeing the constant course corrections you need to make as Lead.

Here we go! Thanks to @Kailas for helping with the waitlisted members so that we could accommodate all who could come. Convoy 1 : Channel 4 @Bravoecho, @Srilakshman Karthikeyan, @Abhilash Kottakkal, @Emanuel, @Stumpy Paj, @Mahmoud Taha, @Benjamin Convoy 2: Channel 2 @Zulfikhar Naiyar, @Johannes Roux, @Haneef Thayyil, @Arda Yagcioglu, @Deepak Eswar, @Rk ram, @DP1011

Radiator changed, actually a very simple job, hardest point was removing and reinstalling the bash plate. Surprised it only dropped about 100mm out of the transmission cooler part, topped up the same amount so hopefully it’s good to go (transmission fluid is pretty old so that will be the next job) will test it out tomorrow on @Loopersrive 😳