Sunil Mathew

Hey @Bernard Kalaani....congrats...se you soon on one of the drives!!

Eager to see the full results, and how other teams faired in terms of total time, time at each way point etc...hope these will be published 

@Anish S, just noticed the change/difference in timings between drive post (2PM-5PM) and Calendar (5PM-9PM)

Could you clarify what would be the right timing?

Congrats @Ben84!!

Good Job @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil and congratulations on taking up higher challenges!! see you soon on drives!!

Congrats @varunmehndiratta!! See you soon on drives!

We knew this was coming...well done @JeromeFJ...see you soon!

 Hope it gets sorted out soon and Looking forward to the drive repost !!!

My first time in AD !!! 

and a bunch of Wrangler LWBs leading the pack!!    👍👍

Looking forward to meeting and driving with all !!

Congrats  @Gregory  !!..see you soon at your new level !!

Congrats @PaoloMaraziti...see you soon!!

Thank you @Islam Soliman, for the great drive, @JeromeFJ for the brilliant 2L and @Russ for the support !!!

With the pre-drive brief itself, Islam had set the tone for the drive, and it felt more like a warning  - "it will be demanding for you as well as your cars..!!! "

and with the days first refusal announced by me, i thought this was going to be a bad day   , but while playing with the 4H/4L selector, i learnt that i was driving in 2WD till that first refusal, so that was my car reminding me to get prepped...

Couldnt do the full height of iftar bowl and super bowl as its not great to keep hearing your bump stops maxing out , due to all the cross tracks, and i decided not to torture the car further  

Couple of places where short and steep climbs were required, bogged me down and at one instance had me slide down into a soft sand bowl, requiring some corrections and choosing the shortest exit line, guided by @Islam Soliman and @Russ 

Another refusal , had me take loops, reverse for longer approach etc, but once i struggled and crossed over, i realized that i was in D and not manual , which obviously resulted in upshifts to 2nd gear at the least prefered moments...so that was another cue from my car , reminding me to drive in tiptronic

Twas my 3rd IM drive, was a wonderful learning experience, getting to know the limits of driver and car, and returning home with lots of points to improve.

@Danish Mohammad @Chinthaka Ruwan @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil  @Ranjan Das @Humayun Ghias @Rawad , good to drive with all of you, see you next time!!

1 hour ago, Frederic said:

I use an old Iphone SE, togethe

I tried this, but the trouble i faced was the lack of rigidity of mount/holder. As phone mounts generally tend to have a bit of flexibility and most following a "canti lever" design, its never in sync with movement of the car and the video goes shaky....70 mai is stuck firmly onto the windshield..so it worked better in my case ..

Hello @Harshad Ashraf, I am also using the 70mai A500, with front and back cameras. This is probably at the lower end of the budget spectrum, approx 300 AED only

You wan watch a sample here

The camera records in 1080p, but i reduced to 720p to upload. 

Disadvantage is that it records videos of 3min durations only,, so you will have to stitch them together with a video editor.

Congrats @Mus_hus78, Mustafa...

Congrats @Abdul Rafay-S..well done and see you soon

Congrats @Daniel Yang...see you soon at your new level!

Excellent ,great drive with a mix of everything  - technical, long range, good pace.

Its been quite some time @Anish S since i joined one of your drives. I was a regular in all your mid week fewbie drives back in July, and it really was very good to be back in your territory of Lisaily. 

We were driving smoothly and just swooping and flowing through the small bowls, riding the ridges and crossing all the way and having fun.

Minor issues with @Anoop Nair's car  which resulted in the latter half of the convoy exploring a different track from what Anish took , @Charbel's passenger and the final side stuck from our Marshal recovered by a team shovelling and @Veedooshee at the wheel, the drive was pretty uneventful and we had radio silence all along, which i didnt want to break with "all good at the back" announcements, being the sweep!!   We were truly a FB+ convoy and congratulations to @S Jacob for his debut who did really well following tight on @Zixuan Huang - Charlie's 2nd lead lines. 

Was great to drive with @Chris Wing again, hope that piece of wood you found is now neatly resting in your beautiful garden   ...sorry to reveal the secret here  , hope your tyre is all good and now you know the difference between my car and Anoop's

@Pacific - i believe it was a smooth and easy ride for you as well and it was good to just follow your corrected lines without thinking twice. I have mentally marked the DIY of the half roof rack and 4 way deflator hose....one day..surely!!

TIll we meet again, looking forward and coming back for more...some random clips from the drive

Congrats @Russ..you were already great at support...its just the tag now  👍

Congrats Mayank @munkybizness...see you soon on one of the drives!!

Thanks @Ale Vallecchi for the great drive and report. Couldnt continue due to some other commitments, but enjoyed the picturesque and scenic areas we crossed and the ridges we rode...smoothly flowing through , although i had done the same area on our previous ride.

14 hours ago, Ale Vallecchi said:

The drive saw a couple more defections along the way

But ..isnt "defection" too strong a word for a poor guy  succumbing to familial pressures , and going for some mall crawling ??   😂

Looking forward to the next adventure!!

Great news!! Congrats @GauravSoni

Congrats @Lawrence_Chehimi

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher for this drive in an entirely new area in Sharjah. The place had some amazing  and breathtaking views of dunes, and at the same time  - quite technically demanding terrain.

The sweep duty was a first for me, and all that experience on my lower level drives, at the back of convoys helped me in navigating the soft and churned up sands. I should say that all the fewbies did exceptionally well today without any issues barring a couple of small refusals which were managed quite well. Hence, did'nt have much to do except the boring announcements of "we are moving at the back"   ...i note that Lorenzo has classified as these being "exhaustive", i increased the frequency of updates because i remember being asked whether all ok at the back, so didnt want to give another chance for being asked for an update!!

From the back i could see everyone driving nicely and here are my 2 cents..

I can remember @munkybizness had a minor refusal on a side slope which he beautifully self recovered, but i think was a bit late in steering down, as i could see that your first effort was to go forward, which may result in the rear end sliding down and forcing you to come down in reverse. So , always remember to steer down immediately , as long as your car is still parallel to the slope. And, good to finally meet you too. i have seen you also quite active on the forum, and passionate about your Y61..👍👍

@Daniel Yang also had a good opportunity to practice self recovery under Lorenzo's guidance, beautifully done with the right and timely bursts of throttle, use of steering and diff lock etc. Good work!!One thing i would suggest is to plan your climbs a bit earlier and strategically by looking at the car in front of you. If you remember, Mayank's wheels were spinning when he navigated that churned up side slope, which should be an indication to you to climb higher with enough momentum and allow for a bit of sliding down.

@Mohammed Mansoor, i believe it was not me who was guiding you, probably @munkybizness, because by the time i reached the place, i could already hear instructions over the radio. You did a great job handling your heavy car. Mayank was already out with his shovel and i also parked near your car, to have some shovelling action, but Lorenzo decided to winch you out  , saving us from a sweaty saturday morning !

Have done a few drives with @Gregory  who was a great SL , commended by Lorenzo already and also good to meet @Bernard Kalaani again.

Sorry to see @Josh T. exiting early and hope he has it all sorted , ready to join drives next week.

Also good to hear that the decision to exit early was the right one, and saved @Lorenzo Candelpergher's engine mounts from having bigger issues!!

See you all soon , next weekend if our paths cross!!

I dont want to jinx myself by saying this... so far , my stock bumper is safe  ...but i just got into the intermediate level...so 🤞

3 hours ago, JAISROCK said:

I don't see any fluctuations on my temp.

how do you monitor the "fluctuation" ? Is it just by the needle guage? If YES, the fluctuations will be very minor and you may not be able to recognise it, it could just remain in the centre within a range say 10 degC.   I use an OBD scanner permanently connected and showing me the temp in digits through an app on my phone. So there is always fluctuation. Coolant temperatures are rarely constant on a desert drive.

3 hours ago, JAISROCK said:

Anyone have installed wheel spacers

I toyed with this idea when i had the rubbing issue with my 285 wide tyres, but then the advice i got was that once installed, the tyres will not rub the sway bar, but your wheel fender flares/arch  may hit the tyres during full compression of suspension. To prevent that , YES, you will need a lift  ...so i saw the entrance to the rabbit hole of mods...turned back and ran for my life!!!

(Or you need to change to those thinner flares, which i dont like the looks of)