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Sunil Mathew

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    Afternoon Fewbie Desert Drive - Lisaili - Dubai - 6 Mar 2022

    in Offroad Drives

    Posted · Edited by Sunil Mathew

    Well , that was an eventful drive !

    A  tough recovery, engine shut off, battery burst, pop out  - all in one car  @Manoj Soman and another pop out for @Jona

    Manoj - Pls update how did it go with your car - insurance recovery and what went wrong with the electrics etc. We are curious to know whether all went well, and it will also help and guide others who may face similar situations.

    I had a full house wrangler with 3 of my friends joining me to get a taste of desert off roading , and they definitely got a plate full of another side of this hobby :-) . I must also say that they were impressed right from the briefing by @Gaurav and all the ensuing events that unfolded through the drive. One of them was an Indian Army ex-officer who has done military missions offroad for reconnaissance and surveillance.

    Although we could not drive much , we enjoyed the track where they could see most of our dune crossing techniques.

    As for me, it was a great learning experience, right from the battery leak with its fluid spilling on my hand and a bit on my face, got a bit shaken when i heard the burst sound when removing the terminals. Never again am i going to remove a terminal without eye and face protection !!! :-) 

    And 2 pop outs to attend to , my first experience, and will not forget Gaurav's advice of cleaning the rim seat  - "use all your fingers like you do your dishes at home :-) :-) !!!! how in the world did he know that i do the dishes at home ??? 😅😂 "

    To those who had pop outs - @Manoj Somanand @Jona , it would be worth to get the tyres cleaned out of all the sand which must have gone in , and get it re-balanced at a tire shop, else, you may face vibrations/imbalance.

    Same here @Davie Chase, good to drive with you again, and i learned that along with your regular tools, you carry a multimeter which came in handy yesterday !!!

    Meeting many of you for the first time @Pieter Potgieter@Quresh Pajero  @Patrick van der Loo @Tareq Al Turq @ASAD. @Joseph Raju @AlexM , couldnt have lot of interactions yesterday and hope to drive with all of you soon at various levels.

    @Morshedi my long lost Absolute newbie mate , driving together after almost a year. Its going to be one year , this 9th April ..i think ?? 👍👍🤘

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  8. Gulfnews Fun drive 2022

    in Offroad General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Sunil Mathew

    I've not been on GN fun drive, but i have gone with a local radio station for couple of drives, long before joining carnity, and that too with my Ford Explorer - 2011. It was definitely safe for newbies (*refer end of story below also :-) ) , and i presume GN also will be safe for newbies, provided they dont ask for any offroad experience as a pre-requisite. 

    The drive i went for had a dinner at a good desert camp with all regular stuff in a desert safari - barbeque, belly dance, tanourah etc etc, so that took care of the fun element to a certain extent. The drive itself was a new experience for me, so it was kinda fun at that time. But now, after drives with Carnity, i think the drive part would be boring, because 90pc you  would be going through flat/low terrain, with a bit of climbs and drops - managed one car at a time by the marshalls/organisers.

    **now the bad news -  i had a very bad experience on the second drive - the drive was marshalled by a popular offroad group from Dubai,  and there were many convoys, and you wont believe it, one of the convoy leads lost his way!!! :-) :-) and i was part of that convoy. they kept on coming back to the same point (i didnt have Gaia gps that time,  but from my interest i downloaded a basic app which would show offroad tracks and i could clearly see that we were moving around in circles)  it was getting dark, and they panicked. Finally , to get us out , they took us through really tough terrain, sharp drops, very technical areas etc etc and i and many others sustained damages to cars. One car was abandoned (i think it was a honda pilot) and i dont know what happened afterwards. We reached the desert camp at 9PM , while the scheduled time was 6PM for dinner. So had to satisfy ourselves with some leftovers and go home , a bit shaken.

    I believe this would be an exceptional case, but since this topic is opened, i thought i would pen down my experience as well.

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  15. Afternoon Fewbie Plus Desert Drive - Rush Hours - Dubai - 9 Feb 2022

    in Offroad Drives

    Posted

    Great mid week stress buster drive @Ale Vallecchi…more than 60 km in 2 hours, non stop without any breaks, all targets achieved as per drive plan !!! The drive put each one of us on our toes , at the summit of concentration, more so with me as the 2nd lead, as I couldn’t afford to even blink, for the fear of losing sight of Ale….  Such was the pace 😊… and thanks to the not so soft sand and our pace, I did the first hour of the drive unknowingly in 2WD , all the while thinking “ why is my car acting funny, why is my rear swaying around , why am I struggling on short climbs” it was only when we got a 10 sec break , I noticed my dashboard was missing the all important light 4WD!!!  @Naveen Rajprobably had to deal with a little bit of sand churning by me during this time 😀

     

    good to drive with you all again

     @Santoso Marjuki@Naveen Raj

    @KAMALIO @Looper @Gregory @Vaibhav

     

    @Fabien Monleau  @JeromeFJ

     

    Until next time…

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  22. Morning Fewbie Plus Desert Drive - Al Lisaili RUN - 29 Jan 2022

    in Offroad Drives

    Posted

    Yes..a tyre themed drive as @Gregory has put it ..

    thanks to @Pacific and @marks effort, an unexpected puncture on one of my tyres, was sorted pretty fast

    Thanks to the whole convoy who waited ... it must have been a real test of patience as this happened before we even started 🙂🙂

    @Islam Soliman - thanks to your beautiful selection of terrain and tracks, i believe all of us enjoyed and had fun to the maximum extent , for the time we were moving

    Some small tugs here and there and a little bit of shovelling,  made the drive complete 🙂

     

    Lessons learnt  - carry a puncture kit and soap solution (@Pacific and @Davie Chase saved the day by lending theirs) , however improbable you think a puncture would be in the desert full of soft sand!!

     

    Until we meet next time!!!

     

     

     

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