Ale Vallecchi

Hi @andy_macdxb. I would suggest to get out of the pocket, and advice the second lead to redirect, if a better choice is available. If getting out of the pocket takes some time and maneuvres, or a better route is not immediately available, we'll advice the convoy to stop, then we'll complete the manoeuvre and/or find a better route. But with plenty of driving time and better knowledge of one's car, getting out (or attempting to) becomes second nature 😅

Hi Thomas. It's not that close to Business Bay. Its to the right of E611, in the direction of Sharjah, after E611 intersects E66. The grid is visited by many, for picnics and photographing. There you will not get lost. Going beyond it, toward E44 is tricky, you need to know your way, and things can happen like in any other desert. So no going there alone is suggested, as at Carnity we never suggest to venture in the desert alone, ever.

Hi @Ashok chaturvedi. It's an area off of E611, with a grid of tarmac roads and roundabouts almost all buried by the desert. Beyond these disappearing grid is a nice desert area (reaching toward E44) with great views of Downtown Dubai, the Burj Khalifa and the Burj al Arab. Very nice area.

@Natarajan the meeting point is indicated in the drive's post: https://maps.app.goo.gl/T6RSdKUojMrLaJxZA @kolinrrj, @Yahya Munir, @frederic demolder @khurram.k @Natarajan @Vanessa8580 @Adhir Saxena @Samuel Hainsworth @andy_macdxb @Ahmed Wagdy @Humayun Ghias @Paul Zeitoun @Rajeevan Vickneswaran Just to be sure, the meeting point is https://maps.app.goo.gl/T6RSdKUojMrLaJxZA

@Ahmed Wagdy, @frederic demolder and all members, YES please, you can start to deflate once at the meeting point. Thanks

Dear Desertnauts. Time to look forward to another day in the sand. As mentioned in the drive's presentation, we will explore a relatively easy off-roading location, the appeal of which is in its proximity to Downtown Dubai, the presence of an intriguing, and very photogenic, web of disappearing tarmac road (the title's Ghost Roads), and the possibility of seeing Dubai's skyline in the background of a desert point of view (not one of those photoshopped ones, but a real location). The drive will not be very technical, but should be very scenic, among quite a lot of interesting, gnarly vegetation, some camel and goat farms, on a majority of low dunes, with a stretch of higher, humpy dunes, toward the middle of the drive. The meeting point will be on E611, in the direction of Sharjah, just a few hundred meters from the junction where E611 is intersected by E66. Proceed at low speed, to see a small turn-off (an opening in the line of vegetation running along E611), marked by a white sign indicating ALGHUWAIS STABLES. Once you will be through the opening you will see a dirt track leading across an open gate, toward the line of pylons. Please proceed along the track and park at a safe distance from each other, as per our anti-Covid regulations. Please, do not put up your flags, yet: we will do so after we'll have crossed the Ghost Roads, and entered the open desert. The convoy order will be the following: @kolinrrj in Second Lead @Yahya Munir at #3 @frederic demolder in place #4 @khurram.k will be #5 @Natarajan is going to be #6 @Vanessa8580 will anchor the convoy @Adhir Saxena will follow at #8 @Samuel Hainsworth will take position #9 @andy_macdxb is driver # 10 @Ahmed Wagdy will be #11 @Humayun Ghias to follow at #12 @Paul Zeitoun is going to be #13, and @Rajeevan Vickneswaran will sweep the convoy. Once at the meeting point, please tune into Carnity Channel # 3 (446.056). Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow morning, at 6:30 sharp. Enjoy your end of the week.

Copy that @Paul Zeitoun. See you Friday.

Hello @Paul Zeitoun. You can join the drive if you still want to. Can you please confirm? Thanks

Hello @Adhir Saxena. I will post tomorrow with the final instructions. Copy that @Roger K. Thanks Thanks for the update @pramod

Grande @Luca Palanca Falsini.

Hello @Robert Nammour. You are #3 on the WL. Thanks

Hello @Paul Zeitoun. You are #2 on the WL.

Hello @Roger K. You will be #1 on the WL.

Hi @Alistair Mattock. You can sign up on the website at 7:00 this evening.

Dear Desertnauts. At Carnity we are always looking to enrich our drives' offer, scouting and choosing new locations. This drive is the newest installment in this collection of "discoveries" (Sand to Mountain in RAK, Lisaili, Margham, Lahbab, Murqaab, Bab al Shams, Ganthoot, etc.). The drive has been chosen primarily for its scenic value: we will be as close to Dubai as it can be while off-roading, with sights of Downtown and the Burj Khalifa (weather permitting). The terrain will be first a mix of sand and....tarmac, then we will zig-zag through low, bushy and gnarly trees, in an easterly direction, toward the E44, near which we'll drive up and down some taller, broad dunes, with some steeper descents on the slip-face, before turning back toward the original starting point. While the level of difficulty is quite moderate, this is a very appealing and relaxing drive, with nice photo opportunities. We are surely looking forward to a very enjoyable morning, where the surprises should only come from the drives' unusual "urban" scenery. See you all out there 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 in order not to jeopardize someone's health, and to ensure we can keep organizing these drives safely. MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: COVID19 Precautions MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: BAN POST Two Way Radio Guidelines Every Offroader brings his own radio, programmed to the frequencies described in below advice topic. We will not share spare radios or program your radio on the drive. If you need assistance in programming the radio, post a topic on the Carnity website with your questions and we will help you out. Make sure your radio is fully charged. It will be your only way of communication while driving. Before buying, please carefully read below advice so you are informed properly on which model / cost / shops... No radio = No drive. It is an essential tool and you should make sure you bring it on every drive and learn/practice how to use it. MUST WATCH: NEWBIE VIDEO BRIEFING Drive Details Level: Newbie and above (All Level) Meeting time: 6:30 AM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: https://maps.app.goo.gl/T6RSdKUojMrLaJxZA Small sand track off of E611, indicated by a sign reading ALGHUWAIS STABLES. Action Plan: This is a first for Carnity. The idea is to enjoy a very relaxing drive, in a completely new area, just off of E611, with interesting discoveries (the "Ghost Roads"), and beautiful views of the Burj Khalifa and Dubai's downtown skyline (fog, mist or clouds permitting). An "urban" drive, in an unexpected location, with an apparently easy terrain, which may still present some difficulties, with its rich yet gnarly vegetation, and the occasional steep descend from the taller dune tops. 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), smiles, face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Approximate finish time: 10:30 AM P.S. Only join if you have a compressor to inflate your tires after the drive. LIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE: Limited to 12 cars maximum. RSVP will close on Thursday - 9 AM. 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. Members that do not confirm the terms of the COVID requirements will be removed from the RSVP list. 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

Well deserved @Dodi Syahdar.

Bravo @David Ortells.

Bravissimo @Lorenzo Candelpergher. Your passion and abnegation for off-roading are truly amazing!!

Bravo @Mario Cornejo. See you soon.

We always hear Marshals and Experts recommend to use "momentum" while driving in the desert. As this most favorite advice is given, or sometimes shouted through the radio (“BUILD YOUR MOMENTUM”, or “KEEP THE MOMENTUM”) heads bob in confirmation, and a murmur of "yes" and "understood" runs through the briefed convoy. But how many really know what momentum is? Do we confuse it with speed, acceleration, or what else? Without going too much into the physics of it, let us see what we really mean with "momentum". THE WHAT Momentum is the product of the mass of a particle and its velocity. It is a vector quantity: i.e., it has both magnitude and direction. In other words, Momentum is the force that exists in a moving object. To make some examples, a moving truck has more momentum than a car driving at the same speed because the truck has more mass. Similarly, a fast car has more momentum than a slow truck. When you are driving, you and your vehicle have momentum force, based on the total weight of your vehicle and your speed. While you are driving, momentum keeps your vehicle moving, unless it is acted upon by something, such as your brakes, a fixed object (such as a tree), another vehicle.... or the road surface. Enter our deserts' sand: this shifty, soft surface interferes with momentum. On a flat track, sand will simply reduce the speed at which you are driving (as the vehicle will tend to sink in it and encounter more friction). The loss of momentum will make the car eventually come to a stop, much quicker than on a harder, more compact tarmac road. Much like a jet ski on water, the more momentum your vehicle has on sand, the smoother it will glide, or 'plane', across the surface. That is why it is important to keep your speed up on sand - without overdoing it. THE WHY On a dune, we will have to contend not only with the sand’s friction, but also with the infamous force of GRAVITY!! As we all know, on Earth all bodies have a weight, or downward force of gravity which Earth's mass exerts on them, proportional to their mass. The heavier the object (read car), the stronger the downward pull. An object (car) placed on a tilted surface (dune’s slope) will tend to slide down the surface. The rate at which the object slides down depends on how tilted the surface is: the greater the tilt of the surface, the faster the rate at which the object will slide down it. In physics, a tilted surface is called an inclined plane (in desert off-roading is called a …. dune). Objects are known to accelerate down inclined planes because of an unbalanced force. Determining the net force acting upon an object (car) on an inclined plane (dune) involves dividing the gravity into two perpendicular components. On inclined planes (dunes_ the force of gravity, in fact, will be equal to the sum of two components - one parallel to the inclined surface and the other one perpendicular to the inclined surface. The diagram below shows how the force of gravity has been replaced by the two components - a parallel and a perpendicular component of force. Taking a leap from the purely mathematical explanation of these dynamics to a more intuitive representation, (see figure attached) you may think of the right momentum (the car’s mass times its speed) as producing F1, that is the force that “anchors” the car to the slope/dune, being greater than F2. However, removing, or significantly reducing the element of speed, leaves only the weight of your car in play, thus prompting it to slide down the dune. Clearly, when momentum is lost, F1 will start to become smaller and smaller, and the component of gravity that will prevail will be F2, pulling the car toward the bottom of the slope. When this happens, you’ll hear the second most shouted command by a Marshal or Expert: DON’T FIGHT GRAVITY (as you’ll never win). And remember, you’d better not!!!

@Thomas Varghese, as with every drive at each level, yesterday's drive was conceived keeping in mind the constraints which Fewbie members pose. Therefore, while we went into an area I had already visited twice, with Advance/Experts (for the recce drive) and Intermediates (for the first published drive), our drive was engineered to enter a slightly more open set of dunes, proceed at a more sedated pace, avoiding sharp dunes' ridge riding and crossing, and staying away from some trickier passages between technical dunes, as all these challenges may have led Fewbies to multiple refusals, stucks, and perhaps even more damaging consequences. Once the sign-ups were complete, I considered the skills and experience of each driver, to create the stronger and safer convoy order possible. Adding this variable - the quality of the convoy - to the equation, allows to identify the weakest links in the drive, usually represented by the members with less experience, and sometimes by the more troublesome cars, and fine-tune the drive's track and difficulty accordingly. With all of the above in mind, it ultimately all comes down to how the convoy actually behaves (less experienced drivers may face obstacles with no issue at all, or "weaker" cars can be handled expertly and pose no problems whatsoever). Our convoy behaved quite impressively (it isn't just if and how many refusals or stucks take place, but how they come about, and how much they depended upon a driver's "mistake" or the nature of the terrain), so that by the time we were getting close to Ganthoot you will have noticed that we started ridge-riding, and criss-crossing some taller dunes, at a brisk (if not fast) pace. By then, I guess it had become more of a Fewbie Plus drive. Intermediate drives, as the one we did in the past on most of yesterday's track, would be more fast paced from the beginning, cover some terrains which instead we did our best to avoid (including longer strings of bowls, or more technical areas), have more criss-crossings, even of taller and sharper dunes, and in general, be led with much less concern for the behavior of the convoy, which is almost taken for granted as able to face most obstacles, with very few refusals and almost no stucks. As for modified cars, keep in mind that in order to prepare a drive, I don't look at the mods that members have made to their car (most time I don't even know, until I reach the meeting point). At Carnity, our main goal is to bring a convoy through any given area thinking we are leading a group of stock cars (just as my own FJ). Mods are entirely up to members, and their fancy. We do not require them, we do not encourage them, and we do not conceive our drives to cater to modified cars. Felling like I may speak for all of us at Carnity, I believe mods do not make a drive easier, if the drivers does not have, or has not improved, his skills and mental approach to off-roading. Allow me to give you an example (hoping I am not giving too long an answer to an apparently easy question); @Ahab Shamaa joined the Club with a car (his FJ Extreme) which already comes with a few mods. Nonetheless, Ahab took our drives with the perfect attitude: humbly learning the necessary skills, and most of all, fine tuning his "feeling" with his car, learning how to extract its full potential, one drive at a time. He has realized, through his drives, that the modified FJ alone will not draw an impeccable side slope, sustain a long, sharp ridge-riding, or achieve a fast paced criss-crossing, unless he, as a driver, has learned how to ride his car in the best and safest manner. Your attitude seems to be the same, even with the stock Xterra, so I am confident that as your skills improve, you will be able to progress to higher ranks, regardless of the car's status (or actually, exactly because driving stock may force you to pay even more attention to your driving style and manner).

They did a check. There was no more dripping. It may have been overflow from the overheating. Will look into it. Thanks