paolo dassi

Really a great great drive! Thanks @Islam Soliman @Davie Chase @Wrangeld for your patience and suggestions always clear and helpful. The drive was very enjoyable, pretty hard sand to begin with, getting softer as temperature rose. It was good to practice specific skills in the drive with multiple attempts. As often happens, while about to get back to tarmac and when the attention drops slightly, I got stuck on a "solid" bush in a little pocke after a small dune... I misjudged it completely, thinking it was a much smaller one! A gentle pull from @Islam Soliman and the suggestions from @Wrangeld got me out of trouble. Greetings to the reminder of the convoy and see you soon again on the sand!

Great afternoon / evening drive and perfect refresher for me after many months off the sand and to test drive our new (old) Pajero. Some refusals and stucks here and there but the convoy moved steadily, really enjoyable drive. BBQ and some rest with a truly multicultural bunch of kids playing and enjoying their time together was the icing on the cake... we can really hope for a better future! The last stretch was also quite cool, driving in the darkness proved to be an interesting experience, looking forward for the next one!! Thank you all for the drive.

And now flag pole on my new old Pajero (2011)! Undo the spare wheel cover bolts from inside. Open the cover. Get two 3mm steel plates, 25mm x 50mm, drill a hole and weld them to the marter metal frame (better welding than the one I got should be easy to achieve!). Buy two plastic electric cable shrink mounts and install them in the holes (the ones with rubber oring and shrinking nut, 8mm diam, same as my flag pole). Close the cover, bolt it back on and you are ready to go! When needed, just stick the flag pole in, tighten the plastic nut compressing the rubber ring and the pole would not move a mm! You have access to the nuts from top and bottom of spare wheel carter, non need to open it every time (orange gas rubber pipe is to prevent the pole from hitting the carter). Micrometric precision 😜 and all for 30 AED, quite happy about how the all lot came together!

Hi guys, I am coming with my wife and 9yo daughter, any other child about her age joining!? See you tomorrow!

Hi fellow drivers, @Rahimdad, strange noise is coming form my car bonnet... possibly an engine support got loose, but it might be a resilient mount cracked - not sure yet till I have car back which will hopefully be Saturday, so I have to opt out from this WE drives 🤕😭. Enjoy the drive and see you next time, take loads of pictures!

Great drive, really enjoyed each and every moment of it! The troop started on time following @Fredericpath on rather hard sand. The drive unwinded over tracks, small dunes, camel crossings (many... I wonder what they think seeing these strange humans moving around the desert inside these metal boxes with wheels!) and some little stretches of tarmac to connect different legs of the drive. The drive moved on smoothly, little refusals here and there and apparently the quickest pop out fix of carnity history and here we were under the shade of some trees for the lunch break. After, the scenery changed completely, with our cars squeezing through a narrow rocky canyon, where wadi bed stones replaced sand dunes. Only sad point was not being able to share some food together due to the restrictions in place... let's hope to get back to the pre covid life soon! Personally I like a lot this sort of longer and more "panoramic driven" drives, where the challenge is to keep concentration up for a longer time. Thanks @Frederic and @Jeepie for guiding us, to the ladies and gentlemen who drove safely and to all who came oveor and enjoyed the day! Pics and a couple of videos in the drive gallery as usual.

If interested in the topic from a technical stand point, have a look at the engine developed by Lancia for rally cars in the beginning of the '80s, supercharged (low RPM) + turbocharged (high RPM). It is remarkable they managed to make it work with the little electronics available at the time... Almost the same concept is now used in small VW engines, but fully driven by electronics.

If I was to describe this drive with one word, the word of choice would be "different"! I'd say this drive was different in any aspect form the usual Dubai area ones: colour of sand, driving style, environment, nature. Credit to @Ale Vallecchi and @Gaurav for making it possible with such an enthusiastic bunch of offroad hungry drivers to lead. After deflation, drive proceeded at a good pace, with no major delays and on a very nice and new environment for most of us. On track - off track route proved to be interesting, with some sudden soft sand pockets on ratehr firm sand / vegetation area. Some pics here and there, some bio breaks 😁 and an additional final challange of some ridge riding - not my favourite technique to be honest! Due to the small size of the dunes, though, and despite them being longitudinal so soft on both sides, the drive progressed smoothly with most of the convoy making it all the way through and descending with more and more confidence and control. I personally found the mid stop and the final briefing incredibly valuable to understand the environment (longitudinal dunes, pockets, morphology of the area) and to have some basic theoretical background on approaches, speed, different tecniquerisks and how to minimise them, thanks @Ale Vallecchi for that! As usual some pictures here, see you next time.