Thomas Varghese

For me all the basis of offroading came from @Frederic in my Absolute Newbie drive. Every time I do slide slopes or climbs his words ring in my ears. Gain higher ground initially and you will be able to negotiate the slopes and climbs much easier. Even if I sometimes deviate a little from the laid tracks its always to gain higher ground so that I can control the fishtailing and control my exit easily. Plus a little left right motion of the steering will help the car to climb more. You already saw that today.

THE DRIVE. I called it the drive because it was the drive. Absolute entertainer from @Brette. Being driving with @Carnity for almost 1 1/2 years and gradually raising my level to Intermediate, I was little apprehensive about joining a newbie drive considering it to be boring and slow paced with all sorts of refusals and stucks. Well I was wrong. Minimal refusals - (3 or 4?) and 1 stuck speaks volumes about the driving abilities of the convoy. Kudos to the Marshal @Brette for correctly judging the strengths and weaknesses of the convoy and setting a track and pace corresponding to the convoy. 1st time driving with @Brette and I regret having not joining his drives before. Don't get me wrong that @Brette set a very easy track for us. The 1st phase of the drive was very tricky and challenging on extra soft sand until reaching Pink Rock. I couldn't believe when everybody climbed Pink Rock in the 1st attempt itself with very minimal inputs from the Marshal and support team. Wow. When Brette asked me to climb after him and direct the cars coming in to park at a safe place avoiding the rocks I was counting I would have to wait in the sun for a long time considering it was a newbie convoy. In no time everybody was up and parked and driving again. Amazing skills in offroading by this convoy. The pajeros and the super safari's didn't disappoint today. The 1st 3 pajero's at the front followed wherever Brette led without any flaws. Congrats @Sunny84 for being a good 2nd lead and @Anirudh Dayma & @Jaro Tuzinsky for keeping up the pace. @Jonny90 in his Y 61 followed all of them like a walk in the park. @Jad Moussalli & his incredible machine the DEFENDER was top notch in performance. Couldn't get a chance to see the DEFENDER self recovering with all the gizmos it has as Jad never got refusals or stucks anywhere. The 2 ladies @Sita Sharma & @Super Safari Girl were driving perfectly in front of me. @Sita Sharma has the potential to become the upgraded @Looper. Waiting for the day when she will start talking on the radio I got to loop again. @Super Safari Girl knows the potential of her car and knows how to tame its power. The surprise car today was the aptly named White Rhino aka Pajero of @Mike M.. Who said Pajero's are underpowered. That car can climb anywhere without any issues and better than any car in the convoy. A tuned 2014 Pajero 3.8 grey LWB is soon going to have a serious competitor in dune bashing. @GauravSoni are you listening? As @Brette, @Pacific, @munkybizness put it, its 90% driver and 10% car and today @Mike M. proved that. Climbing Big Red like it was its daily routine amazed me. No comments about friend's @Pacific & @munkybizness. Both of them gave a live tutorial to the rest of the convoy how to climb dunes and it was fun watching them. Will be joining @Gaurav's newbie drive tomorrow and who knows that convoy will be even better. My 110th drive with @Carnity. Till next time we meet again in the sands bye.

Big challenge - To be or not to be an offroader after getting today's fuel prices shock

congrats @Tareq Al Turq

Congrats @RiaanJH. Will drive with you soon again

Congrats @ASAD.. It was apparent during our last drive that you will soon be promoted.

THE MYSTERY DRIVE by @Ale Vallecchi. Beautiful drive as usual from @Ale Vallecchi. Started the drive by 3.15pm after waiting for @Wafi Ziadeh. The sun was blaring mercilessly at more than 44° C when we reached. Even the skin was getting burned while we deflated and put up our flags. But that was the only time we got troubled by the weather. As soon as we started and headed towards Crescent Lake we were greeted by a lone Oryx and some Gazelles as if they had come to watch our convoy entering the desert. As Ale' commented on the drive thread there was Oryx at the beginning and bunch of them darted out of the desert to say good bye when we were leaving. So the target of the drive was achieved. Probably Ale has some magical call to summon them. The target was to enter the desert at Qudra and exit at Ghantoot. This was also achieved in the stipulated time. To take a newbie convoy from Qudra to Ghantoot and exiting at the pre determined time is not a small feat. Even though it was a newbie convoy everybody rose up to the challenges put forward by Prof @Ale Vallecchi. The refusals & stucks were just minimal. Altogether 7 or 8 to the max which is nothing. The 2nd lead @Ahmed Wagdy didn't shy of his responsibilities and was following Ale's lead as instructed. @James Lovell was absolutely impeccable in his drive. Didn't see him facing any situations. @Anoop Das with his monster Ford F150 also negotiated the challenges with some advices put in by Ale. Poor @Anoop Das went back home minus his front number plate which was spotted and picked by me who was behind him. Longer trucks sometimes hit the front bumper while coming down a slope. He will master the art of negotiating such tight spots soon if he continues his passion of offroading. @Stan Hassett who was behind me drove very well. I kept him entertained with some slight upgraded offroading like climbing up higher on slide slopes and keeping both sides of the wheels while ridge riding and to my surprise he was tagging along perfectly on his Prado. He never shied from following me. Great future for him. The drivers behind him probably must have followed him but I couldn't watch their line properly in the rear camera. @Nitin Mohan, @Murad Hamed, @Farook Veettil who were at the back didn't have much issues and even if there were a couple nicely dealt with instructions from @DP1011 , Deepak wrangler the sweep of the convoy. After sometime into the drive it became apparent that @DP1011 , Deepak wrangler can deal with most situations and me as a center forward was much relieved he is competent enough to take care of the rear. I have only driven with him once which was yesterday and I can predict he will be soon in the support team. Clear and precise instructions. Watched him tug also and it was perfect from a difficult place. Well done buddy. Although I was apprehensive in joining a newbie drive in the afternoon and was prepared with all refreshments to keep me charged if at all there would be difficult recoveries I didn't use much as there were not much recoveries. I really enjoyed it. Kudos to all the drivers. Ale gave a 15 min break at his favorite Three date palm tree spot and it was perfect time to get to know each other as most were new faces to me. Will I join another Newbie drive? Absolutely yes. With new talents like all of them coming up and learning how can I be not part of the action. SEE YOU ALL SOON DRIVING AGAIN TO MASTER THE DESRT TERRAIN. Some pictures will be posted to the gallery as soon as I can get it offloaded from the camera.