Symphony of Destruction

[Petr]

Daggerfall and Solmaz brought us to Remah area, where I was with the club a long time ago. It was a lovely untouched ground with sharp dunes, and, due to the summer temperatures, with many places covered by powder sand.

It was nearly like a private party - only 5 intermediates (Lenny, Stefan, Giovanni, Mpondroid and myself) and Orlantsev as a floating sweeper. Daggerfall was leading the convoy while Solmaz was floating.

Daggerfall set quickly a fast pace. Thanks to the Last Man Standing Mode the flow was great and mostly uninterrupted. Some of the climbs were really challenging. It required maximum momentum to overcome the gravity all the way to the top. That meant often to expose the car to frotal impacts at the heel of the dune, and hard hits to the suspension from the bumps and sods, but if one tries to save the car, the dune can't be conquered. Daggerfall mentioned at one moment he still feels rusty after his long break. It was hard to believe it but if true, we were definitely not complaining .

I was excited that there was no climb today that my Jeep would not be able to overcome, although at the very end the engine said enough is enouh, but we were anyway about to kiss the dunes good bye.

It was an exciting drive, full of action, little or no breaks and everyoned did great. Many thanks Daggerfall for the fun and Solmaz and Orlantsev for taking care of our safety.

[orlantsev]

Hello all,

the Symphony of Destruction was supposed to be my last drive before I join those who escape to cooler climates. Whole week I was unwell and I decided to make a call on Friday if still to proceed with the drive and another commitment I had on Saturday afternoon, or continue to enjoy the company of a pillow. Gladly, lots of spicy Indian food on Thursday sweat me out and I felt much better on Friday.

It was a very early start. Even you try to sleep early you cannot fall asleep. I drove like a zombie, and met few other zombies along the route. Upon arrival the weather was pretty pleasant, some breeze and dry air. Few months ago we drove similar route, but in the opposite direction. Strangely even in winter I do not recall this area to be super busy with convoys choosing other areas in Sweihan.

In a convoy we had a few drivers who do drive frequently now, but the flow was good. The last man standing rule seemed to work well.

From my perspective what helps is if you have made a few second tries, but still failed, and see an opportunity to re-join the convoy safely (for example the convoy returning and there is a flat patch between your location and the convoy route) it is fine to do so, then letting the convoy stop and wait. This is of course only acceptable if you can re-join safely. Same principle as when you can close the gap from the car in front in a flat area.

There was one challenging dune which the first two cars crossed, but the rest struggled. For a second it brought back the memory of a dune from Petrol heads II, but on from a third attempt and a slightly different angle I made it. However, for the many cars in the convoy it remained un-conquered.

There were so many side crests that day that some drivers admitted to having nausea and 2 cars left just before 9 am. We played a bit more, but @petr Jeep started to show signs of sickness, so we finished sharp @ 9.30

Thanks to @solmaz for organizing and @daggerfall for leading.

[Daggerfall]

Less is More!

It is hard to weak up at 03:30 AM but when you enter the desert, feel the morning breeze and watch the sun rise, you feel better ... then you start driving where the adrenalin kicks in ... then you don't feel tired or sleepy any more

It was a small convoy and we applied the "last man standing" system very good which requires a good "teamwork" and making sound and safe decisions to have a good flow. Thanks to our members for that

Thanks to @Solmaz for giving me the lead. This time we started at the far west side of the Remah chain, drove to east and finished at a Norther point than we usually do to explore some new dunes. There is nothing nicer than driving on fresh sand with no tracks at all!

We finished the drive with relatively no incident which is the most important thing!

Thanks to @Solmaz for organizing the drive and @Orlantsev for the support and all our intermediates for the participation.

See you on the next drive!

[Stephan]

Hello everyone.

It felt good to be back in the sand after a while. Waking up at 3 o' clock in the morning was difficult but once you reach the desert sand, all the sleepiness disappears, especially after you side crested the first couple of dunes with no warming up.

Remah was a first for me, so driving is this area came with a lot of surprises and a different level of excitement. The convoy was small. As Daggarfall said "less is more!" This was perfect to apply the "last man standing" system and so it worked great! Thanks to all the members in the convoy that applied this effectively and most important safely. All of us had a couple of second, third and even fourth tries to conquer the big dunes, which meant we could practice our angle of approach and also to know the limits of the car as well as the driver.

Thank you to Daggerfall for taking the lead of the convoy and Solmaz as well as Orlantsev for floating and sweeping by making sure the convoy is safe.

See you soon.

Cheers
Stephan