Good day Almost Family!
One year, one month and 9 days after the CM… this is how much I waited to get myself into LIWA. Missed many trips for different reasons but does not matter now, I hope this the first of many.
My plan originally was to bring the car ready to take off from the office. Plans changed a bit and missed the camping unfortunately but was ready on bed by 9 pm, alarm set for 3:45 am. I probably had waited so long that I woke up myself before the alarm went off and got on my way at 4:00 am planning on seeing fog on the way… it was not bad at all. We reached the place ahead of time and gladly saw many campers also ready for the drive. Nice breakfast, coffee, and fun early morning.
At debriefing,
@alshamsi_m made a great point about keeping the desert clean, great standard: we need to leave the place cleaner than we have found it! … and Kudos to Alex who volunteered for the cleanup.
@alshamsi_m organizer and lead Marshall;
@orlantsev ,
@rapailo ,
@Mabubaker floating,
@Laarni second lead and all intermediates support every 2 cars,
@CARLOSS ,
@David ,
@Tomvanhouten ,
@dorudoru ,
@osman ,
@Ehab Thank you all for helping to make this a safe, exiting and demanding drive!... here are my lessons learned:
Get on business guys:
Immediately after starting, no time to warm up, a nice crest ahead and I never expecting to see a very large drop on the other side (paid the ticket to LIWA here), a bit of flying but luckily the soft sand and large drop helped on the landing, my radio of course under my feet… That set the level of the drive. NICE!
Downhill and floor it:
This was a fantastic drive to learn and train drops. Not only helped on the car control and no fish tailing skills going downhill, it was a great exercise to floor it on the right spot to manage the uphill power gain in my car…. Pajero does not respond on low RPM therefore a heavy right foot needed (6000+ RPM) to try to keep the pace of the convoy.
Hold the steering 9 to 3:
I was told this from an experienced race-track driver: Always hold tight the steering “9 to 3”; if, and only if, are turning too much because very sharp turn then at least keep one hand always in its original position on the wheel. I started to put that in practice 3 drives ago or so and this really worked for me, I feel more under control. I would really like to ask this to an experience Almost4x4 drivers… ADVISES ARE WELCOME! I haven't spot anything on this in the forum.... I'm terrible in the chat box
Pop-out avoidance:
Slowly, slowly, I’m learning to feel the load on the sharp turns… I made it clean this weekend but this is
NOT a request for challenge to our Marshals . I think I’m leveling up as the time goes. I also use 12 PSI in the only tire that I always do pop-out on. (Front passenger side). The others with 10 PSI…
All in all, can’t wait another 365 days to do Liwa again. The views are amazing, the driving is fantastic, but more importantly the safety on the drive and the team that makes a family ambience
@galindakis @sumaiya @Adonisalsissi @Manuelchaure @AntonT and many more that also join us including families... this was worth the year waiting for it and more!!!
Cheers everyone
#almost4x4
Carlos ("B") Garcia
