Catch me if you can XI
Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 5:27 pm
What a day! Where to begin. At the start I guess. Alarm set for 5.50am as Yoghybear's PM stated a 7am meet near Fossil Rock with cars ready to go at 7.15 SHARP. Knowing he wouldn't hesitate leaving anyone that was late behind morning coffee had to be picked up on route at the nearest gas station. There I bump into Yoghy and Zorro who both seem to have the same coffee idea as me. Yoghy proudly points to the Dodge Ram letting me know it's all fixed and that I was going be driving in the first convoy of two, which he was leading! Great. Glad I started the day with a big coffee....!
Arrived at the meet point at 7am sharp. Pulled up next to Green Giant (bonnet down today!) and Ginger, said hello and deflated. All called around for a brief and split into two convoys of 8 cars. Convoy one led by Yoghy and two led by Al Khatib I believe. The plan was to route west from the Sharjah Kalba road close to Fossil Rock onto Al Badayer. Two hours on a good day, except today we would take a little longer.....! Today was not a test we were told....but all eyes would be watching us! No pressure then!
So, "4H" engaged.....and off we set. First challenge was Fida's bowl. Small, but sharp entry and exit. A good trap. RedShark was to suffer most here. First a stuck, then transfer box problems. Here you need 4wd but the Cherokee wanted to stay in 2wd. We were one car down already. A couple of more stucks and 30 minutes later we set off toward Fossil Rock. Convoy Two were being held up by us so were happy to see us move on.
Regrouped at the peak of Fossil Rock, a sharp descent down (over 200m) and onto Camel Rock. A fast pace led to Green Giant having a pop out, followed a few km later by another. Seeing he needing cheering up I tried very hard and eventually succeeded in having one myself! Pop out fixed thanks to Rashid's help just in time for convoy two to overtake us. They seemed very pleased about this...! Al Shamsi had a very big smile on his face as he drove past...
On we travelled towards December 2nd dune and Green Giant threw another shoe off! Now Roberto decided he would join in the fun and wrapped his whole exhaust around his back axel. A quick fix (exhaust thrown in back of truck) and on we continued. At least now if we lost sight of Yoghy we could still hear him. In fact, I bet Caprihorse could here him from his house!
Lots of high speed cresting followed and now we picked up pace. Unfortunately so did the temperature and both drivers and cars were affected. Drifer was coolest out there today but the same couldn't be said of his Cherokee.
We crossed paths again with convoy two and Buti made a break for it and tried to join the back of theirs having enough of us! He was quickly reeled back into ours but it was a good effort. Ginger no longer liked his RTA issued number plate so discarded it at the bottom of a dune. Hockey has no time for litter bugs and promptly gave it back to him.
Approaching four hours now a and a very hot Cherokee best plans were to take it easy and short cut back to Al Badayer off the bigger dunes. All in all, we all drove hard today and did our best to overcome any problems we had on the journey. It was a hard drive, but a great one. We had a buddy system in place to recover our fellow newbies which was practiced a few times. Having seen many pop outs I had my first with the club and enjoyed (wrong word!) the experience of fixing it.
Thanks to the Marshals for watching over us in a professional but friendly way. Kept us safe and on track as always. And my fellow newbies. I love spending my free time Friday driving with you guys. Always a pleasure. Thank you also.
Arrived at the meet point at 7am sharp. Pulled up next to Green Giant (bonnet down today!) and Ginger, said hello and deflated. All called around for a brief and split into two convoys of 8 cars. Convoy one led by Yoghy and two led by Al Khatib I believe. The plan was to route west from the Sharjah Kalba road close to Fossil Rock onto Al Badayer. Two hours on a good day, except today we would take a little longer.....! Today was not a test we were told....but all eyes would be watching us! No pressure then!
So, "4H" engaged.....and off we set. First challenge was Fida's bowl. Small, but sharp entry and exit. A good trap. RedShark was to suffer most here. First a stuck, then transfer box problems. Here you need 4wd but the Cherokee wanted to stay in 2wd. We were one car down already. A couple of more stucks and 30 minutes later we set off toward Fossil Rock. Convoy Two were being held up by us so were happy to see us move on.
Regrouped at the peak of Fossil Rock, a sharp descent down (over 200m) and onto Camel Rock. A fast pace led to Green Giant having a pop out, followed a few km later by another. Seeing he needing cheering up I tried very hard and eventually succeeded in having one myself! Pop out fixed thanks to Rashid's help just in time for convoy two to overtake us. They seemed very pleased about this...! Al Shamsi had a very big smile on his face as he drove past...
On we travelled towards December 2nd dune and Green Giant threw another shoe off! Now Roberto decided he would join in the fun and wrapped his whole exhaust around his back axel. A quick fix (exhaust thrown in back of truck) and on we continued. At least now if we lost sight of Yoghy we could still hear him. In fact, I bet Caprihorse could here him from his house!
Lots of high speed cresting followed and now we picked up pace. Unfortunately so did the temperature and both drivers and cars were affected. Drifer was coolest out there today but the same couldn't be said of his Cherokee.
We crossed paths again with convoy two and Buti made a break for it and tried to join the back of theirs having enough of us! He was quickly reeled back into ours but it was a good effort. Ginger no longer liked his RTA issued number plate so discarded it at the bottom of a dune. Hockey has no time for litter bugs and promptly gave it back to him.
Approaching four hours now a and a very hot Cherokee best plans were to take it easy and short cut back to Al Badayer off the bigger dunes. All in all, we all drove hard today and did our best to overcome any problems we had on the journey. It was a hard drive, but a great one. We had a buddy system in place to recover our fellow newbies which was practiced a few times. Having seen many pop outs I had my first with the club and enjoyed (wrong word!) the experience of fixing it.
Thanks to the Marshals for watching over us in a professional but friendly way. Kept us safe and on track as always. And my fellow newbies. I love spending my free time Friday driving with you guys. Always a pleasure. Thank you also.