Almost4x4

Hi Everyone,

We had a great time during the Golden Dunes drive!!

The drive was lead by @alshamsi_m , @Booy and the supporting team consisting of @giorgio , @KIMOz , @mpodroid , @Bu Touma . Thank you all!

The drive was taken place in Badayer area, where a lot of nice dunes can be found, but also a lot of tracks, so from time to time it was bumpy.

During the drive, we had a variety of obstacles, which were to be encountered with the right speed and angle to be able to make it. Estimating this and communicating to your right foot was key to this area to keep the flow of the convoy. Another important thing was distance, people too close, you get into trouble, too far and you loose the convoy.

I think all together, we had a great drive for which thanks to all!

Hopefully see you soon

Tom

Two drives were available for me yesterday. @rashid organized "no pain no gain" for intermediate level, but clarified that it would have been challenging. I did not drive a lot this year due to some issue with my car, so I preferred to join the 10+ "golden Dunes as support.

As soon as I arrived the meeting point, @alshamsi_m greeted me as "my second lead". This, immediately triggered my musical memory ;-)

As usual, it is amazing to be his second lead. We had some situations but no pop outs, mostly in the back of the convoy, but we did good and kept a nice pace.

Congratulations to the newbies for their progresses.

This drive video report is dedicated to the founders, to the marshals, to the Almost4x4 friends and - in the end - to the desert: no words to describe the sense of freedom and relaxation mixed with pure adrenaline driving on the dunes.

Enjoy my video report
Marco

Golden Dunes:

A 10+ drive in Badayer area.
This was a late morning departure time led by the one and only BIG RED. The drive was smooth on a bumpy surface.

The convoy did fairly well with good flow. Weak points of the convoy was lack of calling second tries and loosing the track.

Point 1: Calling second tries is a safety rule that needs to be implemented and executed throughout the drive. Failing to do so it puts in danger all the cars following the car which have the second attempt.

Point 2: Areas like Badayer are popular areas which means that there are always hundreds of tracks that can confuse the drivers. That is why it is so important that the proper distance (as @alshamsi_m mentioned during the briefing) of 20m and no more. Loosing the track is another safety hazard as the car that will loose the track if it does not stop can lead the rest of the convoy into an area that the driving conditions may demand higher driving skills and potential may all be in trouble.

The drive was pop out free (something difficult to accomplish on this area good for all of us) as well as assisted recovery free. Second tries and self recoveries were the majority of the delays.


A big thank you to the lead and organizer @alshamsi_m as well as @Booy which was leading the support and rescue team.

Until next time i hope you are all safe and looking forward to see you all soon again

Dear All,

First of all, many thanks to @alshamsi_m for organizing this amazing drive and special thanks to @Booy for his wise advices and never ending patience with me. Booy, you really deserve a statue in the Club when dealing with newbies

And also thanks to @giorgio o , @KIMOz Oz , @mpodroid oid , @Bu Touma Touma for taking care of us.

And last but not the least thanks to all newbies for being also patience with me

In a nutshell, it was not my day and I am very sorry for slowing down the flow of the convoy with many second tries, track losses and a rescue. I was not comfortable when driving and still I am very sorry about my lack of performance.

Maybe the drive was too challenging for me or as I said before it was simply not may day or even a combination of both but even though I did what I did, worst performance ever, I still believe in me and willing to come back to sand to improve my skills

Lessons learned:

- All of them!!!
- And be humble...still millions of things to be learned

See you soon

Carlos

CARLOSS wrote: Sun Mar 07, 2021 12:31 pm Dear All,

First of all, many thanks to @alshamsi_m for organizing this amazing drive and special thanks to @Booy for his wise advices and never ending patience with me. Booy, you really deserve a statue in the Club when dealing with newbies

And also thanks to @giorgio o , @KIMOz Oz , @mpodroid oid , @Bu Touma Touma for taking care of us.

And last but not the least thanks to all newbies for being also patience with me

In a nutshell, it was not my day and I am very sorry for slowing down the flow of the convoy with many second tries, track losses and a rescue. I was not comfortable when driving and still I am very sorry about my lack of performance.

Maybe the drive was too challenging for me or as I said before it was simply not may day or even a combination of both but even though I did what I did, worst performance ever, I still believe in me and willing to come back to sand to improve my skills

Lessons learned:

- All of them!!!
- And be humble...still millions of things to be learned

See you soon

Carlos

Hey Carloss,

do not bother yourself, we all have bad days.
And if everything goes smoothly every time, you will not learn something new, we sharpen our skills with new challenges.
And at the end its all about the fun
See you soon in the sand.

A nice start to the day with a good opportunity for chat with the Almost family and detailed discussions on vehicles, upgrades, where you should or should not be but all opinion of experiences new or old and great Chai Karak so thank you to @alshamsi_m. I had a quick blast, thanks to @giorgio in an FJ and am still sitting here trying to understand the difference in power against comfort and view… I would like to take another FJ out just to see again but this time for a drive.

A brief intro with safety being paramount, some of the (nearly but not quite there yet) team were missed but for sure we had a full suite to have a great challenging day and lot of fun with, @alshamsi_m as the lead @mpodroid as the second lead, @osman as the third, followed by myself being 4th in the convoy, normally floating at the back, this was a for sure chaser of a drive and loved, quick pace, fantastic swirling dunes and great convoy. A big thanks to @KIMOz, @Tomvanhouten, and @CARLOSS for shared new experiences, well done!
Supported by @giorgio and @Booy with a great line of communication on the radio, very clear and precise and well understood, no needless chatter.

Had a full on camera video discussion around the benefits of the GoPro 360 that was very interesting explaining the advantage over our standard GoPro, however from the video shared by @mpodroid we watched, this adds to the viewpoint or highlights mpodroid editing capability. I must thank @mpodroid as the video was brilliant…… still remembering the old days of the Kodak. Life was one click away then a few weeks waiting to see what pictures you actually got.

We understood the choice and complexity of the Golden Dunes once the drive had started, as these are fairly known tracks so it was very interesting how @alshamsi_m
managed to find the untouched, unchartered and unknown sweeping, dynamic and challenging dunes for the convoy, I believe a brilliant experience for all in the convoy as we could not only follow @alshamsi_m leading the convoy but on several occasions as we swept passed the tail of the convoy….. amazing!

Once we arrived at the bowl, we understood this would be a great opportunity to try the bowl, as we were going to the top of the first dune leading into the bowl there was a convoy of Pajero’s that came through, so not wanting to excuse myself, did not go high enough to go long enough to go fast enough so followed gravity and came down early avoiding the bush. This now being on our bucket-list.

To be honest, with a phenomenal lead @alshamsi_m, great team with amazing dedicated support @Booy and @giorgio and the area we were playing in, it is very difficult to highlight anything other than the amazing buzz from the entire event.

Note: You should only consider yourself stuck if you are still there now!

After the drive, we tried Hamburgheni that was recommended on the forum, up the road and were not disappointed, cooked fresh and full of taste. https://goo.gl/maps/veiJP9sacJcN4QRr7

A little about the drive:





Some Wall Art from the day!

Hello everyone.

We had a lot of fun during the Golden Dunes drive. We started with the drive by warming up a little bit and then it was time for us to play in the bigger dunes. Luckily this time I did not get a pop out.

There were a lot of tracks during our drive, so losing the convoy was quite easy if you did not maintain a proper distance between the car in front of you. It was a bumpy drive at some stages, but it surely tested our suspensions. It was a fast pace drive with small and big arches during the drive. Knowing when, and how much, to accelerate a was key in this drive.

Thank you to the Almost 4x4 Team for organizing the drive and for the support. It was really an amazing drive and a great experience.

Adios amigos

Stephan