Almost4x4

Hello Almosters,

I was awaiting for this day for long time.
To give you some background, I'll start by explaining how I came to know about our Almost4X4 club.
As a proud owner of a Jeep Wrangler, my YouTube main searches were about the car.
One of the frequent suggestions that started showing was @mpodroid videos.
Yeah, Marco is somehow responsible for introducing the club to me (He knows it, I told him that already!)
I started following his channel and watched almost all videos related to Almost4X4 drives.
I was amazed about all those intermediate drive videos, but there was one who really caught my attention: Eggs In Basket!
A few months later, here I was, registering myself as a challenger in EIB.

The week before the drive was very active in the club chat box, with the Oldies and Marshals making jokes all the time trying to "scare" the challengers.
Of course their intentions were not actually scare us, but to add a certain spice to the event.
After all, EIB is a unique challenge and it's all part of the "game"!

Finally the day arrived, the excitement was big, and I wanted to make sure that I would not arrive late.
I arrived the meeting point 50 min ahead of time, which allowed me to have plenty of time to find a shadow and deflate and set the flag.
Soon, members started to arrive one by one and the excitement was obvious in everyone's smiling faces!
The famous "Gather up, gather up" mobilized all members to form a giant circle and @alshamsi_m welcomed us all and called for attendance and explained the game and its rules. Bu most importantly, Bu Salem highlighted the real importance of the game: it's not about the race or the win, instead, challengers should care about applying all the learnings acquired during our journey with the club, keep the calm and maintain the focus.

Two convoys were formed: one led by @alshamsi_m to take the challengers to the start point, and other led by @Daggerfall to take the audience to their "in-field balcony".
Meanwhile, the observers started to head to their checkpoints, set basecamp and wait for their customers.
Reaching the start point, the departing order was defined and the waypoints coordinates have been distributed to each challenger

THE CHALLENGE
I was given the 3rd position in departure order, after @alpied and @Enrique.
I placed myself at the crest of the dune (Start point) and waited, and soon the order came: "Go, go, go!"

Let's pause for a moment here...
I was about to enter in a situation that I never had been before.
I've never been alone in the desert, specially in technical areas.
This means that, whenever I go off-roading I'm always in a follower position, meaning that I never had to led my own drive before.
Ok, let's continue...

I started my challenge to quickly reach my first checkpoint. So far so good!
The next checkpoint was the farthest one, as I had to cross the entire arena to reach it. On my way, I had to cross very close to the audience area (I hope I did not disturb them too much, however @Ehab has the video footage to prove it!).
Waypoint by Waipoint, I was getting there but this story was about to have a plot twist: a easter egg contest!!!
In one of the waypoints I was requested to find an egg with my name on it. There was an area with eggs buried in the sand. Each egg was a true artwork with the "Angry Birds" theme painted on it, and with a challenger name.
The rule was simple: you break any egg, you get disqualified.
I was able to find all the eggs with other challengers names... twice... before I could find mine!...
Finally a found my egg, but before I rejoice, @David and @Sorin tell me: "Bu Salem likes you so much that you will not have to carry 1, but 2 extra eggs with you till the finish line without breaking any!"
I got in the car, wrapped the eggs with face masks and store them in the glove compartment with a thought in my mind: " InshAllah they will not crack!"
Anyway, I continued my journey and reached the last waypoint, which was the one further in in the arena.
Now the challenge was to find the straightest route to the finish line.
I confess it was the part where I had more fun, as I had to fight my fear of "dying on the beach", and at the same time, enjoying the section with the most straight crests to finally reach the finish line.
As a bonus, @rapailo asked me to do some "donuts" with the car just to check that no parts were damaged.

Challengers start grouping at the start point one by one once the drive was completed.
Soon, the game was declared finished and all the members grouped together to announce the results.

From there, we went to another scenic spot to enjoy the sunset while sharing food & bev, and plenty of chit chat.
It was a so pleasant gathering, that we left back to the road late in the dark.

MY TAKEAWAYS
As I said, this was my first time leading myself in a desert technical area.
Being in such situation, I had to adapt to these new circumstances and chose some sort of strategy.
In my case, I felt that my driving skills are now starting to consolidate, so I have put them in a sort of autopilot, letting my subconscious to take the actions on the driving part, while I was putting all my focus in reading the terrain and evaluating the best possible route minimizing the risks.
I guess this strategy worked very well for me, and I never felt in any sort of danger, and during my drive, I had only one 2nd try.
At the end, I was very happy with myself.

Before I finish, just a couple of notes:
ALL challengers did very well, and I'm shure we all learned a lot today!
A big shout to @Laarni for the amazing artwork on the eggs. Lara, you are such an artist! Thank you!
Finally, a HUGE THANK YOU to @alshamsi_m, Marshals, Crew, Media and Observers for organizing and bringing to life such an epic event.

See you soon in the sand again!

Pedro

Hello everyone,

First of all, what a great trip report @PedroLeal , felt the excitement reading it !!

First year for me as an observer and partnered up with @Petr we went off to our point 5.
Brought out the chairs and chit chatted till the first customer arrived, chit chatted again and there was a wave of people coming in. Exciting faces, happy people and a lot of fun.
Before I knew it the challenge was over and sitting in our waypoint, I didn't realize that it can go pretty quick.
Ok, let's go to the audience and receive a great juice -down from @Laarni , got the rest of the eggs loaded for the ones who didn't have a chance to dig yet and then I thought: Damn, I am driving here with four eggs now....am I being dumb? In the EIB area, not being a challenger, but still need to keep four eggs in one piece....I just got fooled

Anyway, once out, let's check, yes all good to give away .
The end ceremony and the sit down were characterized by the fantastic breeze and the weather calmed down greatly!

Really enjoyed the afternoon and hoping to see everyone soon again!

Tom

Hey everyone!

Amazing I got to participate in this event. I initially discovered it on Adrian's Youtube channel, and he's the reason I discovered almost4x4.
At the end of last weekend's drive, I went to see @alshamsi_m and @Barish to see if there was a way to speed up my stars, they told me to participate in EIB, I would then see whether I feel I'm confident or if I break my car meaning I'm in the right group. I text @Mabubaker he agrees to sign me up, BOOM! Super excited about this opportunity and I wait the entire week for the event.

So here we are the day of the event. I leave my place, kiss from the wife that adds "good luck, and you better win given the petrol price!". I arrive on time and deflate, the heat was already bad, sand burning through my old Vans (definitely should get boots now).

We then get called, the briefing starts and the attendance. "ALPIED?", "HERE!", "you will be the first car to start". At that point the pressure was at it's top.
We depart in 2 groups, challengers following @alshamsi_m we arrive to the start point and the 2 flags are right in front a mean looking dune. Awesome, stress goes up a notch, I'm supposed to be the opening car

We get the coordinates, we enter everything, my GPS is acting weird, stress level cannot be higher, wondering if the points I entered are correct.

@alshamsi_m gives me the go, deep breath, let's go, vrooooom - STUCK... OMG, at that point I'm convinced I'm out without even having started... But here comes my hero @Enrique throw the rope, tie everything, and in no time I'm out. Thanks again man!

First point all good, arrives my second point, everything good until they ask me to find my egg buried in the sand, no worries, how hard can it be? So I start, sand already sticking to my sweaty arms, 1 egg, 2 eggs, 3 eggs, 4,5,6 go to the other side 7,8,9,10, where is my egg? Turns out I was stacking all the eggs I would find above the area my egg was in Finally found it, "great job man, here you go another egg", run back to the car, "where am I going to put it?", open the glove box, full of useless things, safari biscuits from my kid, police cars, random papers, perfect, there are so many things in there it won't move!
I continue the rest of the drive with no major issues, and finally arrive to the finish line, hand in the papers, present the unbroken eggs (amazing art by the way!) Do a bunch of donuts to show the car has no damages and that's it, the challenge is finished. I'm happy I finished and happy with my performance. I was the first one to finish, so I drive back to the start point and wait there for the other challengers that would soon arrive one by one. We would discuss our performance the challenge and have great laughs.

Comes the time we have all being waiting; the results. To my biggest surprise with all the issues and time lost, I managed to arrive 3rd. I felt very proud

We then head out for the sunset, where I got to further bond with the team and especially @PedroLeal and @galindakis

What a day! Thanks to everyone!

Firstly I am not sure anyone can follow the report from @PedroLeal but here is my experience of the Eggs in Basket event yesterday.

This event has been a long time coming for me and I have heard the legend many times. Nothing could prepare me for the actual event though.

I arrived a little early so was able to see the rest of the Almosters roll in. I think the only thing that arriving early did was increase my heart rate in expectation of the event. As @PedroLeal mentioned there is lots of banter in the run up to the event that really sets the tone before the day even arrives and get all in your head.

After a few chats here and there, which included some advice from previous victims of EIB we were called over for the briefing.

@alshamsi_m took us through how the event will work and as the briefing went on we got closer and closer to taking on the challenge. He explained there would be a start point 5 stations and a finish point. Each challenger would do the 5 stations in a different order. If you got stuck you could either self recover, ask a fellow challenger to show mercy and help or ask a marshall to rescue (but this means disqualification).

So on to the start point. Once the audience and observers were all in place we left in 5 minute intervals from a spot next to @alshamsi_m

Spoiler alert, but by now most of you will know that I was one of the challengers who did not record a time due to disqualification and not completing the full event so I am going to share my experience via the learnings that I gained from the time in EIB.

Learning 1: Check your waypoints
When following waypoints given in an event make sure that they are all correct. My first issue that I never got to my first check point (3) because there was an issue with my GPS app (gaia). When inserting the coordinates for some reason the app was changing something that meant I was heading to the wrong location. I stopped, checked and changed it, but lost 15 minutes driving in circles.

Learning 2: Stay relaxed but focussed
Keeping a clear head when things aren’t going to plan is crucial. I was constantly repeating this mantra during the event and tried to keep my driving controlled and smooth as of the advice from previous victims of EIB and @alshamsi_m at the briefing. Ultimately though frustration set in which led to me getting stuck in a place where that shouldn’t even happen.

Learning 3: Don’t under estimate soft sand
This area has some of the softest sand this side of quick sand pit :-)
Where I got stuck was a flat plateau and when I initially got stuck I was able to move slightly using ATRAC but the softsand swallowed me up. If I had carried a little more momentum I think I wold have popped up onto the plateau and would have at least had a chance of getting a few stickers.

Learning 4: Never give up
Clearly EIB did not go as planned for me. I did not come to the event expecting to get the best time, but I did think I had the ability to complete the course. But strangely I feel like I came away having proved that I at least have staying power. I got stuck pretty early on and by @Carlos observation I was "properly" stuck. I feel like I gave it everything I had. Digging for almost an hour with the odd try with ATRAC and crawl control on the FJ. I only asked for a pull from the marshall once it was clear that no matter what I did, with only 5 minutes remaining and no sticker won, I was going to end up disqualified anyway.

Learning 5: Don’t go it alone
This has been something I have always followed anyway but, If this had happened to me at this time of year when I didn’t have support around me, I would have been in reall trouble. I also only just had enough water to get me through the digging in the heat, so will carry twice as much water next time.

All I can say is that it was an great experience to finally take part in EIB. I’m definitely disappointed I didn’t complete the challenge but I have plenty to take away.

Well done to all that did complete the course, great job.

And thanks to the support team for putting o such a great event, you guys are awesome.

Lastly thanks to @Carlos for the advice and encouragement and for the rescue at the end.

I have unfinished business and will hopefully take part again next year.

Dear Almosters,

EIB was for the whole club was a long-awaited event. The warm-up of the participants continued in the chat for several weeks, which increased the excitement every day. I often ride in the desert alone. And in order to get rid of the worries, I decided to drive in the desert on the eve of the race. As it turns out, that didn't help much. It would be more useful to enroll in a sapper course and postpone kong fu classes.

And now everyone is here! @alshamsi_m held a briefing, explaining what participants must do and what actions will lead to disqualification. but we learned one condition of the game only when we arrived at the point # 3. Everyone took their positions - observers, audience, challengers and ... angry birds! After the participants had a fair amount of trouble in entering the coordinates in a confusing order, we were sent to the war zone at a short interval. The game ended before I even started. At the Red Checkpoint, 300 meters after the start, I was greeted by @David and @Sorin with wide smiles, who offered to find a named egg buried in the sand. At first I resisted because I thought it was another prank. There was nowhere to go and I began my fatal sapper feat! Bruce Lee would be proud of me, but I'm not a sapper at all. Having punched the buried egg with my finger, I continued the game being disqualified. After the third check point, I got carried away driving and deviated a lot from the next point. Wandered by mistake to visit @KIMOz and @mpodroid , ate sweets with them. Zigzag a little between the high dunes until I got to @Tomvanhouten and @Petr . The feeling that I have good pace did not leave me until I arrived at the finish line, where @rapailo said "...everyone had already finished a long time ago...."

Of course, participation is key moment. Almost all challengers coped with the task of reaching the finish line and not getting stuck.
The idea of ​​the game is clear, but not as easy to execute as it seems. It teaches newbies to take control of emotions, avoid pop outs, skillfully use GPS and do not rush to fall into the trap.

Each of the club member has his own EIB file, which will always be fun to remember after many years!

Many thanks to everyone for organizing Eggs in Basket Game X and an unforgettable experience.

EIB, without any doubt one of my favorite drives, more than a drive a "party" with the Challengers as the stars of the show.

Many reports already describing how the drive went so I am just going to add some personal parts.

At the meeting point Shamsi called me to one side and asked me for "help with something", that was not help, it was such a pleasure!!!, I had so much fun at point 3 in the company of my great friend Sorin and our "guests".

It is natural for any newbie that loves desert driving to want to become intermediate, it is the natural progression, this drive as very well explained by Shamsi tries to prepare drivers for that possible step, you need to learn how to stay calm under pressure and react to unexpected changes, the reason is obvious, in interm speed and difficulty increase, you need to trust those in the convoy and they need to trust you, otherwise it is impossible to achieve a good flow, on top of that sometimes quick decisions need to be made, in those cases staying calm is the best way to achieve a positive result. Please trust the Marshalls, they know best, they have been doing this for a long time, if they consider not to be the time yet do not get upset, they are looking after your safety and the safety of the convoy, don't take it personally, if they believe you are ready, don't be scared, they know you can do it.

An event like EIB would not be possible without the work of many people, Crew and Marshalls setting everything up in advance, Media team putting together great videos, the amazing Lara that is not only a great driver if not also a true artist, our Founder that always comes up with ideas to surprise us, audience, time takers and observers and most importantly the Challengers that step forward onto the unknown to challenge themselves, well done to you all!!!

See you on the sand soon!!!

Good Morning Everyone

After the event, I went home to take a shower and go to sleep directly to wake up around 10 am !!!! Well that is not normal behavior for an early bird like me

The first idea that struck my mind was the CREW team & MARSHALS who were there ahead of us to prepare the place for the game Hat Off to all of you.

We had another successful event where I'm sure every single person left with a souvenir . The Expectation that we would have hot weather but we were lucky with a nice breeze for the whole day, at least for the people who were not digging

The after event was a great joy to the heart watching the SUNSET and you could hear the excitment of chater around the sitting area where everyone sharing their experiance.

Now you dagged by yourself, Next Get Ready to Rescue the Marshals !!!


Looking forward to see you soon

Cheers

Hello everyone!

First of all, congratulations to all challengers regardless of your final position as you are all winners because we were brave enough to register and make it happen. You will never forget this experience and will help you a lot in higher levels to come.

This year EIB was different to me, no more frustration like last year but happiness for helping the Club and my dear colleagues being part of the Observers’ team.

The Observer position is great because you can see the happy faces of the drivers coming to you: Some of them bringing the 2 pieces of papers with no time for chitchat looking for a quick exchange and the sticker ; some bringing themselves to the meeting point but forgetting the papers in their cars ; a few of them bringing the papers but almost loosing them because of the wind ; and my favorite, the one following the colors code (1st yellow, 2nd orange, etc.) instead of the assigned waypoints sequence.

Forgot to mention that I had the pleasure to team up with our advance fella @Arminjune who is an Almost veteran and a magnificent guy, actually, I remembered that he was one of the guys helping me last year in EIB when I had the pop-out in my second and last WP so the karma was somehow present in this challenge.

We took care of WP1, yellow color, having the opportunity to witness some stucks not far away from us. Some of them managed to release themselves but unfortunately, we needed to rescue 2 cars just at the end of the challenge.

Finally, I would like to thanks @alshamsi_m for organizing and leading, all Marshals, advance and interm members and all contestants and audience. It was an incredible experience and willing to be part of it in the next edition!

See you soon!
Carlos

@Martin , you are a brave man and gave everything you got for releasing yourself but your car was badly stuck. Don't feel because this experience will help you to grow and become a better driver...and you took advantage to do some sport so it was a win-win

Not finishing EIB does not mean anything bad, you were not lucky that day, that is all, and it will not prevent you to be promoted to higher levels in due time...you have many examples in the Club.

keep on doing like that...this is the way

Martin wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 11:18 am Firstly I am not sure anyone can follow the report from @PedroLeal but here is my experience of the Eggs in Basket event yesterday.

This event has been a long time coming for me and I have heard the legend many times. Nothing could prepare me for the actual event though.

I arrived a little early so was able to see the rest of the Almosters roll in. I think the only thing that arriving early did was increase my heart rate in expectation of the event. As @PedroLeal mentioned there is lots of banter in the run up to the event that really sets the tone before the day even arrives and get all in your head.

After a few chats here and there, which included some advice from previous victims of EIB we were called over for the briefing.

@alshamsi_m took us through how the event will work and as the briefing went on we got closer and closer to taking on the challenge. He explained there would be a start point 5 stations and a finish point. Each challenger would do the 5 stations in a different order. If you got stuck you could either self recover, ask a fellow challenger to show mercy and help or ask a marshall to rescue (but this means disqualification).

So on to the start point. Once the audience and observers were all in place we left in 5 minute intervals from a spot next to @alshamsi_m

Spoiler alert, but by now most of you will know that I was one of the challengers who did not record a time due to disqualification and not completing the full event so I am going to share my experience via the learnings that I gained from the time in EIB.

Learning 1: Check your waypoints
When following waypoints given in an event make sure that they are all correct. My first issue that I never got to my first check point (3) because there was an issue with my GPS app (gaia). When inserting the coordinates for some reason the app was changing something that meant I was heading to the wrong location. I stopped, checked and changed it, but lost 15 minutes driving in circles.

Learning 2: Stay relaxed but focussed
Keeping a clear head when things aren’t going to plan is crucial. I was constantly repeating this mantra during the event and tried to keep my driving controlled and smooth as of the advice from previous victims of EIB and @alshamsi_m at the briefing. Ultimately though frustration set in which led to me getting stuck in a place where that shouldn’t even happen.

Learning 3: Don’t under estimate soft sand
This area has some of the softest sand this side of quick sand pit :-)
Where I got stuck was a flat plateau and when I initially got stuck I was able to move slightly using ATRAC but the softsand swallowed me up. If I had carried a little more momentum I think I wold have popped up onto the plateau and would have at least had a chance of getting a few stickers.

Learning 4: Never give up
Clearly EIB did not go as planned for me. I did not come to the event expecting to get the best time, but I did think I had the ability to complete the course. But strangely I feel like I came away having proved that I at least have staying power. I got stuck pretty early on and by @Carlos observation I was "properly" stuck. I feel like I gave it everything I had. Digging for almost an hour with the odd try with ATRAC and crawl control on the FJ. I only asked for a pull from the marshall once it was clear that no matter what I did, with only 5 minutes remaining and no sticker won, I was going to end up disqualified anyway.

Learning 5: Don’t go it alone
This has been something I have always followed anyway but, If this had happened to me at this time of year when I didn’t have support around me, I would have been in reall trouble. I also only just had enough water to get me through the digging in the heat, so will carry twice as much water next time.

All I can say is that it was an great experience to finally take part in EIB. I’m definitely disappointed I didn’t complete the challenge but I have plenty to take away.

Well done to all that did complete the course, great job.

And thanks to the support team for putting o such a great event, you guys are awesome.

Lastly thanks to @Carlos for the advice and encouragement and for the rescue at the end.

I have unfinished business and will hopefully take part again next year.

Dear Almosters,

What a fantastic event on Saturday !
The Banter and Build up in the group chat all week certainly had everyone excited (or scared).

This year I was assigned to Crew duties helping out to set up the event behind the scenes, which in itself is a very great way of giving something back to the club, the founders and marshals - considering the time and effort they put into the drives every weekend for us as members to enjoy.

I reached the meeting point early and happy to see @Rashidjass descending from the dunes to help out. we made the dash from meeting point to start point, Rashid then carefully chose a nice easy straight crest climb for the challengers to be sent on their way. We were soon joined by @KIMOz and set about erecting the club and sponsor flags to mark the entry point.

Suddenly a car emerged from the desert it was @luckeym he informed us that a couple of his friends were stuck in soft sand close by and had been stranded for a couple of hours - @Rashidjass set off to assist, luckily he wasn't needed as others had turned up to help

Back to the job at hand by now @Rathica had joined us to help also

We headed back to the meeting point were we found everyone milling around with excited (nervous) smiles on their faces.

Once the briefing was done and the rules explained we headed for the starting point again. The challengers lined up, the observers took their positions and we settled into the audience gallery. Getting to the audience gallery was a challenge in itself with 2 cars requiring zip ties and duct tape application to their rear bumpers and a couple of crested cars on the way in.

The Challenge got underway and we sat in relative comfort under the tent with a great view of the challengers attacking the course with great gusto ! when approaching the audience some drivers gave thumbs up and happy smiles, some looked very disoriented and drove in circles while figuring out where to go next, still others put on quite show for us with wheels flying and sand showers ! what a great day !!

All too soon it was over and we packed up the tent and headed to the start point for the announcement of the results
Congratulations to everyone who took part, there are no real winners or losers in this event it is just one more step in your learning journey.

The sunset location and conversations with everyone were a lot of fun, but eventually it was time to head home - I was exhausted and I wasn't even a challenger !!

A huge thank you to @alshamsi_m for all the work that went into planning the event.
Thank you to the Founder, Marshals, Advanced and Intermediates for your guidance and support @alshamsi_m @Rashidjass @SINGH @Daggerfall @rapailo @Abubakar
@Arminjune @Tomvanhouten @David @CARLOSS @Petr @Soren @dorudoru
The media Team for capturing (and creating the moments) @Sorin @mpodroid @Ehab @nidal78
And special thanks to my fellow Crew Mates @KIMOz @Rathica

Lastly a special thank you to @Laarni our resident artist extraordinaire the "Angry Birds" eggs were amazing, the time and effort you put in is outstanding - lucky none of them that were buried in the sand didn't hatch - they would have been very angry indeed.