Almost4X4 GPS Challenge - 2023

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Mghoneim
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Hello Almosters,

Gallopers Team (@PedroLeal , @alpied , myself and our navigator @Mafalda .

Arrived before midnight to the Friday camp and enjoyed the funny stories by the fire but it was not too long before i had to go get some sleep :z_z_Z: for the long day.

Arrived to the meeting point in the morning and briefing started at 7:30am by @Solmaz and @alshamsi_m then at 8am the game started and each team got 30 mins to upload the coordinates to their GPS devices(which was barely enough for our team). Our strategy was to visit the points on the camp side of the gatch first following a certain line but it was not too long to figure out the some teams share the same starting strategy.we fought for the first 2-3 markers and I think this first hour of the game is were we saw the most of other teams. After the first hour we met a team here or there but the area was so big that sometimes we got more than an hour with no one in sight.


The excitement in the first few hours was volatile for me as we missed many point as the first visitors. However with our first squishy toy we were back full of excitement but by then the sun was the biggest challenge as we could barely figure out the terrain and see our GPS devices! That stayed for a good 2 hours. We had our first 10 minute break around one of the markers where we met @osman @galindakis and @Enrique if i am not mistaking then we carried on to finish the section on the camp side and decided to cross the gatch road and explore the other side. We fell into a technical area as soon as we went to the other side and took some time to get passed it then lost some more time trying to find the famous marker that was not on the ground (Thanks to @Rashidjass ) and had a second break after that. We continued to drive passing by 3-4 more markers without meeting any other teams and collected our second squishy toy at 3 :06 from point number 6 at the far end of the game.

We decided to head to the finish line in a certain line were 2-3 more point would fall. We struggled at the last point but we could see the camp so we knew it would take 2-3 minutes to reach. Failed to fin the last point and headed back to the camp around 3:50pm.

We managed to get second place after all, congrats to the team!!

Overall the game is great, We got to experience all of our skills from driving to recovering and in our team case intermediately leading the convoy as well. I am really looking forward for the GPS challenge sniper editions grin .


Huge thanks to @Solmaz for organizing such a great event, and to all the marshals and founder for the support.
Cheers,
MGhoneim
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Difficult one to write but probably more important than ever before so better to get it done soon ...

First of all, how lucky we are to count with Marshalls that dedicate so much time to arranging events like Saturday's for us the members, every single detail planned and executed to perfection, amazing work done by everyone organizing with of course the mastermind Solmaz at the top, thank you so much for all the hard work. Please Solmaz a 2nd edition of this drive in the future, I promise I will try to finish it and not spoil the party ...

28 years after my only other car accident (both my fault) it was time for it again ... I guess that happy if it is again 28 to the next one ... Both bruised physically and in my confidence, no doubt a good sign that more annoyed than anything else, it could have been much worst so I should consider myself lucky. Lucky not only because I have come out of it injury free if not because it also happened surrounded by friends who took care of me so well afterwards, from the 1st minute to up to now with the messages and calls, won't list everyone but you know who you are, many times said the "not a club a family", I would not be able to find a more fitting description.

See you on the sand soon.
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piotr
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GPS challenge - first-of-a-kind event in our almost 4x4 portfolio, which without any doubt should (I will keep my fingers crossed very hard) become a yearly happening - so much fun it was!
It was planned and executed to perfection (thank you @Solmaz and all supporting Marshals and Crew!!), giving the newbies and intermediates a chance to challenge themselves at navigating a massive and very varied (and in many places very difficult) terrain.

Together with @Tomvanhouten, @CARLOSS and @laarni as navigator I was part of the PDS team.

Unfortunately my duties did not allow me to join the camp the night before, so by setting alarm at 3am in the morning I took a bit of a gamble if my energy levels will be enough to survive the whole day - but thankfully due to steady adrenaline levels throughout that ended up not to be a problem :) I departed Dubai 4am sharp and turned up at the campsite at 6:30 sharp, despite some foggy patches along the way - just on time for a quick chat at breakfast.

The briefing started at 7:30, and by 8 we were working our strategies and punching coordinates in the GPS devices. We settled on starting in the north-west section and then working our way through the other areas depending on the time/difficulty level. We quickly confirmed that finding the purple (approximate) points is quite difficult (as anticipated), so we dropped the first point and started tracking the yellow/red ones instead.

It took us a couple of points to settle on the process and roles of reporting the points (spot / take time / collect squishy / stamp the sheet / send sms / take picture / decide on the next point / decide on the lead / punch the coordinates) but onwards it became a choreographed routine.

We were enjoying ourselves navigating the terrain and working through the map at a steady pace until after 2pm (and having reached the 26th point) a technical malfunction in power steering eliminated us from further fun (I now know how a F1 driver can feel!!!) - something that happens from time to time but always at the worst possible moment. We tried to get the car out on our own, but it soon became apparent we will need extra help. We reported our issue through the sms and soon @Scorpio with @Rashidjass came to help (it was probably in the worst possible spot - far away and middle of high dunes :). In the meantime one of the other teams got our radio message and came to check upon us (losing their valuable time but showing what almost 4x4 stands for!) - thank you so much for that!
It took us good part of 2 hours to get the car out on the road and get back to camp - right on time to witness the final ceremony.

From a newbie perspective the GPS challenge was definitely a great opportunity to advance all types of skills - not only hard-core GPS navigation, but (maybe even more so), reading terrain, driving technique, confidence and endurance. I have not driven much in the last few months, but in good hands of @CARLOSS and @Tomvanhouten I was able to follow a challenging terrain at a good pace - being surrounded by experienced intermediates it almost felt like a private drive :) It also was a great opportunity to support each other through the day.

Overall (and not counting the rescue) we covered 97km, in 5:45h).

And as a last point (and once again) - a very big thank you to @Solmaz and all the GPS Challenge team members - for investing their precious private time to make this wonderful event possible!! We also appreciate the time invested (and creativity!! in putting up the markers)! :)
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Tomvanhouten
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Hi everyone,

what an amazing day it was! The area is just great, our team did very well and the day progressed like it was nothing. Can't say anything else, just really fantastic!

We tried to be as fast as we could safely do and besides that to enjoy the great area we were in. We even took time for some playing sessions in the technical areas, surfing over the tops and focusing on control. We really enjoyed our freedom!

Unfortunately a technical issue, made us stop the competition and call the marshals help. This was another learning curve for us: car stuck without steering in an angled position with the steering the wrong way around. The need of an anchor car (first time for me) and very skilled marshals took us out. Thank you other team for your help as well!
Glad, we called in the help of the more experienced as we didn't feel comfortable doing this rescue ourselves.

All and all, a really great day navigating and playing the game, although the 100m radius ones are not my kind of game, the day was amazing!

Thank you everyone for making this possible

Tom
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brett
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Dear Almosters

The Lost Boys set off as a team from Dubai at 730pm Friday night and headed to the camp. It was 1040pm when we arrived to meet others and have a short chit chat around the fire, then off to set up tents and get some valuable rest before the early start in the morning.
It was a chilly and slightly foggy morning, by the stated time 730am all the teams and Marshals had arrived and the briefing was done, course explained, rules and safety instructions etc, by 8am the teams went off to strategize and start entering the GPS points. 830 sharp we were told ‘leave the camp now’ or you will lose points !!
Before going further, I must thank @Solmaz for the amazing job she did in arranging every detail of the challenge, the hours upon hours of work to set the points, draft the rules and all the organization. Thank you to all the Marshals who set the flag markers a week before @alshamsi_m , @Rashidjass , @rapailo , @SINGH , @presa , @Scorpio @Agalon and for being there to assist from the base camp and track the teams progress – ensuring the teams didn’t get lost in the vast area.
The Lost Boys Team – My Self, @anton and @KIMOz – our strategy was very basic, Kimoz would lead, I would sweep. Kimoz entered the GPS points, Anton would fill out the paper work at each point and I would handle the photos . our approach was to head to the outer perimeter (in the opposite direction of most other teams). We started out hot collecting 4 toys at our first 4 points. We drove all day hardly encountering any other teams along the way, and wondered why, but the toys were gone so obviously other teams had reached before us.
Our agreed goal from the start was simply to go out and reach as many points as possible in the allotted time, taking a sure and steady approach, not to race or take any unnecessary risks, we were not out to compete, simply to enjoy and challenge ourselves. So the result was unexpected, we managed to reach 27 out of the 40 coordinates, some of the “hidden” markers took us some time to locate Thanks @Rashidjass for the tree mounted flag we spent quite sometime locating that one hidden in plain sight! At about 325pm we were trying to locate one last point before heading back to camp – we looked every where finally at 345pm we found it, so then it was a dash to the camp before the 4pm cut off time. We were all tired and of course mindful of this being the time when concentration fades and mistakes happen, the camp was approx 6km away and there was a technical area to cross before the flat area back to camp. During the day we had a few stucks and recoveries to contend with, but this last 5-6km were critical, one stuck and we would not make it back on time, by a miracle we drove through the technical area with out incident, on to the flat and floored it to the finish line arriving at 356pm, funniest part was @anton getting a pop out as he crossed the finish.
As I mentioned we did not start the challenge to compete with other teams only to challenge ourselves so the end result was completely unexpected.
Once again what an amazing day and huge thanks to @Solmaz , looking forward to this becoming and annual event.
Until the next Adventure

Brett
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CARLOSS
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Hi everyone!

This is clearly one of the best off-road experiences in my life so let’s start with recognizing the great effort, time and care spent by superwoman @Solmaz thumbsup in designing and executing this unbelievable game. And not only her, but also the numerous number of Marshals (@Rashidjass , @rapailo , @SINGH , @presa , @Scorpio and @Agalon ) , founder and master of masters @alshamsi_m and Crew supporting the event. @giorgio , you were missed!

PDS team was formed by @Tomvanhouten , @piotr and myself and we took it very seriously since the beginning. We wanted to have fun on a safe way and eventually winning so, not too much room for improvisation cool . A few days before the contest we spent some time assessing the playground and playing around with different strategies (should we follow Green?, what about Purple = difficult to get, etc.) even, we came up with a tentative route (blue line in the photo) trying to catch as many difficult points as possible expecting that our “Machiavelli” Marshalls zomg would have spent nice time making Red, Blue and Purple flags very difficult to reach. And we did not forget about the massive surface to be covered so, time was also a limiting element.

All in all, we decided to set a base line route to be customized depending upon the final flags’ location. Our initial intention was to cover South part first starting from the SW and later reaching North from the NE but actually we did the opposite brigade.baka-wolf.com due to final WP spots and hoping that some other teams will be more interested in South due to easy points closer to the camp spot. We did first North area from the NW and attacked South from the SE. Anyway, we loaded two or three WP and got started.

As described by Piotr, at the beginning we lost some time due to lack of coordination but once we “greased the machine” it worked like a Swiss watch. We made an excellent progress in the first 2-3 hours collecting 8-9 fluffy toys and finished the North part in half a day. After some time, we did not find any more toys meaning that we were not the first ones and some tracks also started to be noticeable. At that time, it was a bit easier because some flags were found just by following the tracks (feedback for Marshals playingsmiley ).

The flow mas magnificent only interrupted a few times with stuck and second tries and most of the time the mini-convoy was led by either Tom or myself with Piotr in the middle performing like an real intermediate. I am very happy with the performance and safety of our team and I don’t regret anything we did which is not easy in more than 6hrs driving with some tricky hours with lack of clear “visibility” (noon time was hard to manage with 2 areas: bright & shiny dunes and brighter & shinier dunes). For sure there were a few minor mistakes but I guess this is normal redbullsmiley

By the time we were approaching the last 2 hours something unfortunate happened whut : I was the last, closing the convoy, and I did not read well the next maneuver to be done: A left turn with a small wall in front of me preceded by a ditch, approaching it a bit faster than needed causing a medium size impact (not that big to be honest) below the engine with the power steering deciding to give up. patapon

And that was the end. TT TT

When trying to come back to the camp spot in 2H I got badly stuck with car pointing right and wheels pointing left but impossible to manage between us because the steering decided not to move. Before making any stupid decision, we decided to call the Marshals and after a while both Rashid and Singh came over and resolved the situation in a blink of an eye. In the meantime, another team (Ehab, Imran and Nidal) also came for support losing valuable time. Thanks to all of you for the amazing support and sorry guys for the time lost. Finally, Rashid drove the car till the West gate struggling with the broken steering and even in that situation, he did much better than myself when the car was ok cool . Marshal’s power!

At the end, we could enjoy the prizes ceremony and even though I still feel sorry for my teammates (we could not finish because of me) I keep very nice memories and learning from this full day drive blank . Tons of fun had on a safe way, very proud of myself and my team.

Congrats to the winners and teams finishing the contest, you have all my respect and appreciation. thumbsup

Thanks a lot Piotr and @Ehab for giving me a ride back to the camp and home. And Rashid for dealing with the towing truck driver in your mother tongue.

See you soon, take care.
Carlos

PS. In more than 2.5 yrs of off-roading this is the first time I am not able to reach home in my own car so I should not complain too much, I guess :-)
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KIMOz
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Hi All

Before Starting the report, I would like to express my gratitude to our super hero @Solmaz for arranging such a great successful event.

We “Lost Boys” team members @brett @AntonT &I met on the E611 and headed to the camp via E75 (Truck road) it was so boring driving on the truck road all the way to AD-Alain Road. Then as soon as we touched AD-AlAin road, Casper was flying with the speed of 160 km/hr. After we fueled up we headed to the camp.

We had a great Chitchat with the gang around the bonfire till I started to feel a sleep by around midnight, then headed to bed in the middle of no where.

At the Morning every one was so energetic and excited to listen to the game rules during the briefing that was announced by @Solmaz … basically there were 40 points placed within a radius of 10km with different difficulty levels (easy (green), medium (yellow) & Hard(red)), thats in addition to the hidden ones (blue) and the purple ones that are within 100m radius. And ofcourse the scoring weight is depending on the difficulty of the point. At each point there is a pouch having a toy and a stamp, so who ever reaches the point first will collect the toy to have bonus points to the score. In addition, once we reach to a point, we have to stamp the checklist mentioning the arrival time, also a selfie with the teams and cars is to be taken at each point.

After the briefing we had our tactical meeting to agree on our strategy. It was starting from the southern part and driving clockwise collecting as much points as possible, specially the ones with heavy scores. In addition we started with a point with UTM format, as we were thinking that the majority of competitors will not waste time at the beginning of the game entering coordinates with such format.
Upon agreeing the sequence on the track we started to drive. I was the lead, @brett was the sweeper and @AntonT was in the middle. Also my role in the drive was to input the points and control the gps and track, @AntonT was handling the checklist and stamping, also sending the SMSs to the control camp and @brett was taking the selfies. We agreed among us that we are driving to enjoy and safety is our target.

We drove the first section that was having alot of technical areas, and we realized that we were driving opposite to the other teams. We collected 4 toy at the beginning then we touched the flat area heading the the other section at the north west having big dunes and diches. It was nearly noon time when we drove that area, and we were seeing everything white there.

We continued the drive till we reached the last point (point 37) that was purple one at around 3:25pm, we were scanning the full area as if we were looking for a lost kid, at a moment i told the guys that we have 3 min to find the point. Luckily i found it after 3 dunes from the point’s coordinate at around 3:45pm

We drove back to the camp that was around 6 km away from the point , we had only 15 min to reach, so I was telling the guys ”please concentrate on the drive to avoid any stucks as there is no single second to wast”

At last I felt the success when I saw the camp ahead. We completed our drive 5 min before the cutoff time. Im glad that we managed our time well.

@brett & @AntonT well done guys, it was great driving with you.

We covered 27 points. It was our pleasure during the winners announcement that we win the 1st place 🥇 with a score of 388 and the most points covered.

I would like to Thank all ALMOST4x4’s Marshals and Founders for teaching us, built our skills and give us the confidence to lead and drive around 111km in the desert alone with different types of terrains for the full day.

Our Tactical Meeting:

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Track:

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See You in Sand thumbsup
KIMOz
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aknigge
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Hi all,

I would like to express my gratitude to @Solmaz and to everybody else who was involved in organizing this amazing event.

It was super well organized, the instructions were very clear (and didn’t leave room for any creative bending of the points system) and the friendly competitive spirit of the day was great fun.

Unfortunately, our team were unable to finish the competition, but this didn’t matter and most important was that everyone ended up safe and well.

The care for each other, the emphasis on safety, and the quality of the event planning and organization make Almost 4x4 a very unique and special club. I feel very happy I can be part of it.

I learned during this event that Gaia is ok, but a proper GPS device is better (my next birthday gift). I learned again the importance to be always present while driving and to avoid any distractions. I learned about different formats to enter GPS coordinates. I learned to look up and not only to the ground (we looked for the flag in the tree for a loooong time).

See u in the sand next weekend!
Best,
Alex

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presa
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Firstly I want to give KUDOS to @Solmaz by the great effort on organizing such an event.

I dont like listing people, since there might be someone missing, but we must also thanks to @alshamsi_m , @Rashidjass , @rapailo , @SINGH , @Scorpio , @Agalon and @giorgio for marking the points on the week before the event.

Such a long drive, up to 7h, can be very demanding, even more in an area like that!

As we mentioned on the chat all teams greatly overachieved my estimations. The team with the least point taken was better what I was expecting to be the top scores. The winning team did more than twice what I was expecting to be a good score... this means that the participants are evolving faster and better than I predicted, well done guys!!
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PedroLeal
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My first words go to @David, we are happy and deeply grateful for knowing that he well and safe.

My second words go to the brilliant mastermind of this challenge @Solmaz. The level of detail, the extensive preparation and flawless organization was way beyond everyone's high expectations! What an amazing experience has been offered to us, that will be remembered for a looong time.

My third words go to our Marshals @Solmaz. @Agalon, @presa, @giorgio, @Rashidjass, @Scorpio, @SINGH and Founder @alshamsi_m. They were pivotal for this challenge organization planting the markers the weekend before, and monitoring and supporting the participants on the day of the challenge. A word of appreciation to our crew team @KIMOz, @brett and @Rathica. Sometimes they go un-noticed but they work a lot behind the scenes for us! Thank you!

My fourth words go to my "Gallopers" team mates @Mghoneim and @alpied. You guys are amazing, thank you for playing safe!

Finally my last words go to ALL the participants of this challenge. As it has already been mentioned, the performance of all the teams was much higher that what have been antecipated, which shows how much we have been progressing with our club, but mostly, how well we have been trained by our marshals. I am really proud of all of us for the level of performance shown in this challenge. Well done everyone!

Now, the challenge trip report!
My passenger @Mafalda and Myself went to camp the night before, but we decided not to join the main camp, since we wanted to go sleep early because the next day was expected to be very focus demanding and tiring, so we have setup our tent 6km before the meeting location.
Saturday morning we arrived the meeting point around 7am and we had time for a warm cup of coffee before the briefing.
The challenge briefing was given by the game mastermind @Solmaz and it was very detailed, with all the rules explained to the smallest detail, and the materials distributed to the challengers.
We then got the permission to open the coordinates envelope and the game clock started ticking!
Our "Gallopers" Team strategy was very simple: Let's have fun, play safe, and give opportunity to all the team members to lead and navigate.
We decided to input all the 40 wpt at once in our GPS systems, which took us almost half an hour to complete it, which explains the fact that we were one of the last teams to start moving, and could not be the first team to reach most of the markers (at the end, we just got 2 squichy toys).
At the beginning, we had some fun going on "race mode" as we were having "The lost Boys" in our sight also heading to the same marker to collect the toy, but they got there first!
Our route planning was to set a course for the next 3 or 4 markers, complete it and then set another 3 or 4 markers course. Also, for every 3 or 4 markers we were switching the lead. This gave us the opportunity to practice leading a convoy, which revealed to be quite challenging (the sand color had 2 tones: bright and brighter) but also very exciting!
Such full day challenge is very focus and energy demanding, so we did a lot of stops to drink, eat and rest. One of the stops was under a tree shade to have our lunch. The tree also happened to be the location of a famous blue marker that was "hidden" in it!
We saved for last a purple marker that was very close to the finish line. The flag could be anywhere in a 100m radius. We spread ourselves to try to find it, but after 15 minutes of tirelessly search, we could not find it, so we call it off and head to the finish to end our drive 8 minutes before 4pm.
I confess that I got surprised watching our "Gallopers" team being awarded with the 2nd place, but the fact is that we did very well, and we followed our strategy very strict: "Have fun, play safe and give every member the opportunity to lead and navigate!"

NOTE: After reading the reports above, I came to know the reason why the team from @Ehab, @ImranFJ and @nidal78 arrived late and got 50 points penalty for it, which made them lose the 2nd place.
Guys, for what you did, you guys are the WINNERS for me, and a perfect representation of our club values! Proud of you!

Now, let's prepare the armour for the next challenge - sniper edition! thumbsup

See you all soon in the sand!

Pedro
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