Fast And Dusty
One late comer today (and without a radio 🙈). Let’s keep up the standard Fellas!
Before the briefing I showed the group how a clean air box looks like and after the drive with crests how much sand was inside the box, that was to highlight the importance on cleaning your air box and air filter after every trip with cresting!!!
That’s also a heads up to invest in a snorkel!
After the briefing and defining convoy order we moved to our technical area for the warm up. Surprisingly I found some very nice clean crests in the beginning of the trip and we attacked them straight away. A few second tries and one stuck later we made out of the technical area.
We took a ten minutes break to brief on the second part o the trip, high speed slopes!!!
I highlighted the importance of keeping the distance constant in the convoy so it does not stretch making the last cars loosing the track. We started hitting the slopes at 60km/h in the first series. 80km/h on the second series and finally 99,8km/h(I announced 100 km/h the portal 😬) on the last series of slopes.
One more break and a quick briefing before we started the series of long cresting. This time no stucks, just some second tries.
As the sun was setting quite quick, we moved towards the exit but this time with rear wheel drive only. The drivers had a chance to practice some donuts and side sloping in 4×2 to experience the behavior of their cars in this condition!
I want to thanks all the Fellas for joining this trip. I personally had a blast!
Thanks Salah for the second lead, thanks Javier and Preggy for the support in the back of the convoy!
Please share your feedback!!!
15 comments on Fast And Dusty
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It was a great drive and we started on time. I loved the drive although some turns on the path needed to account for the LWB vehicles.
A memorable trip. One of the best trips I ever had. Enjoyed every moment of the trip starting from the technical route to high speed side sloping then cresting. I learned so much in this trip about desert driving and about my truck. I always expect to learn new things in a trip but never expected to learn this much in one trip. For example, in this trip this is the first time I notice the huge differences between a truck & jeeps in terms of approach, departure angles & ground clearance. This trip helped me to recognise the dimensions & angles of my truck. In the evening, I was a different driver than the afternoon. Keeping up with jeeps in technical routes is challenging, fun & great experience.
5 stars are not enough, there should be bonus stars for this trip.
Thank you so much Tiago this is one of the best trips ever.
Big thanks to our second lead Salah, sweeper Preggy & support Javier.
Afwan Habib! 💪🏼
I was really impressed with the way you handled your vehicle on this trip and I could see you growing in confidence with each level 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
The Raptor is a great desert vehicle. You will fall in love with the way your car dances across the desert as you get more familiar with its capabilities.
Tiagos drives = Drive it like you stole it….. 4 hours of driving with Tiago was a real treat, i enjoyed the 1st part of the drive the most through technical dunes .
He drove a fantastic track which threw challenges at all the drivers at every stage & all coped well.
Tiago made sure the drive lived up to its name & we drove really fast in the 2nd phase of the drive & ended the day Cresting into the sunset.
Thanks to Salah & Preggy for Support & Javier for a flawless recovery.
You kept the pace up and down slopes and on the crests. All I saw was your dust Bru – wonderful 🚙💨💨💨
6 star experience for a 5 star rated drive. Indeed it was for advanced drivers only as i was the only fool not able to catch up. The drive was split into 3 parts.
The first one was tricky with short ups and downs in a technical area as warmup. I was really slowing the fellas in the back as my stock suspensions were taking a beating. I even got crested on the top of a really high and steep dune due to a silly error on my end not to turn down and instead fight the crest going upwards. Luckily the sweeper team were able to pull me out of that sticky situation. Kudos to you fellas.
Next round was rally racing on side slopes ranging speeds between 69-99 km/h. Jeez was it a head rush or what, again i was stretching the convoy from the middle, but then i just closed my eyes (not literally), put my foot down on the pedal and soared my little red rig down the dunes thus making up to the fellas for my earlier sloppiness and improved following distance.
Then the third part was cresting over fresh dunes for long stretch. This part was challenging but i was able to keep the pace as the speed was less and bumps were hardly any, so we were agile over the dunes.
Finally leader made us switch to two wheel drive in order to make the final stretch exciting with a twist. It was tricky alright as me & another fella caught ourselves in a pickle as we both were stuck side ways almost on top of each other. Then the sweepers came back to the rescue. Cheers mates
Wow what a joyride that lasted about 3 hours without counting breaks. I need to do the 2nd and 3rd parts again skipper as a revision course.
To the fellas who missed this one don’t and i mean DONT miss this one again if history repeats itself because it will rock your world literally.
Much love, sid.
Hey Sid: I think you really challenged yourself on this trip. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Your cresting definitely improved as the drive got on. Yes your car is stock but tapping your way across the crest is what will keep you moving🚙💨💨💨💨
Don’t beat yourself up buddy. You did great. Remember that your car was built for this… So take it easy in the technical areas and watch your bumper clearance, then put the peddle to the metal when the terrain flattens out.
AMMAAAZZZIINGGG drive. Exhilarating with constant briefing in between of the level of the challenge and what to expect in that section of the drive.
The Count to 3 and Go strategy was effective – it is easier to see the distance and then maintain it between cars.
Another change that was great for that pace of drive, was when a driver fell off the crest, letting the convoy move forward on the crest while the driver rejoins and resumes his place in the convoy as soon as he can.
The Fellas also showed great discipline in making room for Fellas to get back into the convoy.
Loved it. Excellent way to end the weekend 👍🏼
👑🚙💨
The drive was everything it promised to be – fast, and extremely dusty on account of the Fellas flattening every crest in sight … I even flattened some crests that were not in sight🤫. Tiago did an excellent job of navigating a course through the technical area that was challenging but very manageable if the techniques taught during earlier lessons were applied. Although I have a preference for technical drives, the high speed side sloping was my favorite yesterday. It brought out the monster in everyone and will probably keep us dreaming about the desert for a week.
On a more serious note these are some areas that need attention during the next drive:
– there was a lot of hesitation when it came to announcing second tries and stucks. This can lead to an accident in more advanced drive levels where technical areas can also be fast paced and you do not always have full visibility of the car in front of you due to the nature of the terrain.
– Attempting self recovery before announcing your situation and reversing down a slope without assistance from the sweeper. We don’t do this in desert Fellas. Even if you can self recover, you do not have the same field of visibility that the sweeper has. Attempting to reverse down a slope without assistance can result in you driving into a ditch or rolling over.
– We are guests in this beautiful country. Desert Fellas are friends of the desert and we try to mimise our impact on the desert ecology. We leave only tire tracks and footprints behind and do not interfere with the fauna and flora of the desert. We also do not deliberately tamper with or drive over the delicate sand stone formations that the authorities work so hard to preserve.
I loved driving with you all and look forward to our next drive.
Well said Preggy!!!
A great afternoon by all means. Tiago you rocked today, everything about the trip was perfect. I really think there should be more trips like that in the future.
Well it was me that was late, and you can see I’m late leaving the feedback too. Sorry and won’t happen again (being late) 😉
The trip was awesome, the fast part was super fun. But all these jeeps have to remember the HEAVY long wheel base kids in the back. We have to break harder and get slower to make those sharp turns. So the sling shot effect in the back is big and gets easily stretched out. We were hitting well over 110k to catch-up at times.
One last feedback for some of the group! When you use the radio, please make sure you are pressing the mic and waiting a second before speaking. A lot of the time we only got a portion of the radio calls from a few of the members as they were speaking before or right when they keyed the mic. And this was more senior members. There was a few times we had no idea what was being asked or said.
As for myself on the drive, I need to try and find a better way to have the radio easily available to use while both hands are driving. With the weight of the big Tundra, you have to have both hands on the wheel when you come off the track in order to recover. Maybe an ear piece would be good!
Great Job Tiago! Great to see how far you’ve come!!