Days of Thunder

[kareem.alameldin]

5 years ago I had a crippling injury to my spine doing something I love, was a long learning curve on how the human body should move, bear load, rehab and getting back to what I love doing again on daily basis, but with a price to pay of living the rehab and maintenance life style to stay pain free

That useless intro was needed to give an idea about how stupid I was driving from 5 am when I moved out of my home till i reached meeting point at 8, started driving at 8:45, feeling how irritated my back was just from the drive on the highway, yet kept going for the love of what we do, I guess my spine always disagrees with the things I love the most!

I know from older advanced drivers (older in experience, not age, except Giorgio he's really old) that advanced drives are demanding physically, mentally and on your car, now we get to experience that first hand, when you have to squeeze out all your focus and skill for 8 hours straight or more (not exaggerating, we don't get a break to chat, silent radios that every hour Rashid has to go "radio check" to make sure our radios are alive) and with such small convoy where you get no chance to take a breath,

Daggerfall did an amazing hour, it's always an honor and pleasure being behind him, i rushed for second lead to have the previlage of seeing his artwork first hand, get back stronger brother, we will work on that together,

Scorpio took the lead and i swear he was looking at the dunes in a way like "how to do that dune the hardest way possible?", and after we do it he goes "ok there was a harder way that looks safe now, let's go back and do it the impossible way", it was a great learning experience seeing him lead and how he chooses his track and a ton of fun,

But here comes the back irritation that started from the moment i arrived to the drive, it just kept creeping more and more to the point i was giving up my momentum on climbs so that i don't hit the car hard enough that it would hurt my back, i was playing it too safe that i had to call it a day, i wasn't enjoying as much as just keeping myself in check, and left the drive an hour or 2 before it ended,

Lesson learned, full day drives has to be camped for, i came to the drive already exhausted which is something i never allowed to happen before,

Rashid, Scorpio and Daggerfall, you guys are the best, not just Marshalls but brothers and family,

Nabil, Optimus, Yasin and Abu Odai, it's always a pleasure driving with you and seeing you every weekend, looking forward to see all of you the next time!

[Scorpio]

I will start my trip report by saying that ‘@Daggerfall we love you and can’t wait to see you back stronger ’.

The Thunder series drives have always been impressive and memorable. So, getting an opportunity to lead one of those drives having such a great legacy automatically pushes you to give your best shot to live up to its name . I tried my best to match the expectations of the convoy and try to offer them as much fun and memories as possible .

We started the drive and thoroughly enjoyed Daggerfall lead for an hour; it was so exciting to see him conquering dunes in his unique style . Then I took the lead, with @Rashidjass as the floating marshal. I made the plan to follow the previous drive track and depending upon the availability of time and fuel, we will try to go a little ahead . Not long ago after I started, we had to say bye to @Abu Odai due to issues with his vehicle. The weather was pleasant, convoy was small and we managed to cover quite a big distance in very less time. We were able to reach to the end of the track by lunch time and took a good break there for food and napping . After the lunch, I took the convoy to explore the deeper areas .

Around 3pm, we had to say bye to @kareem.alameldin also due to his back pain and I think it was a wise decision to take care of the health first as the drives would come again. Rashidjass went to rescued him out and then I was left with @optimus and @Nabeel behind me. We continued playing for some time but when we did not hear anything back from Rashidjass then, we started looking for the LAVA in Abu Tais in Advance style . After almost half an hour of exploration, we got his coordinates which were near the Tree Dune and we were almost 4.5km away from it. So, we changed direction and headed to him to find out that he is standing on top of a high dune and the area around looked like badayer. There was not much fun playing there due to multiple tracks and it was late afternoon already so, we decided to head back to the exit point. After coming out of the sand, there is a long sabka that takes you to the gutch road so, to end the drive with the last adrenaline kick we did pedal to the metal to the gutch road

It was a memorable drive and I would like to thank Daggerfall for organization and lead, Rashidjass for always being around, all the advanced members who drove and @Mahmoodyasin as well who was the passenger and cameraman with Rashid .

Until next time, stay safe.

Cheers.