Solo Bats 4.0

[Mark B]

This was an individual, Solo, drive for the intermediates, so no real convoy. So I will report from my perspective. We were told there would be sharp dunes and yes, there were sharp dunes. We were told that there would be soft sand and yes there was soft sand. It is one thing to do area 53 in the day time with Marshals leading. It is quite another thing doing it solo at night. Start point was the Al Badayar shops and the end was Super Bowl with check points in between.

I was was running rescue, but I myself needed to be pulled off a crest. Guess what. It was sharp with soft sand on either side. I was warned. [MENTION=27]alshamsi_m[/MENTION] had to bring a rescue party.

The contest was with the Advanced Drivers. The winner would be the one with the most rescues. [MENTION=3678]Hockey[/MENTION] did 3. I did 2, but subtract 1 for being rescued myself, leaving 1. But.... We were to take pictures and I did not so.... [MENTION=3678]Hockey[/MENTION], you are the winner with a score of 3 to 0. I bow to you greater ability and skill.

My greatest challenge tonight wasn't the driving, it was disorientation. There were times I did not believe the GPS. Something to work on.

Thanks [MENTION=3389]SINGH[/MENTION] for being shotgun and your digging. Thanks Marshals for organizing this drive. Thanks for so many night drives this Ramadan. I notice next weekend is a long week end. Plenty of opportunities for multiple drives. Just saying.....

Mark

[Adam]

[MENTION=9155]Mark B[/MENTION] you don't really ever sleep do you? :D

Solo GPS night drive challenge and boy was it a steep learning curve. The tension at the start was palpable, having a tiny handheld GPS didn't help matters. In fact, I strongly believe that it would have been easier navigating my way around using the stars rather than my GPS. Time for an upgrade.

I found this drive particularity challenging due to the lack of cornering lighting and not knowing what was beyond. It was as though I had blinkers on and therefore I had two choices...the first was to go in a straight line over and through dunes, or the second which was to go around the bowl until a suitable exit point was located. The first was my preferred mode for this evening which meant that it wasn't the smoothest of tracks. Like [MENTION=9155]Mark B[/MENTION] I had been turned around a couple of times at the start but was getting better towards the end of the drive.

Thanks to [MENTION=3678]Hockey[/MENTION] for coming to my rescue twice. I had planted the belly of the patrol on a rather pointy sharp crest and a small backwards tug from Hockey did the trick.

Thanks to all the marshals and advanced drivers for their support and food.

[dLemma]

Hi all,
i joined this trip as the passenger of [MENTION=27]alshamsi_m[/MENTION] (thanks Bu Salem) and it was a great experience.

First of all I counted how many times I would have left in the desert the front bumper of my stock FJ. Well, I stopped counting after I reached 15, and it was still half way the track...

Then it was a remarkable how different was the ride comparing the modified suspensions of Bu Salem vs the stock of my FJ. I can tell you that if I would have joined the drive, the pace would have been half of what it was and nevertheless I would have likely ended-up breaking shocks, radiator and who knows what else..

There were places where sand was really soft an it was invaluable seeing how the car was driven out of those situations.

Cornering lighting is another key point: I think I will need to add another couple of flood-type to my FJ.

Still, to me the most difficult thing is navigation. That's for sure the area where I feel most week and I will have to practice a lot to improve it. But I'm sure I will be given many chances in our family :)

We stopped at grand bowl and we had chit chat until 1.40 or so. Then back to Badayer to inflate tyres and pick-up my own car to drive back.
Thanks to everyone for the experience, I still have the smile on my face :-)

[orlantsev]

All in all this was perhaps the most challenging drive I have ever made. From the meeting point location it was clear we would drive in area 53. There was still a small hope it would be Pink Rock, but knowing our marshals it was just a hope. We all met at 9.30, got the coordinates from [MENTION=1657]Rashidjass[/MENTION] (total of 5) and were briefed by other marshals. The task was not to race, but to make sure we arrive safe without assistance. I was dispatched to the route first, and the rest in time intervals. [MENTION=9155]Mark B[/MENTION] and [MENTION=3678]Hockey[/MENTION] were tasked to rescue.

The 1^st point was almost a straight line from Badayer shops but was the farthest. It was all going relatively well until the last few hundred meters. The coordinate was on top of the dune and I misjudged its height in the dark, so started the ascent slower than needed. At half way I realized that I was dramatically losing the momentum but the dune was still high, so when I turned for a moment I felt I could roll over. Luckily the remaining power was just enough. Going to the second point took me long time because I relied too much on the tyre footprints which led me almost in the opposite way. Lesson is to trust only what you see on your GPS. Given my poor navigation skills as soon as I was on straight line I was tempted to just go straight over the dunes to avoid losing the direction. At times it worked, but at other times the soft sand and the sharp crest made it hard.

Anyway even at slow pace I was making it without stucks for a moment. However, the demand for full focus was so high that when I started towards the last point via 4 errors started to occur. First it was self-recovery under the watchful eye of [MENTION=3389]SINGH[/MENTION], followed by an unpleasant stuck right in front in somebody’s camp. [MENTION=9155]Mark B[/MENTION] demonstrated the Viking rope recovery technique to the audience. And finally another crest which was only some 500 meters from the end. Finally I reached there, very tired, but glad that both me and the car survived. As I said at the end my favourite sound this week will be the Garmin beep which announces that you have arrived at coordinates.

After some food several cars took off from Super Bowl led by [MENTION=1657]Rashidjass[/MENTION]. Even it was short distance any other time I would have said what a challenge it was, but after 2 hours of randomly hitting the dunes myself in the dark, it was not more difficult than driving to pick up groceries.

[matts]

I think everyone who was doing their first night solo drive was a little nervous but excited at the same time. I certainly was. I was the fifth car to set off into the night with Mark B to be dispatched behind me with instructions not to rescue me! As it turned out I didn't need it although I came close a couple of times.

Having seen a previous group get stuck some 200m into the dune and who seemed to be going nowhere i set out with the aim of not going too close to them as it turned out I actually passed quite close by and saw they had an FJ stuck deep in a bowl, but they already had too many people helping and I needed to concentrate on what i was doing as while i was looking at them I caused myself to have to take a second round :o).

I made pretty good progress through to checkpoint 1 and was really enjoying myself although I did find a few more ditches than I would have in the daytime. Between checkpoint 1 and 2 I found myself in a soft little V shape ditch but managed to work myself out of it with 4low. Unfortunately when i put it back into 4H my transfer case cable jumped off its mount again and it got stuck in 2 wheel drive. I think I was in the bottom of a bowl acting as a bunker as I got no reply on the radio on either channel when I reported this. Luckily owning a jeep makes you a good mechanic and I got under the car, repaired the problem and got myself underway again in a few minutes.

The rest of the drive was pretty good, nearly got myself side crested once but got myself off the top. Between checkpoints 4 & 5 i went miles off the straight line track but was having a blast and going in 'roughly' the right direction. I arrived at Super Bowl waited for dagger fall to arrive who I knew was close behind me and then we climbed to the top to watch the action coming in.

We had a couple of close calls with people coming round the top of the cars at the top of the bowl but all cars made it out unscathed. After more people arrive we moved down to the sitting area and enjoyed some Harees and Profiteroles provided by [MENTION=22]zico[/MENTION] which were beautiful.

Thanks all for the evening, I had fun chatting to you all, i'll see you in the sand again soon. My track below:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2980[/ATTACH]

[Daggerfall]

Hello,

It was a great grand finale for me since I was building up myself and my car for Night driving during this Ramadan. Night driving with pace was the missing skill of myself since I didn't have the lights or experience until this year.(It was my first int level night drive in the club). So I did night drives as much as I can during this Ramadan, the newbie night drives introduced first time this year helped a lot and even practice a solo night drive to see what is missing and upgrade my cars lighting according to the lessons I learned from these drives.

And I think all this practice paid off since I was confident with my lighting setup (Still need some points to improve) and navigating through the dunes. Because of the good visibility I build up, I managed to increase the pace and reached the super bowl without any problem just after @matts. We climbed the super bowl and enjoy the show while waiting for other drivers. I brought my binoculars :)) .Others came one by one and joined us. There were some close calls when others decided to join us at the top since some of the cars light was off while some were on but luckily nothing happened.

Then we went down and gather around with family, enjoyed the nice view of Milky way (With a disco music :)) chit chat with friends, sharing our experience with others, enjoyed the great sweets . What else can you ask for?

It was another lovely event by Almost4x4 family. Hope night drives will continue during the upcoming months

Best Regards

[Booy]

Solo Bats 4.0:

I was looking forward to this drive with great excitement.

It was comforting to know that even though we went into the desert solo, there was a team of very capable and experienced drivers in the form of founders, marshals and advanced drivers on standby for any emergencies. Thank you each and everyone for this great evening!

I started off as the third car - actually fourth, after [MENTION=3678]Hockey[/MENTION] was sent in as Advance rescue to drive up and down the route assisting any potential intermediate victims from whatever the desert had planned for them. I felt very comfortable and enjoyed the drive up to the point when I caught up with [MENTION=3080]Agalon[/MENTION], and decided to divert a little, otherwise I would just be following in his tracks, and I wanted the solo exercise without following someone else. The diversion was very challenging, and soon enough I passed over a very sharp crest, which claimed a rear tyre again. I reported to [MENTION=9155]Mark B[/MENTION] that I had a cut tyre, and will be changing to the spare. [MENTION=9155]Mark B[/MENTION] never pitched up for his photo moment... :secret laugh:
So, out came the jack and board, and I changed over to the spare. After this incident, my mind was reeling while driving, trying to understand why I lost yet another tyre. However, with this in the back of my mind, I still enjoyed the rest of the drive. This occurred before I even reached point 1.

From point 1 to 5 I had a really good time, playing with side crests, some good climbs and faced very soft sand. I was disappointed when I saw that the end point was only 200m away, as I was really enjoying the drive and had a really good time.

After extensive research about this tyre cutting problem, and listening to the advise of very knowledgable people in our club, I made some changes to my car today, and cannot wait for the next drive to test the new set up!

Thank you for organising this great event [MENTION=27]alshamsi_m[/MENTION] , and to every other marshal, advance and fellow intermediates for making this evening a great one in the desert!

Till we meet again...

[Agalon]

It was a fun experience. The feeling of being alone in the desert at night has it's own thrill. Due to limited visibility i feel like i took some unnecessary tricky passes through the destination although there were some safer and easier alternatives.
One recovery by [MENTION=3678]Hockey[/MENTION] (thanks a lot), one self recovery with some shoveling and 2 near misses from leaving the front of the car in the desert. Thanks to my luck both times i pressed the brake with perfect timing and took my car out as one piece :)
The weather was nice along with the chitchat and delicious food serviced by [MENTION=22]zico[/MENTION].
Thanks to everybody participated for yet another memorable event.

See you next time...