Offroading – Desert Driving
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Whats your history with Offroad driving?
Mine started summer of last year, picked up the pace with Dubai4x4.
Trusted my instincts and love of driving and enhanced my desert-driving little by little.. You never stop learning, and once you think you mastered it, think again.
Share your experience. What got the sand in your feet?!
**Post some pictures too!
First trip:
That’s a very appropriate topic…Thanks Yamout.
How did we get this infection???
I guess this is something that’s in your blood…the love of adventure & risk taking capacity…
either you have it or you do’nt…
It’s just a matter of these harmones either being dormant or raging…I started initially going offroad with Fraser Martin…who now works in Dubai Autodrome…
This was in the mid 90’s, I used to drive a Jeep Cherokee Auto at that time.
He is one of the first & foremost motor-sport enthusiasts in the region…
He used to organise Jeep Jamboree for a number of years for Trading Enterprises,
He used to have a Grand Cherokee & a Caterham 7 in those days,
He had some superstition & all his cars used to have white & yellow in some combination,
We had some great rides together, the desert was clean, pristine & one hardly ever encountered a fence or a blacktop…I then joined Gulf news as a Marshall in 1997/1998,
The team leader and the convoy leader, too at that time used to be the legendary Jehanbaz Ali Khan(Jum),
He is the author of quite a few offroading books, the chief Marshal of Gulfnews Fun Drive…since 1986!!!
Clerk of the course for Emirates Desert Challenge and a has number of other off road related assignments.Jum is currently running a company specialising in off Road Jungle tours in Thailand…
Off roading was really challenging, at those times, or at least it seemed like that… :blink:It has been an honour for me to have ridden with these legends & I could safely say thet I owe whatever skills I have today to these legendary friends & mentors… :good:
Very true…Yamout…one never stops learning :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Thanks Junaid…that reminds me…
Mitch Perriera is one of the best off road drivers I have known,
His father Chris is a gentleman & a very nice person & both father & son have been Marshals for Gulf News for ages, Chris is probably there ever since the event started.
ahmed bhai its very nice to have desertdude among us seems senior offroader, guys come on grab this opportunity to learn more from our seniors.
Interesting revelations. Great that we have some excellent offroaders in here. My first trip out too was with Dubai4x4 and I also quite enjoyed the marshall runs for the Great Escape.
Moved to Dubai in 2004 and one of the things I wanted to do was to play in the sand.
Bought Gertrude, my trust Pathfinder as soon as I was able to convince Dubai Police to let me loose on the roads and then started to play with friends who had lived here for years out in the sand. They have moved away or changed so this is cool to have people who know EXACTLY what they are doing without the attitude !
It is a great escape from the normal way of attitude in Dubai that as we all know can suck with its constant show off and people seem to change usually for the better out in the sand.
The normal Big Red, Fossil Rock blah balh and so on kinda stuff before MEO. But the 3 day’er on Oman a couple of years was great from mountains to sand to sea to roads.
I would never get the chance to do driving like this in the UK as we have no deserts ! and mud does not interest me.
A good mixture of technical driving, luck, skill, and just plain fun with adrenalin… guess that’s a good enuf reason for the addiction.
Dear Ahmed,
Thanks for the invitation and the kind words!
I spend quite a bit of time at the Autodrome as you know but it’s not full time work – the consultancy work keeps me busy and pays a bit better too!
Just to give you a bit of background, I started ‘off roading’ about 35 years ago in a Series 1 80″ wheelbase Land Rover, doing trials in Scotland, and then did a bit of work for Land Rover in Saudi Arabia when the brand came off the Boycott List, planning Range Rover and 109 V8 launches. I did some more here in Dubai at the launch of the 110 in the days when it still had sliding windows!
Jeeps started when, despite the fact that the 90V8 Pickup I had at the time would climb a house, I discovered that the bulkhead was giving me a sore back and that I was getting lazy – I’ve had Cherokees and Grand Cherokees with autoboxes for the last 10 or 12 years, and bought a Wrangler 4 door late last year.
The forum has some interesting comments – especially about never being too old to learn: I could explain all there is to know about four wheel driving in about 20 minutes, but to get 35 years experience, you have to have done 35 years. And if anyone tells you they’ve never been stuck, they are either lying or they’ve not been trying very hard – you only know how not to get stuck by getting stuck, and learning from it!
The Jeep Jamboree is now in its 13th year and the only problem now is finding places to go – Jum Ali Khan and I, when setting the early GN Fun Drives, used to let our tyres down for a day in the desert at the Rashidiya Water Tank; you need to stick 40 kilometres of tarmac behind you now before it’s even worth looking at the tyres!
I’m not a great one for forums (if that is the correct plural?) but I will check in as often as I can remember my password!
Cheers,
Fraser Martin
welcome onboard Fraser.
Boys & Girls…This IS Mr. Fraser himself….
Me-offRoaders is honored to have you with us…
I do’nt want to sound pretentious…but Fraser is the Guru of all Off-Roaders…in Dubai,
Very good company, too…let’s see if we can lure him away from his busy schedule on one of our drives 😀
i used to go to the desert with some tours co,in 2005 i desided to get a 4wd car, once i got the car i started going to Biyader by my self and see people how they drive and do like them, i got stuck 100’s times and others used to help me out. then i joined the 4×4 and my first organized trip was with them. so since that time i go off roading till i met u guys :good:
and i am sooo happy with you and hope we all will be togather and learn from each other. :good: :good:
thanks alot to all of you :thanks:
hamza.. it will be better if you can put this as sticky…. then members can easily find this thread.. n its one of the good topic. thanks to yamout..
ur welcome
quote Fraser:Dear Ahmed,Thanks for the invitation and the kind words!
I spend quite a bit of time at the Autodrome as you know but it’s not full time work – the consultancy work keeps me busy and pays a bit better too!
Just to give you a bit of background, I started ‘off roading’ about 35 years ago in a Series 1 80″ wheelbase Land Rover, doing trials in Scotland, and then did a bit of work for Land Rover in Saudi Arabia when the brand came off the Boycott List, planning Range Rover and 109 V8 launches. I did some more here in Dubai at the launch of the 110 in the days when it still had sliding windows!
Jeeps started when, despite the fact that the 90V8 Pickup I had at the time would climb a house, I discovered that the bulkhead was giving me a sore back and that I was getting lazy – I’ve had Cherokees and Grand Cherokees with autoboxes for the last 10 or 12 years, and bought a Wrangler 4 door late last year.
The forum has some interesting comments – especially about never being too old to learn: I could explain all there is to know about four wheel driving in about 20 minutes, but to get 35 years experience, you have to have done 35 years. And if anyone tells you they’ve never been stuck, they are either lying or they’ve not been trying very hard – you only know how not to get stuck by getting stuck, and learning from it!
The Jeep Jamboree is now in its 13th year and the only problem now is finding places to go – Jum Ali Khan and I, when setting the early GN Fun Drives, used to let our tyres down for a day in the desert at the Rashidiya Water Tank; you need to stick 40 kilometres of tarmac behind you now before it’s even worth looking at the tyres!
I’m not a great one for forums (if that is the correct plural?) but I will check in as often as I can remember my password!
Cheers,
Fraser Martin
Just reminiscing…
I will tell you my story in a few years I guess….now… I just can say thanks to all the people that takes the time to teach newbees like me. It is a great club! 😀 :thanks:
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