Drive with smile
Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:10 pm
Drive with a smile was great fun. It was in the excellent desert between Al Lisaili and Al Faqa’a, starting near to the Egg Basket Challenge; and we were lucky to see a large herd of gazelle and very few tyre tracks.
What looked like a fairly ‘tame’ bit of desert was in reality (certainly for me) a highly-technical challenge, with Hamdan giving us a ‘master class’ in how to read the dunes, and gauge the different softness of the sand.
We practiced a lot of side slope driving, feeling the car slide and in one or two cases hitting harder sand lower down the dune. I couldn’t lose concentration for one moment, and that’s where the smile came in - due to a sense of achievement in passing safely across some pretty difficult dunes. The Advanced drivers were each given the chance to lead, and it’s fascinating to see their different styles and how that translated into the ‘line’ the convoy took.
Many thanks to the organisers for yet another successful drive.
What looked like a fairly ‘tame’ bit of desert was in reality (certainly for me) a highly-technical challenge, with Hamdan giving us a ‘master class’ in how to read the dunes, and gauge the different softness of the sand.
We practiced a lot of side slope driving, feeling the car slide and in one or two cases hitting harder sand lower down the dune. I couldn’t lose concentration for one moment, and that’s where the smile came in - due to a sense of achievement in passing safely across some pretty difficult dunes. The Advanced drivers were each given the chance to lead, and it’s fascinating to see their different styles and how that translated into the ‘line’ the convoy took.
Many thanks to the organisers for yet another successful drive.