Pass with caution!

Last week end was a long but quick trip to area around Bikaner to find
tracks for the next Desert Storm. Three days and 1600kms sort of trip.
1200kms to and from Bikaner and rest spent around the town exploring
the unknown off the road country.

Originally planned the trip with two cars but the others could not join
in so left home base on Saturday by 1500hrs. Drove through Gurgaon,
Behror, Shahpura, turned off the NH8 and used state highway to Ringus
and then on the NH11 to reach Bikaner at 2230.

Next day was full taken up exploring the country around. The research
on GoogleEarth had already reveled some interesting alignments but till
you do it on the ground you really do not know.

Here is a shot which I liked from my last weeks outing on the Aravallis
and now this week I was heading for major off roading adventure in to
the desert

This track lead us through “monsoon” farming country. The fields here are somewhat green since they received some rain fall.

This young fellow got carried away in to thinking that GV was also one of the milch animals that he was tending.

Further afield the crops had failed and the farmer we met was disgusted
with his luck. Gave him a lift despite ferocious looking sickle that he
carried.

Climbing dunes was fun

But not as much as was coming down on the steeper side. Only wish there was another person to capture that on the camera.

The tracks that ran through the fields had many “gates” to keep out wild animals (read deer, chinkara and blue bull)

And this meant that my better half got enough exercise opening and closing those gates after us

Having a vehicle that can be taken off road and enjoying taking it on
to such territories was one of my major priorities when I purchased the
GV and I am enjoying it to the fullest.

The objective of finding 50km+ sections was partially achieved and so
the next Desert Storm will see most of the sections in the range of
50~100kms in length. This in contrast with 12~20kms that were run in
the initial years.

Monday, August 31st 2009: Breaking News: Ferrari’s F1 Team has fired its entire pit crew!

The Ferrari team made a very significant announcement, made today from its head quarters at Monza, Italy.

Ferrari has decided to take advantage of India ’s high unemployment
rate, and hire unemployed Indian youth from the Dharavi slums in
Mumbai.

The decision to hire them was brought on by a recent documentary on how
they were able to remove a set of wheels from a car parked in the
street in less than 6 seconds without proper equipment. (Ferrari’s
erstwhile crew took more than 8 seconds with the right equipment)

This was thought to be an excellent yet bold move by the Ferrari
management, and, as most races are won & lost in the pits, Ferrari
would have an advantage over every other team.

However, Ferrari’s expectations were exceeded, as during the crew’s
first practice session; not only were ‘da boyz’ from Mumbai able to
change the tires in under 6 seconds, but within 12 seconds had re
-sprayed the car, filed off the chassis number and sold the vehicle
over to the McLaren Team!