Nissan Xplore UAE 2012 event held this March
The fourth annual all-day off-road event, Nissan Xplore UAE, organised by Arabian Automobiles in association with ENOC Lubricants, was held on 9th March 2012. Participants of all sorts, including expert off-road enthusiasts, amateur learners, families, and some even with children queued up for the rough-ride adventure.
Starting off at 9 am in the morning from the Fujairah Tennis & Country Club after breakfast, the plan was to follow the off-road trail all the way to Sharjah, and meet at the Sharjah Golf and Shooting Club for dinner. The 4x4s had to take a bumpy trip, for some a damaging trip, across the rocky terrains of the Fujairah mountains and some-what beaten tracks of the desert. Of course, a few weaklings of the herd never really made it till the end of the expedition and escaped midway.
We drove the course in a provided Nissan Xterra, although participants had to bring their own car, whichever brand they may own. To avoid any car getting misplaced from the brood, batches of convoys were led by event marshals, with many of them also standing at different locations, to make sure you were safe and going the right way. It was a course that didn’t require a lot of technical skill, if one knew the basics, but it was extremely hard on the cars, and we were glad we picked the Xterra as our ride.
The event rounded off late evening with a buffet dinner on the golf course, some live instrumental music, raffle draws, amateur belly dancing, and finally winding up with a djembe drum in each of our hands, drumming to the beats of a native African band. More than Dhs 50,000 was raised from the event, donated to the Rashid Pediatric Therapy Center.
Photos by Salma Sultana.
Comments
KP
Hi Mash
Looks like a fun event! BTW did the Rav4 make it across the dunes?
Cheers
Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury
Nope, they left in the early stages of the desert section. But they were beginners, so they were risking too much already.
v6turbo
RAV4 guys should have tried, its just the driver skills they need, with that they can traverse biggest of dunes and steepest rocks and dangerous wadis. All that additional 4×4 equipments in other 4x4s are just for show.
SY
Awesome!!! Would love to try offroading…how can we get to know about these events in advance??
Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury
They were promoting it with ads in the papers and on their Facebook page only.
v6turbo
These types of events are published well in advance in Gulf News and Khaleej times. Also you can find ads in Al Futtaim / Arabian Automobiles website. Some people in media and advertising get information/passes stuff. After the event is over, all the pics are published in sponsors in their own websites. For e.g. http://www.arabianautomobiles.com/fundrive2010/index.html. I don’t see pics for this year till now. Al Futtaim had published their pics in gulf news (Gulf News fun drive) in details couple of months back
eka
I was in a team in Rav 4 I think we were the best with such a car on the dunes! and the driver was great, did you see how we went up on one of the most difficult sand dune. Big cars stuck . we DID it !!!!