Then we took a lunch break.
The Terra Tigers are resting a bit under the shade of the most beloved Jeep in the South.
Then I convinced one Mr.Vikram Ramprasad to model for me in the sun and the shade.
And we get back to obstacle hopping.
And here is a very human story, for those of you who are bored of macho offroader exploits. Daughter of one of our dearest and senior most member Suresh Stephan has decided to takeover the family ...er... hobby. And Arka, who claims Suresh as his Jeep guru, has graciously agreed to be her offroad tutor. Can Ektaaa KKKaaappoorr think of such a beautiful story devoid of any evil schemes? On a side note, did I get the all the alphabets in her name correct? I can never keep track of this numerology stuff, it must be like that Jeep thing.
Learning from the most famous uncertified offroad tutor in India.
Would have been even poetic if she had driven Arka’s famous Jeep, but driving Dad’s Jeep is close enough.
Makes me wonder about my son, who is actually taller than her, but not old enough to get a license yet. Will he take over dad’s Jeep and hobby? Hmm, only time will tell. Alright, enough mushy human story, let’s get back to macho stuff.
And it was time for a long wait at the next major obstacle.
We had to dive into that valley and get back on that road. I repeatedly noticed that the Jeeps were taking a K turn right after reaching the road. I wondered why they didn’t turn quickly at the apex of the climb and avoid the K turn. So I figured I will try that when my turn comes.
But a bigger drama was unfolding deep down the valley, which was hidden from the people on top because of the trees. Most newbies found it very difficult to get across the trough at the bottom and retain the momentum to keep driving up away from the valley. That was what taking a long time.
When my time came, I crossed it in first attempt, continued up and did a quick turn at the apex as the front tyres landed on the road, and avoided that K turn. Ah, I like it when a plan works flawlessly.
When I looked back from the other hill, I could see the long line behind me.
Until this point, every obstacle had more than two marshals doing the spotting. Then we entered a strange twilight zone, where no marshals were seen and there were no spectators either. It was time for passengers to jump out at every obstacle and do the spotting. But Shibu is not exactly athletic, so I can’t ask him do it in such an uneven terrain. And Deepak is a first timer, asking him to spot could be dangerous. In my humble opinion, only experienced offroad drivers should spot for another offroad driver. So I got off and started to reconnoiter at many places.
Then I reach a spot where Dwarakstar is the lone marshal. I start chatting with him and then turn 90 degree into a decline to drop. Suddenly Dwarak shouts “Straighten your steering”. The command is easy enough, but how to execute it? I was just coming out of a 90 degree turn, and this is a Jeep steering. I have no idea whether my wheels are too much to the right or left. In my former CJ340, I could just lean out and see the wheels. That is not possible in a MM550. So murphy’s law kicks in and I turn the steering in the wrong direction and go out of the rut. Then dwarak shouts louder and I realised my mistake and corrected to the other direction. Everybody got a little scare, but I recovered in time. Dwarak too realised he should have said turn left or right instead of straighten the steering.
Then we hit a point where lots of Jeeps were getting stuck. Throughout the trail I was following the Terra Tigers. Here I see the Tigers considering the trail just wide enough for an auto rickshaw.
Geez, what is this?
Oh man, this is a quagmire. These Bnagalore guys are nuts.
Honey, I’ll be late. These Bangalore
chaps have gone too far. We’ll get them at Palar this time.
Finally Tigers wriggles through the nasty obstacle...
… and probably start plotting Palar Revenge, I mean Challenge.
[Disclaimer: The above account of Tigers is purely fictional, inspired by their facial expressions. I have no idea what they were really thinking.]
Then I drive into another obstacle, manned by Dwarak. How did he show up here again, he must use a wormhole or a transporter beam. It looks deceptively innocent in the photograph.
But Dwarak assured me it is nowhere close to innocent. That is because it forces the Jeep to tilt sideways dangerously, close to the limits of articulation. After discussion the angles, I agree to follow a path suggested by him, which reduces the risk of toppling. Since there were no Jeeps behind, we took a longer break, looked at the exit point too, which was quite straight forward.
As we got into the Jeep and started off, another mashal walks into the scene and takes over the spotting. And he suggests the direct route, the one which will tilt the Jeep lot more. I am apprehensive since it is different than my chosen plan. But he convinces me it is very safe, I start off in the direct route. Within seconds the Jeep starts tilting much more than I can swallow. So I stop in the middle to take stock. I look at Shibu, even he looks concerned. But the marshal is still asking me come forward and increase the tilt. This was kind of a stalemate. I know both these marshals since the time I started offroading, so trust was not an issue. Then I gave a second look at both of them and realised one difference. While the current marshal always drives a topless SWB Jeep, Dwarak always drove a top heavy hardtop Gypsy. And I am now driving a hardtop Jeep. Therefore, in the matter of sideways tilt, I better take Dwarak’s advice. With that decision, I reversed out of that shaky situation, and followed the original plan.
With that our day has come to end, at least the driving. The Jeepers line up for a group shot.
And I am mightily impressed with the performance of my MM550. Since my skills are mostly honed on short chassis CJ340, I wasn’t sure how many of them are easily transferable to the medium chassis MM550. The XD3P was also a new animal under my control. I was bloody blown away. Even the places where I knew CJ340 would have struggled, the XD3P equipped MM550 did it lot easily. During the entire day, I got through every obstacle at first attempt. Walk the trail, discuss with the marshal, plan the technique, execute it. Worked every time. I felt so happy about this.