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-   -   Isuzu V-Cross : Tame the Terrain event by Pune Pathfinders (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-excursions/186408-isuzu-v-cross-tame-terrain-event-pune-pathfinders.html)

Thought to share event report with limited pictures of ‘Tame The Terrain’ event for Isuzu V-Cross jointly organized by Viiraaj Isuzu (Regional dealer of Isuzu), Isuzu India and Pune Pathfinders. It was conducted on 26th February, 2017 at a private farm house near Pune.
It all started with a discussion with Isuzu team, dealership and key members. They (ISUZU) wanted to conduct their signature ‘Tame the Terrain’ event in or around Pune which they have already conducted in Chennai with Arka and received good feedback from participants.

Objective was simple ‘Introduce V-Cross customers with offroading, understand what wonderful things their vehicle can do at the same time ensuring no damage to their vehicles’. Objective for us was as usual finding out natural obstacles instead of man-made ones and ensuring it’s as challenging as possible be without compromising safety of occupants.
Utkarsh Bhandari and Pragalbha Bhandari from our group were kind enough to give us their vast farm house located at 45 minutes’ drive from Pune and 90 minutes’ drive from Bombay. Same place had held Triumph event for Poona and Bombay last year. Due to its being situated between hills we had enough natural obstacles for V-Cross. During our initial days of recce, we found that this land had few wonderful and hard core obstacles as well thus we thought why not to invite all of our group members for a day outing on the same day and also to give a glimpse of hardcore offroading to visitors and V-Cross owners (yes, we did offer free joy rides to whoever was interested to promote the sport). It turned out to be a good decision as more than two dozen vehicles from our group turned out for that day and we had nice get to gather.

It took us more than a month (5 weekends) to identify and get the tracks ready. It was last 4 full days of camping there for the team to get everything organized, right from briefing venue to catering to water to seating to what not. Two weeks before one senior member Mr Vijay Sethi who is into flying paracopters also pitched in and on the day of the event few lucky visitors got the ride on copter. It was free ride for selected few on request basis. And thanks to him many experienced another facet of adventure.

Few recce pics of Isuzu.......

During all these weekend recce days many friends turned up to help each other and to find out track for 'Extreme Category'. I think they took word 'Extreme' too seriously :D

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun.

The Isuzu is one beautiful package that makes my heart do its best to convince my brain that I should sell my hatchback and change my life plans.

So we prepared 5 tracks for V-Cross and 5 extreme tracks for Jeeps. Tracks were designed in such a way that normal and extreme tracks were next to each other thus reducing logistical headaches as well as less walking/navigational help for visitors.
Each track had 3-4 team members from our groups acting as navigator, spotter, track management, recovery vehicle. Each track had seating arrangement with ice box for cooled beverages, first aid kit, walkie-talkie recovery equipment and firefighting equipment. For easy navigation, each track had numbers and drivers were required to follow numbers, you need to start with 1, to 2, to 3 and so on…

Itinerary:
08:00 hrs : reporting at Viraaj Isuzu (dealer)
08:30 hrs : registration and briefing about the event
09:00 hrs : Breakfast
09:30 hrs : Flag off for Bhandari Farms
10:30 hrs : reporting at Bhandari Farms
10:45 hrs : Briefing about different tracks at event HQ
11:00 hrs : all tracks open
13:30 hrs : Lunch at event HQ
16:30 hrs : high tea
17:30 hrs : Souvenir from dealer and Isuzu

Reporting, registration and flag-off:











Event Venue:









One of our friend got his dirt bike for a practice run (he is a pro moto cross rider and RFC participant) and he was not disappointed either





Two weeks before one senior member Mr Vijay Sethi who is into flying paracopters also pitched in and on the day of the event few lucky visitors got the ride on copter. It was free ride for selected few on request basis. And thanks to him many experienced another facet of adventure.

Track 1: It started with an inclined slope and then three-point turn to an incline which was tricky, once you reach on top you take a large left U turn to come to a point which would take you down the hill, it was a long slope. After that there were certain see-saws and then an incline with a deep rut which was to be tackled at an angle to avoid vehicle damage. Once you come up, take a left U turn and come to mild slope which will take you to a slushy nullah (few HT tyres shod vehicle had hard time clearing this up) and a large turn takes you to a right angled pathway with small potholes ( first timers had real tough time and few thought that vehicle might topple 😊) which was to be taken following a route to clear it.
If still this was not enough then there were 2 more ditches with sharp turns where vehicle was lifting its tyre to more than 2-3 feets. It was longest track of the day and extreme track running next to it was toughest as well where we had few topples during recce.

Track 2: this was toughest track of the day and only few V-Cross owners were willing to do it but whoever did it once wanted to do it again. It started with long inclined slope where vehicle was to be placed perfectly to avoid it toppling to side. In the middle of slope you again had to take right and then go straight with one more slope and after U turn there were 3 inclines back to back. The last incline was long and required controlled throttle. less throttle and you would stall in the middle and more throttle and tyres would start spinning. After long incline you had to take sharp left turn and cross a hump to come back to the starting point.

Track 3: It was joyous track carved inside a jungle surrounded by large trees. You start with an incline with potholes and then take left to come down from that slope then enter to jungle trail with lot of turns between trees and inclines/declines which will take you back to gully from where you took first slope which you need to climb up now and then go to starting point.

Track 4: It was sort of tricky track which was filled with lot of surprises at every turn and corner. It started with long incline where correct momentum was required, once up it takes you edge of the hill where you had to come down and cover a ditch and then come down further it was a sharp slope which was too much for few and where our navigators had to step in to either take control or guide them precisely to take them to a tilted patch where few got nervous again. Once that patch is clear you take a big round about to come back to starting point, in that patch there were few turns and dusty road for drift driving.

Remaining pics of SS4:





























Track 5: this track was carved out around a natural culvert with proper rock crawling mixed with tight switchbacks which again required precise driving. It started with sloped entry to culvert covering uneven rocky surface and then taking left turn to grassy incline which needed momentum and then cover few ditches to come to a point where an incline was to conquered in a certain angle you miss the line and vehicle will get beached. After that we had an U shaped track in a flat land with artificial diagonal ditches which checked the articulation of the vehicle. A controlled drive was required to avoid loss of traction during articulation and during turns.























To be continued........

Few pics from extreme tracks....























































Overall it was good day outing for all of us and specially V-Cross owners who personally shared their views with us about getting to know their machine’s capability and meeting other like minded people. It was a good platform for them to share their stories, modification etc. with rest of the owners. I hope rest of the vehicle manufacturers also take a cue for such lifestyle vehicles.

Special thanks to our group member and photographer (by hobby) Jatin Chaddha for running through all tracks alone and capturing candid moments.
As usual we couldn’t have successfully done this another event without the help of our group members who helped each other in scorching heat for few weekends back to back.

Regards,
Shubhendra Singh

Man, that beast is a very capable offroader.clap:
Thanks for sharing.
The pictures are awesome. This vehicle is slowly growing on me but so far reason has prevailed and also there is the question of moolah.:D
Extreme catagorywalahs had gone a bit too far methinks, but each to his own.

Thank you for the coverage of the event and the great pictures!.

The V-cross does look like a very capable machine indeed, to tackle these sorts of terrain.

I particularly like the D-box cover at the back that the black/brown vehicle had. It gives the vehicle a more up-market and a 'complete' feel, compared to the pick-up truck type appearance of the stock one.

Btw, although the ground clearance must be good for this beast, did anyone face issues due to its long wheel base, on terrains such as this?

Cheerio.

Hey that's our Endeavor :)
It indeed was a awesome event and the best part was that people could put their own vehicles on the track and then test drive the v cross and do a comparison.
Was also great meeting old timers from the mumbai pune off roading fraternity.

Im sold on the v cross.

It was a great event! :)

Me along with bhpian ycj, //M and 599gto had attended it. I had seen your post on the hvk Whatsapp group so knew you would be present there too but couldn't meet you. When we were at the trail 3 & 4 you were on the other side. Met a few bhpians from the pune off-road community.

Talking about the truck it was fantastic. Pretty capable in its stock form just that the long wheel base and the rear overhang were an issue. But then it's the cheapest "new" Japanese diesel 4x4 you can buy today. Loads of add ons available in the open market. Nevertheless a fantastic option.