[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by srijit

Signs are for those who read
Attachment 21661

Eggjectly! You must edit your post to say "Signs are for those who CAN read". Not meant for unpad gawaaris.

[srijit]

You mean its not too soon to start pulling his leg? Or has he left EKM?
Anyway, edit time is over for that post.

One caption from my side.

The Beast slumbers...



What? I meant the Safari, of course...

[kpzen]

Post meet meat pics part 2 after dropping Steer at the airport!

This is what happens when tyre bhagwaan doesn't get Michelin tires...



Roopak R





mahir, Ashvin's friend


He loves giving speeches..!! Ask Ishan for details .


Poor chap was left empty handed in Cochin !!!

21.00 hrs 13th June
I reach Grand Hotel, and the party is already on. The numbers were growing rapidly and we were getting rather boisterous, so A S H V I N used his considerable influence to secure us BHPians a separate lounge area on the 1st floor(if you hang around ASHVIN long enough, you will find that he has considerable influence in most hotels of kerala)

3hrs of Leg pulling, greeting, chattering,and pretending to organize for the next day’s DRIVE, better sense prevails and we wind up for the night, so that we can set off at 6.30AM sharp on the 14th.

00.30hrs 14th june
messages from ASHVIN and mallumullah asking me to wake them up in the morning.

05.00hrs
I’m wide awake.
½ an hour even before the alarm went off. Too excited to sleep.
Get ready, pack my stuff.
Wait impatiently for …5.30AM

05.30
Call ASHVIN and zak- no answer! Well, what did I expect?

06.30
Rush out the door with my bags, worrying about whether I’ve forgotten anything. Nevermind , I think, I’ve got everything I need.
I later find out that my extra stash of money is in the Verna that I drove to thodupuzha the night before, and not in the Swift.

06.37
Picked up Ezee123 from his place. Fly past Sarovaram cursing myself for poor time keeping, Trrk and wischu spotted me doing the fly-by, they had traveled in excess of 70kms and still made it to the start point earlier than everybody else.

06.50
Pick up JayD and get back to sarovaram. Half hour late.
MaserQ,wischu and Trrk were already there. We were joined by Team Godspeed and his friend.
A white scorpio with Army written on it pulled up.
Wanderernomad was dedicated enough to come and meet us at sarovaram inspite of driving all the way down from Delhi, and being tortured on the NH17, the night before.

0700
SMS from ashvin- Good morning!
0720
all the people who were actually present were herded up to sarovaram’s restaurant.
7.20 AM and we have not even started breakfast yet! I’m wound up tight from the stress of watching our schedule go to bits(I never learn)

CaliforniaKnight and veelubhai came in just as we were sitting down for breakfast.

Zak has been 5 minutes away for the last 1 hr.
He gave me the excuse that he had 2 children to get ready. Which I actually believed till someone pointed out that it was not him who was doing that chore, it was his long suffering wife.

Steeroid and iraghava pull in as we’re finishing breakfast.
Followed by Kpzen/Getz and Xinome who are carrying the all important biofuel/ethanol supply in Zak’s battle scarred alto.

The alto is staggering and stumbling under the weight of australia’s most well-known brew, most of the convoy is concerned about the safety of our Australians.

Some intense calculations factoring in space/ride comfort and impact absorbtion of various cars, the bottles of foster are distributed amongst all the cars except mine.
My Swift, with its huge and practical boot, was filled to the brim with Ezee’s photography equipment(numerous cameras/innumerable lenses/huge tripod/Gaily couloured umbrella)

I must say, that in no way was the safety of the bottles compromised.
All the bottles reached kuttikanam unharmed.
That the consumption of these bottles was taken over by Kerala’s finest is another matter.

08.30
Zak has arrived!!!!!
Cars are stickered, booze has been safely re distributed, and it has been decided that the Alto with the most illustrious Crash history in kerala be retired from the DRIVE.

0840
trrk saves the day by producing the excel sheet with the names of people in the DRIVE. zak/ram and myself- had clean forgotten to bring these along.

09.00
We set off, Finally!!!!!
I’m on Pilot duty till Kulamavu.
Veelu’s Lancer is tested for handling. The exact details are not available, and are probably best given out by eye witnesses.

We reach muvattupuzha without incident and pick up malludude from there.
Steeroid fills up from the BP pump at muvattupuzha and regrets it almost immediately.

We slip by thodupuzha using the new Bye-pass and tear up the road to moolamattom.
I’m constantly surprised by the lines that Sankar is taking around the corners at speeds close to 100kmph in Redfire’s Swift Vxi. I vow to get alloys and bigger tyres for my baby. I have to do justice to that engine.

We then turn off the road towards kulamavu and prepare for a set of 12 very interesting hairpins.

Redfire’s Swift, driven by Sankar is pretending to be a bumper sticker on my blue Vdi.
And California knight seems to be attached to the two of us by an invisible rubber band.

The 3 of us seem to have left everyone else far behind. Since there are no turnoffs on the climb upto kulamavu, we keep going.

We had settled into a nice rhythm and seemed to have pretty good understanding of what the other 2 were doing and I was having the time of my life.

11.45
the 3 cars reach naadukani and pull of the SH onto the side road leading up to the pavilion. It seems that the others were not that far behind. People pull up a few minutes later.

Zak’s qualis is heralded by squealing tyres, and steer’s safari announces its presence with turbo whistle and protesting tyres. We can hear them approach even 3-4 corner’s away.

Park the cars under the pavilion. Photoshoot!!!!!

End of Leg 1.

I will have to stop here and let someone else continue.

[srijit]

Just wanted to chime in and say that the three cars mentioned above were driving very responsibly. There was no tailgating and no overtaking.

Ripper was honking when rounding corners and was setting a good pace. Later on Zak took up duties as the pace car and he too was brilliant. It was fun to see the Qualis drift. The pace cars did outstanding work. Clearing the way, setting a good pace, waiting for stragglers...
Hats off to you guys.

@Ripper, redfire's Swift was absolutely planted. Even when it was thrown around the corners, it never felt unsafe. I'm sure Sankar and redfire will chime in on this

Originally Posted by srijit

Just wanted to chime in and say that the three cars mentioned above were driving very responsibly. There was no tailgating and no overtaking.

oops! did I give any other impression? what I wanted to say was, all 3 of us were very comfortable with each other.

Originally Posted by srijit

@Ripper, redfire's Swift was absolutely planted. Even when it was thrown around the corners, it never felt unsafe. I'm sure Sankar and redfire will chime in on this

and that is why I want tyres and alloys like Redfire.
I have already started pestering the tyre gurus about upgrades.

[redfire]

Hey ripper - yes your pace was impressive. The blue car appeared cool, calm but with a stunning steady speed neatly flowing through the winding road. The extra torque in that machine is what helps to achive this without revving much, on the other hand we were redlining most of the time. But thats is the fun with petrol swift as it keeps moving "happily wild" as the revs climb up . As you said, we 3, plus Ram later, enjoyed the drive to its full potential.

Get a good set of alloys and tyres (which I think the most necessary upgrade needed in a swift to do justice to this wonderful machine). Hope to drive with you to many more trips.

Loved listening to redfire's exhaust and the way the engine sounded bouncing off the rev limiter. the echoes in the hills were brilliant.

I'm yet to understand how Sankar kept the distance between the red Swift and me constant while cornering , braking and accelerating. it was like watching Drift competitions in NFS.

EDIT-
everyone enjoyed the drive to the fullest. too bad steeroid was doing sweeper duty. god knows what he was upto behind all of us. you could here the safari's tyres from miles away.

for me, Zak's piloting was the best.
everytime we stopped for a breather, he would look at me and ask, why are you sweating?
I was sweating trying to keep up with zak's qualis running on bald tyres

MaserQ was up in front with me and ruing the fact that his fiesta was not around.

I'm sure I looked like an idiot to my passengers with my frantic gear shifts, wildly spinning arms and tilting head, every time we came to a corner.

[suman]

OK Doc, now that you guys have praised each other to the heavens & back, how about the next part of the meet report? Oh yes, and some more pics please!

[Steeroid]

From our vantage position behind the convoy, we could observe all the cars and all of us sitting in the Dicor agreed on one thing - the smoothest driver of the group, by a very large margin, was California Knight. Perfect lines, perfect braking, no panic and ALWAYS maintaining the exact same distance from the car ahead.

S M O O T H was the word that came up everytime we watched him drive.

However the most spectacular driver was definitely the Mallu Mullah, eyes glinting and beard flying as he grinned and gunned his way through the route.

EDIT: Suman, we need some time to reconstruct the events of the night in a manner suitable for consumption here in the phorum.

Originally Posted by suman

OK Doc, now that you guys have praised each other to the heavens & back, how about the next part of the meet report? Oh yes, and some more pics please!

Zak had taken over as pilot after luch at Greenberg. for me, that was the most exciting part.
the hairpins and curves were endless.
the greenery around was a blur to me and all of the drivers. I'm sure the passengers enjoyed the view.

we hopped from kulamavu dam to cheruthoni dam to idukki dam, and then it was a mad rush to kuttikanam.we did have some unscheduled stopovers due to ram's ECU trouble.after which i handed over my keys to MaserQ(hehehehe we were on sweeper duty now and were not going very fast)


No more reports from me. I was dead to the world after dinner. the real exciting stuff happened to other members while I was snoring away to glory. its best they narrate it.

[ram_hyundai]

OK guys,i think i have to say something regarding the Verna.Huge torque and the beast was happy in the third gear negotiating the hairpins.At times i shove her into the 2nd and whoa the hairpins were throwing the kid at the back furiously to both the sides.
i loved the drive and the whole trip.

ram

[Steeroid]

After rescuing the Scorpio, we headed back to the resort where Zak parked it in the corner, grille facing the wall.

After a couple of drinks more we decided it was too cold and windy outside and therefore Ishaan and I decided to call it a day (or night). Together with A S H V I N and 3 others, we headed to Dreamland next door.

I hadnt seen Dreamland by daylight, but it looked more like a resort than the Tea Garden setup which was more like a lodge. I drive in and am surprised at the number of cars inside - I thought this was an isolated resort? Something about it made me uneasy.

Get into the room and I promptly hit the bed - we'd been driving for over 12 hours, followed by drinks and rescue acts. Ishaan didnt hit his bed, though and I was snoring away peacefully when he started shaking me awake whispering "Steer, there are cops outside!"

I peep out of the window and sure enough there's a police Sumo parked next to my Safari, with cops peeping into the car.

A medley of thoughts ran through my mind - does this have something to do with mansidea's accident? Were they searching for the Scorp?

We didnt have to wait long - soon there were two urgent bursts on the doorbell and Ishaan went to open the door, I followed looking very sleepy.

We were greeted by the stern face of an obviously senior member of the police service in a beret. "Routine Police Inspection" he offered by way of an explanation when I asked him "Yes?". He was a Dy SP, and was followed into the room by an Inspector, an SI and a couple of PCs.

"Where are you from?"

"Cochin, and my friend is from up North"

He gives Ishaan a scowl.

"What are you guys doing here?"

"We came on a weekend drive with a few friends."

"What friends? Do you work together or something?"

"No we share a common interest in automobiles and routinely go for drives together"

"So this is a club"

"Sort of, though not exactly - we're just people with a common interest in automobiles."

"Where is the club based? Cochin? What are Bangalore cars doing here?"

"No it isnt based in Cochin. It's errr...on the internet - people from all over India"

His eyes narrow "Is this one of those "friendship" clubs?"

I get the drift. "No, No - its not a club. Its just a automobile site, and people get together on weekends to meet up and talk. Its an informal group of friends."

"How many people are staying here? Did you book this resort directly?"

"8 of us here in 4 rooms, no we did not book this resort. We had booked Tea Garden, the resort just before this one - there were too many of us so the management accomodated some of us here. We have not booked here."

"How many there?"

"I dont have an exact count, but there are roughly 48 or 50 of us, so there must be 40-odd people there. We have taken up the whole resort."

"Any ladies here?"

"No - the families stay there, only the people without family were sent here"

"That is not what I asked - are there any ladies with you here that you did not bring with you?"

It hits me with a flash - this is a flesh raid! We're in the wrong bloody place - I smelt it when I got here!

"No - you can inspect the room. There are no ladies with us. We only just arrived from the other resort - the engine of my car outside will still be warm to the touch. No ladies with any of the others either - we're a group of respectable and responsible citizens."

The man proceeds to inspect the room with his eyes. His eyes fall on the two liquor bottles on the table - a Black Label and a Bacardi Oro, both open, both partially consumed. We brought those back with us. I thought he'd ask questions for those as they had no excise stamps or stickers - these were bought from Duty Free and damn I dont have the bills!

"What do you do?"

"I work abroad."

"Any ladies in the other resort?"

"Yes, the families are there."

"Family as in married people, or are you talking about people in 'relationships'?"

"Married people. With kids. There are about 5 kids there."

"Where are they from?"

"Cochin, Bangalore, Coimbatore"

He turns to his PCs - "Okay, search the bags and the room"

They search the room, the toilets and our bags. Find nothing except Ishaan's huge WD Hard Disk Drive - he explains it is a computer hard disk and a cop looks for the connectors and nods.

"Sorry for disturbing you, Good Night!"

We follow him to the door and as he steps out I ask him

"May I know what this was all about?"

"You dont need to know the details. This is a routine police inspection. Please go back to bed".

Heil Hitler!


.......to be continued.

[Steeroid]

NOTICE

Those of you who know parts or the whole of the story please refrain from quoting names or tbhp handles here. 4 of our friends visited the police station for no fault of theirs - if they hadnt offered to be the sacrificial goats every one of the others, family or not, would've been pulled out of their beds and taken to the station.

What they did saved the others from considerable embarassment or at least inconvenience - most of the others slept through the night without any inkling of what happened. Kindly respect the fact and stop using their names.

[speedzak]

I am just reading, reading and watching, watching all the pics and posts here. My fingers are just too excited to type anything on this thread.

Guys, go on.... When you all get tired at a point (which is never bound to happen), I will start!

Excellent pics and some nice words we have already seen here.

PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING NAMES/NICKS OF THOSE WHO WERE INVOLVED IN THE YET TO BE REVEALED INCIDENTS. A VERY HUMBLE REQUEST FROM MY SIDE.