Dubai: Twenty-five years is a long time to keep up a hobby or tradition.
This is something Rajkumar Pancholia knows all too well as he set out on his 30th Gulf News Fun Drive yesterday.
Pancholia has attended every single one of the off-road adventures since they started in 1986 with just 75 cars. Some years two were held.
Gulf News spoke to the veteran off-roader while he and his family tucked into their breakfast at the Rugby 7s stadium.
"It was a great experience," he said about the first fun drive. "We were five people, all cousins and brothers."
Pancholia said for the first three fun drives he and his keen off-road family borrowed cars from their Arab friends.
"After that we all bought our own four-wheel drives and now we are six or seven four-wheel cars, all brothers or cousins," he said.
Pancholia said he had worked in Dubai for 35 years. The Gulf News reader owns a distribution company.
Different experience
He said the fun drive was a different experience every year which is why he and his family have kept coming.
"We like driving in the desert because it's fun. Although we've got so much experience [driving] we always get stuck, and it's fun," he said.
"Even my local friend who is a rally driver, he also got stuck and we had to remove him," he said.
His son has also joined 17/18 Fun Drives.
After Arab friends taught him how to drive in the desert Pancholia said he encouraged his colleagues to come along, and now about 30 cars joined in.
One of Pancholia's more memorable fun drive experiences was in Liwa three years ago, when one of his cousins ran out of petrol.
"We all tried to pull the petrol from one car to another car and we could not do it. And luckily one of our friends was a mechanic, he sipped it out from my car and put it in his car with a pipe. The next day he was sick and had to go to hospital," he said, adding that they now laugh about it.
Did you attend the Fun Drive this year? How was your experience? Send us your pictures at readers@gulfnews.com
