For most of us, it was the first experience of driving a vehicle on an off-road track.
BHPian thirugata recently shared this with fellow enthusiasts:
In the late hours, it has become a regular thing for us from the local team – members of BHP to meet here in and around Mangalore. This is the 3rd such meeting that has taken place in the last 6 months or so.
Wait, but this meeting was not like before. This was different, very different.
No, it was very different.
Now if you’re wondering what all the excitement is about when the encounters were so regular, this time we wanted to try our hand at driving a jeep on a purpose built off-road track.
Before we get into the details of how it developed, first.
This event was the brainchild of Akhil scorpio1558 who built this track for us, took the risk of giving us newbies his jeep to learn off road skills and guided us how it should be done.
So big thanks to him and Digvijay @bdn317 for giving him a helping hand in the process.
Director of the day.
If Akhil was the director of the day, his jeep was the hero of the day. It pretty much did everything by itself and made us driving novices look like pros.
It’s a Mahindra CJ640 XDP*4×4 from 1988. It has a peugeot engine with an aluminum head, solid wing axles front and rear, 4 speed gearbox with low gear.
Modifications include buckshot mudder tires, metal snorkel, 6 ton winch, raised exhaust, roll bar, power steering and*power*brakes.
In the past it was used in Akhil’s sawmill to haul logs and it’s the same mill where this track was built for us.
A few months ago during one of our regular pranks on a social media platform, Akhil asked if any of us would be interested in testing our off-road skills and the idea caught on and Akhil started building a track for the day. Finally it was decided to meet on 12/1/2025 and the rest of the food and drink plan was finalised.
I’m sure not many of us slept much the night before because of the excitement, and when we met at the track in the morning we were all like kids in a candy store.
Gang..
Front row left to right: Kiran (thirugata), Arshad (arshad YR), Digvijay (bdn317), Chinmay (nityaya), Adithya (a_bharadwaj), Gagandeep (gagan_DB), Akhil (scorpiondicor), Alston’s Friend, Alston (alstonlobo), Rajesh (carfreak), Prasanna (prasanna_indaje), Anand (dockap), Chethan (gischathan), Akhil’s friend, Sundeep (full blue).
Back row left to right: Pravin (PraVINRai), Johnson (johny-desperado), Srinidhi (SRISRI_90), Samarth (samaspire).
Missing from the photo: Vijeth (emvi)
Our cars
The boys who were leaving from Mangalore gathered outside the city and proceeded towards BC Road. The boys who came from Manipal and Udupi started earlier.
We all met Akhil at BC Road and then drove towards the mill. A few local people who live in and around Puttur also came by that time.
Chetan was coming from Karkala and even joined us.
The guy was not at all impressed that we were making all the noise on a Sunday morning
After a brief introduction and greetings, we assembled and Akhil shared some guidelines on the dos and don’ts of off-road riding.
Then Akhil drove the jeep around the track to show us how it should be done. After that we all went around the track one by one.
Some of them even went to the track in their own vehicles to test their driving skills.
For most of us, it was the first experience of driving a vehicle on an off-road course. It was fun and the memories of the experience will stay with me for a long time.
Now I’ll let the photos do the talking.
Srinidhi was the first to drive the track. He also showed us how to move a log using a jeep.
Alston’s Bolero test waters
Johnson, who had previous off-road experience, drove his major on the track
Digvijay showed us that his classic SWB can handle the track even though it was 2WD.
Alston’s Bolero got into a bit of a sticky situation and the crane was forced into action to recover
Akhil’s safari did not want to give up the chance to show what it is capable of.
And that’s the end of the day.
Read the BHPian comments for more insights and information.