This is probably going over old ground, but............................
There now follows a very brief synopsis of my trip to Italy with four hundred or so other like minded individuals. (Pics to follow once I get some tme to collate and upload them).
Day -1, Wednesday) One teammate, (Tomm), and I set off from Fife at around 5pm headed for Henley on Thames for a stopover and to pick up the other team mate, (Stu). by the time we'd crossed the border, the computer with the SatNav and toons on had overheated and thrown it's toys out it's pram. On arrival in Henley, we discovered that the paint had started to roll back over the bonnet of the car, so we quickly cut off the rolls of paint and touched it up at midnight, then drank some beer.
Day 0, Thursday) Up bright and early in order to fashion some sort of cooling mechanism for the computer. This worked, but on putting the screen back on, I managed to tear the ribbon cable! (Insert expletives of your choice here!!). About an hour of calling round found a second hand one identical to the existing one for sale in Reading. £150 and a HD swap later we were in business!! Made our way to Dover with me cringing in the passenger seat as the driver insisted on driving in lane 2 and predominantly lane 3!! I pointed out the fact that I had a couple of 'MLM's are self abuser's' style stickers on the bootlid and that it might be percieved he was being a bit of a hypocrite, but it fell on deaf ears. Fallout averted! Arrive in Calais and drank some beer.
Day 1, Friday) The start! Calais to Sarnen, (Switzerland). Around 100 crap cars convene in a car park just outside Calais. The cross-section of automotive scum was eclectic to say the least. Question:- How many Merc' limo's can you buy for £200? Answer:- Two!!! Anyway, off we went through France for Switzerland. It was fairly boring apart from getting lost trying to avoid Strasbourg at rush hour. The SatNav sent us down a road that hadn't been built yet!!! We weren't the only one's either. Arrive in Sarnen in Switzerland and drank some beer.
Day 2, Saturday) Sarnen to Aprica, (Italy). The drive through the Alpine passes was the 2nd most awsome thing I've ever seen. I thought Scotland had it licked for scenery, but it's not a patch on this!! Had a minor mechanical failure with the handbrake which was fixed with a hammer, a hacksaw and some epoxy resin. Job done!! Heard many storys about smoke billoowing out from the brakes of some teams cars, others whose hubcaps had melted. We stopped going down one of the last passes, to assist a Volvo estate with it's bonnet up. aparrentlty they'd been approaching one of the many downhill hairpin bends, applied the brake and the pedal went straight to the floor!! Brown trousers or what? Led ten bangers up a pass into Aprica with chronically bad headlights!! (Were overtaken on a blind bend by a Smart car!! ) Arrived in Aprica and drank some beer!!
Day 3, Sunday) Aprica to Viterbo. Still some nice scenery today, but not as good as yesterday. The challenge for today was to have your teams photo taken at a designated petrol pump in five filling stations dressed as a character from Reservoir Dogs and holding a specific make of SuperSoaker water pistol. Subject to many drive-by shootings and got completely soaked on a number of occassions. Had someone reverse into the BatOmegaBile by accident and the pretty blonde driver sh*t herself as three burly blokes get out the car looking like the mafia!! Eventually got her to calm down and take our picture!! On arrival in Viterbo, were subject to a drowning on arrival at the designated car park, but got off lightly compared to the Honda Legend with no roof!! Drank some more beer and ate pizza!! (BTW, other than the tourists I didn't see one ugly person in Viterbo!!)
Day 4, Monday) Viterbo to Pinetamare. Called off todays challenges as we got caught in an almighty thunder/rain storm which denied us visibility of more than three feet. Found a Cafe and drank coffee till it went off!! Arrive Pinetamare and drank lots more beer!!
Day 5, Tuesday) Pinetamare - Pompeii - Rome Airport. As we were flying home, we gave our car to a team from Edinburgh, (Who'd totalled their tartan Sierra in a dodgem fight with a Montego!), who in return would take all my tools etc back to Scotland. Left the car with them and hitched a ride to Pompeii to do a bit of sight seeing before heading home. The BatOmegaBile was consequently thrashed round the Nurburgring repeatedly in under 11 minutes!! 10:42 to be precise!! They also managed to get the speedo to 140 MPH, (132 by GPS) on a downhill stretch of the A1 in Italy. Not bad for a 14 year old heap huh?!?!?!?!? I think beer figured in there somewhere too!!
Flew home on Wednesday.
Now here's the rub...............
I drove over 2k miles in a clapped out old wreck of a car and for by one tiny bit of maintenance, it never missed a beat. It also made it all the way round the 'ring and back to Scotland with no trouble!! It must've covered over five thousand miles in a week!! I get to Luton Airport and hire a brand spanking new Focus. It broke down and I had to get recovered!! I get in my own '02 plate Omega yesterday morning and it broke down and I had to get recovered!!
I want my banger back!!!!
One last thing.............
The driving in Italy can only be described as 'special'!! However, although it's to all intents and purposes a free for all and lanes on a motorway are nothing more than a suggestion, (Many stretches are 5 lanes wide with no markings!! ), there's little or no congestion, and people move out of your way if you're going faster than them.
Gets my vote.
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Topic: S2N wrap thread. (Read 4348 times)