The car, the dash, the end

Our Vixen

Oh how we had a dash.....












C


Cabo Da Roca - Sultans of Bling, Club Tropicana, Vixen

The Vixen goes through the Pyrennes

So here we are crossing the French Spanish border near Loudres....

Followed by lots of mad heal-toe driving through tight corners in the mountains. Gav thought mud was fun ;-)

Finally photos - bangers in convoy

Thought I would give a quick update on the bangers we travelled with....





The Banger Grannies - Mavis, Beatrice and Doris in drag... they don't half like spraying grease from their behind.... ?!?


Club Tropicana decked out like butlins redcoat pimps all in Primark and TKmax outfits... dig the espedrills lads



Then of course we must not forget the incredible cow moos from the Sultans of Bling in real arab tunics from eBay!


at











the end of line - Club Tropicana, Vixen, Sultans of Bling - Cabo da Roca

Calais

So we arrive at Calais at 5.30 and are now waiting to board the next tunnel train.. the superglue rotor arm seems to have made it - along with two super tired drivers doing 3 hour shifts. we need to give the Vixen a bit of love as we see the light of day in Dover and make it back into London
Gav had some sort of guiding star when he was driving tonight? not sure, but I think he was seeing visions and certainly kept getting spooked by French speed cameras - that Bridge?

time for bed

the ramblings of the Pickster driving

... (iPod phones out of ear) -

"Dan, you posted about changing the headlight bulb front left and how difficult the pop-up heads are on a Porsche (battery disconnect, all trim away from front and remove all headlamp... ) ????"

"Oh and Dan did you tell everyone about how cool those special coffees we found were - self heating expresso's in plastic tub - push button shake and wait.. (Ed. note: Gav bought a whole box of them) ???"

...(iPod phones back in ears)

note - we never did get the stereo to give us more than the treble line in a Stereophonics track

Bordeaux Sunset == Red Mist

So this trip I learnt that red mist is like when Gav see Lewis H steal his girl - closing straight and just not quick enough - he tells me that I may be better at running a team than driving - even though I can now toe-heel properly?!
So as we approach the last six hours of driving, we watch this amazing sunset over the forests of south west France; every now and again you get a glimpse of the vineyards... there are no clouds in the sky just a red mist (Gav is driving remember) - last night we nearly didn't leave the party... Gav became a token Aussie ;-)
So some thoughts from the last few days
- La Rochelle suprised both of us cause it is much better than advertised and the port and marina reminded Gav and I of a trip a couple of years agao to Croatia
- San Sebastian is a much under-rated party town at the foot of some absolutely amazing mountains (yes I will be back!)
- Salamanca is just stunning... one of the better romantic weekend breaks me thinks
- Cabo de Roca is unknown beauty and the village of Cascais is amazing old and picturesque
To sum up - the Sucata Run is a "Quality" road trip.....

welshmen

Gav is now driving and we are approaching Bordeaux having been stuck in half hour of Spanish/French border traffic!? Just has a bowl of Taboule and a large bottle of Evian so back on the road. I am back trying to download pictures (which USB cable was it??!)... happier now that the super-gluing of the rotor arm seems to have done the trick and I don't have to keep taking the distributor cap off every 50km!
So Gav mentioned the welshmen... well they came to the rescue of some other poor sucateers who happened to snap their one and only car key when in Salamanca (by throwing it against a tree?!?)... The welsh boyz had to snap the ignition lock and hot wire said banger in order to allow it to start and the central locking to be controlled.. they still had to get out of the car? I gather the Welsh are strong?
Seems like our super gluing of a Porsche 944 rotor arm is the least of the problems.....

Just when we thought the hard bit was done

we've since broken down again and lost the rotor arm mounting screw! we know its between Palencia and Burgos, however it's a lomg stretch of road and we gotta be at Calais soon!! Dan's been hard at it with three tool boxes, super glue, a 4mm screw he carries around with him (I'm told that's an engineers "Carry around in your pocket item") and a young Apprentice! Klein relished the challenge to heal the sick Vixen and seems now content to chase French M3s through the Pyranees mountain. Such enthusiastic driving leads me to believe that we are now running well! Pickster has settled for the journalist role..

Yesterday was fabulous. We finally ran in convoy with other teams, hearing tales of all sorts of car problems (indeed one requiring 3 large welshman to rip of an entire steering lock mechanism!) and finally Australian style motorway ramming!

As Klein rightly pointed out, we did spend some of yesterday beeched at the campsite - kinda added to the experience! Our cab to the after party didn't turn up, so we joined the Ausy squad in a "9 up" 250,000 miler Peugeot 306. The local police would have loved it!

Now have only 1,300kms left till we get back to London!

One last thing - how can a Cambridge grad not have heard of the phrase "red mist" before. Am I missing something?!

Gav, Team Porsche #83

On the way back to London now

So Gav and I are in Palencia now on the 24 hour drive back to London. We have had a really exciting couple of days... ridiculously busy and good 2g connections (yes, no 3g!) are hard to come by to blog.
So we did a night in Salamanca which was beautiful - sunset in Plaza Mayor left just the cranes on the sky line orange and then as if by magic the square window lights came on.... great photos to follow
Gav went to bed to get some rest and I landed up in a Salsa bar with a bunch of lads from Birmingham... well someone has to! and it is an amazing University town ;-)
So yesterday we did the first real day of convoy touring with other bangers.... big shout to the other five vehicles in our convoy yesterday - "Banger Grannies" ... yes these were the three trannie lads..., "Flower Power" from Dunhumby, "Shark" toyota, "Club Tropicana" and last but NOT least the "Sultans of Bling"... best dressed arabs by far
Great fun and we crossed the finishing line at Cabo de Roca at 5.26pm yesterday evening with the Sultans of Bling
Then on to the campsite where I managed to sink the porsche into the beach sand and had to get "Flower Power" to tow us out... thx Andy and Katie
Then on to the awards at Coconut club in Cascais where Banger Grannies picked up "Best Dressed"... Club Tropicana "Most Raised Privately"... Sultans of Bling "Best Car".... we were just "the porsche guys".. and the only ones carrying a full compliment of spares and tools!!!
So we left the after party at 12.30 last night and set off this morning at 4.45am after 4 hours sleep.... the only event!?!? we broke down outside Salamanca at 11am :-(
So Gav rang a wierd switchboard at the RAC and I took apart the Distributor Cap.... ten mintues later after rotor arm found apart and screws in engine well - yes the Rotor Arm had shaken itself in to little bits..... we had WD40 , fixed it and were back firing the cylinders.....
now after lots of coffee need to hit the road again......

Pyrennes pics

will post pictures of the pyrennes soon when i have my camera download cable out of the boot....