My holiday.

Okay, I’ve had a restorative drink now and collected my thoughts. This is what happened.

Thursday
Drove to Kent in 'pirate car'. English people ignored the car's strange appearance, if anything looking in the other way. As we were about to board the train with the car we met a couple of other crappy cars, one of them started doing doughnuts while showing off what their £75 ride could do. The police with big guns turned up and were a bit angry with us (the car reported to be messing around was a Volvo too) but we were polite and explained it was for charity so they let us go, because we were 'clearly good people'. Sadly they wouldn’t pose for a photo with us for security reasons.

Arrived in France, go to car park full of strange cars and vans, drank litres of beer and talked crap with random people thinking things are a bit strange. We didn’t really know what to make of it all but it was jolly friendly, when bar closed we went back to hotel to drink more with team of Scots. Scots get very drunk and end up SHITTING on team-mates car, Yes SHITTING.

Friday
Met in car park with 45 other cars lots of admiring crappy paint jobs etc. Got supplies and the rally began. The start was like Wacky racers with people driving all over the place. Oh and we got given little hand held radios so we could talk to each other (if we were within 3 miles). At first we went on back roads through tiny little villages in France until we realised it took forever, so we went on the toll roads, managing to hit 103 miles an hour at one point.

Enter Switzerland under cover of darkness, slight trouble at border as the toy telescope spooked the guards. They were very friendly and soon waved us on into Basel which is a horrible town, especially in darkness.

We checked into the hotel (very nice 4 star place with awfully powerful showers) and started drinking, lots. One of the Chaps in mini was told to move car or it will be towed, so he gets in car and is instantly done for drink driving. More drinking. Crap food (chicken and beef with tinned fruit served with rice) and then to bed for sleep.

Saturday
Wake up on set of Sound of Music, so zoomed up and down mountain passes admiring amazing scenery. Stop for coffee and meet convoy mates, make a couple of new good friends. Cars start to drop out at this point, one of them ‘glazed’ their breaks due to them getting far, far too hot. Stonked along passes in the afternoon (top driving fun, nothing like a sheer drop on one side to focus the mind). H takes over as we are about to go on the Infamous Stelvio pass. Decide to time section for extra fun.

The timed section starts at 6.02, breaks fail at 6.02 and 30 seconds, H stops us from going off cliff (picking up cow on the way) by ramming car into verge, car goes on two wheels for a bit. Team mate J goes into shock. Brakes gone, everyone a bit shook up, but then we realise that if the brakes had gone on any other corner in the day we would be dead.

We spent 30 minutes trying to fix them (the fluid had boiled off due to the hard day). Sadly we couldn’t fix it and H's RAC cover doesn't work because we aren't returning in car too.

Some other rally people in a Merc offer to be our 'emergency break'. So we decide to tackle pass using engine to break only, it gets dark and fog descends. 2 hours of PURE TERROR as we go down pass. I can't stress enough how close we were to dying, for about an hour. I found this section the most trying as surving was out of my hands (H was driving) and about an hour of constantly being on the edge of death does start to get to a chap.

48 hairpin turns later the pass is thankfully over so we go to Aprica have pint and be happy not dead. Pints taste amazing, everything tastes amazing. Then Drink even more beer, crash out in apartment thingy.

Sunday
Wake up, still not dead (V. good start). Waking up and not being dead, even if you have a ringing hangover is a good thing. Feeling renewed with life and very good coffee we bleed the brakes and then top them up.

After everyone is ready we set off to Southern Italy stopping at Verona to visit one team member’s family (And get Italian hospitality at it’s best) and then at the Ferrari factory to gawp at very expensive cars on a track day.

Manage 105mph with ‘troubled brakes’

Arrive in small town in Italy where EVERY woman is beautiful, drool. Drink, eat and smash up our car a little bit for fun, the car managed to break a plank. Still not dead.

Monday
Final section, racing around country lanes in SUPER RAIN road becomes river, so end up doing rally style driving on country roads (3 hours of pure pleasure) a car following us offers me a place on their rally team after seeing me in action. More driving and fun. Super rain turns whole of Italy into sea.Arrive have hotel malarkey (Three rooms later we have somewhere to sleep) and then go to prize giving, drink eat and I go paddling in med. Only a month ago I had been paddling in the med and having a rather less pleasant time, it’s amazing how much things can change in a month.

As the car has finished we thrash it around wasteland near beach and do everything you are never allowed to do with cars which was lots of fun, I managed to make fire come out of the exhaust, and yet the car still ran. H ended up beaching car on the top of a dune. More booze and food. Still not dead.

TuesdayWake up, unable to sell car to locals because of it being on the top of a dune and stuck, eat and then go to Naples to shop before going to airport, sadly traffic is so bad have to go straight to airport and end up delaying flight (get in). Still not dead.

Conclusion
The rally is amazing, for 5 days we were part of something really special, everyone was so accepting and they really cared if you made it. I made some friends on that night that I’ll keep for quite some time.

It was more than that, the cars were terrible, which was sort of the point. Because they were only £100 people weren’t sniping at each other over the cars, but they still had pride. I think we could all draw a lesson from the love these machines caused and yet gay abandon that the people showed while enjoying them.

Or put another way; enjoy what you have because it’s brilliant.

(I had more photos but blogger is being naughty so I'll try and upload them later)