my Euro Road Trip!

[Superman]

Hola!

Just sorted my photos from Euro-trip '08 and have 997 once id deleted all ths **** doubles, blurs and odd crap Nick snapped.

What a trip, Le Mans in itself is an amzing experiance you cant really sum up in a sentance, 'rich boys holiday' is a good way but the atmosphere is absolutely amazing, everyone is friendly, English, French, Dutch, Germans, Spaniards and Swiss all mingling in harmony it would seem, no scum bags, no 'idiots' only people playing up to the crowds, no chavs (except Koop) and nothing to worry about regarding you safety, belongings and car etc. We hear it hasnt been as exciting as past years as the French Federans were in quite large numbers, however they were passive to most acts of stupidity and partying which was good! The Race is an experiance, howver i cant see how folks can sleep on a dirty grass bank 20ft from the track at night, and spend all day watching... However the race is a spectacle!!!

Then the trip to Germany and Holland was a real adventure, done on the spur and well worth roughing it for a week.

Anyway here are the pics, trying to do them in Chrono order with some kind of commentary.

The route




We left Donnington Park services at about 11:30pm wednesday and proceeded down to Dover at 55-60mph. It began to rain as we left, and literally rained non stop and hard until we got to Dover and through most of France, wasnt happy!

Wasnt long before bonnets were up





We made it onto an earlier ferry all in good spirits, n.b. Reece on the right here is currently on interpols 10 most wanted list, the 6th most wanted man in Europe, suspected of killing 31 young men and 8 counts of cannibalism...!!!



The Euro Grape soon made friends with other small cars in France



The TransAm soon need some more oil :s



we gave the Endurance Grape some decals, as most of the other 'super' cars goign to LeMans were all stickered up (plan for next year!)



France was dreary...



at 60km/h the Pony was managing 4MPG in oil



We all arrived at Arnage where the circuit is with no problems bar Reece bumping off two police officers on the way...



Got to the campsite as dusk set in, then went for a walk to the track to see the end of second qualifying on the thursday evening/night, i was in awe of the noises and speed of the cars...!
Just a snap of the massive ferris wheel



Our first morning there consisted of nipping to the local Super U supermarche' The car park was full of nice cars, corvettes, RS4s/6s Porsches, Hummers, Nobles, TVRs and so on...!!!



Wasnt long before the rumours that Tilly had his missus' 'totum pole' were confirmed... caused a few smiles from the passing ladies



walked 2minutes to track and for a walk around the Blanc camp site where all the rich folks and 'clubs' camp. So these pics are all from in there, they get to camp against the catch fencing and on the LeMans GP circuit.






NSX-R

[Superman]

AC Cobra had its own garage!!!












Exige and Impreza P1 behind, one of only a handful of Subarus, relief


Was BA Baracus there? Raving Mad Murdock was, in the form of Reece the serial Murderer...


Aparently these are some guys Alex knows from Imperial! The had their super soakers confiscated


one of endless R8s


Out of the Blanc Camp now...

In the Blue camp we were...

The fair to LeMans was only £1.60!!!



This guy goes as i snapped away "thats a fiver please" my reply was "what for the whole car?" OWNED!



Bless the man that drove this unimog to LeMans



So on Saturday we headed to watch the start of the race which was at 3pm, at 1pm the grandstand was rammo, we had no chance of seeing squat!



We made various attempts at finding a good spot...



Finally settling for a huge tree just after the Dunlop bridge, the view was impressive (formation lap)

[Superman]

Removed branches were replaced with coke cans



The view down the kurves heading to the Mulsanne straight



home from home



start-finish straight



His only shower for the entire 10days!



8 of us headed out for the other side of the track, the Grape made light work of carrying what must of been about 100stone of man meat



laughing stock



I couldnt snap the cars at night... only their class colours showing!



Asleep in a dodgey swap on the Mulsanne, freaks!



from the ferris wheel 30min from race finish






Audi R10 taking the chequed flag



3rd placed Peugeot and an Aston






The Audi team with their winners trohpies, Britains Alan McNish is the guy on the left!



Bubbly



final chicane

[Superman]

track depris, was well worse then it looks!



we saw these guys at the Ring later in the week too






the Euro Grape and "its Dad"



the 306



O Rly?



Grape + Eiffel tower



Boys + Eiffel tower






All of a sudden the tower started sparkling









Teebag









Anyway so we got very very lost in Paris at 1-2am, not many signs for the larger roads. Dont know where but somewhere in France we had to pitch tent and sleep for a few hours, Koop had an incident with a white cow and some freaky village put the willies up Zac so we pitched tent at some quite industrial park...




At 10am the tent shook "allo zis is ze french police" Turns out you cant bum about in France, so we had to scamper at their request

[Superman]

The bugs in France are freaky!



The adopted pikeys were worse!



stopped for supplys, road maintainance equipment, the usual...




Luxembourg was offically ****, and we got lost there too...

Germany started off lovely though, amazing roads, scenery and weather!






Made it to the Nurburgring, but it was dead, needed a re-mortgage for the campsite so we took a risk in the woods...



made a big fire



turns out i have OCD, so i packed the car, again



Before the Ring, decided should drop and change the oil as it was very tappy, and had previously mixed grades. Bought some oil, not realising (i cant read German) it was for Diesels/turbodiesels, ok though apparently, dropped the oil (was a very small amount) in a bush then pulled the grape out, felt quite bad about it tbh!



cant even have a JP in peace!!!



Me and Teebag snuck around on the inside of the circuit taking some snaps



I snapped this, we saw it on the road too thinking it was a dodge viper, but aparently its a Mercedes prototype, definatley was a V8 not a V10 when we heard it the next time too, anyone know what it is????



beautiful Turbo!






You dont see many Benelli's about, shame it was a pov-spec one

[Superman]

and yes the Grape did the Nurburgring, 16minutes something, frightening but more so going that slow as the bikers come and go so quickly, was just waiting for one to end up coming through the Grape's rear window!






EPIC!



Because Z and K had been messing about all day we had to return to the track the day after, so ****ed off to Koln for the night!



we stopped in a youth Hostel, they didnt like us English folk much, we buggered off out and heres what happened!!!



Nick was on his way before we'd even crossed the river into town








we had a few beers on the streets as no club would let the English boyos in!!!


=





Nick then got booted out of club place for snoozing!

we got him back in though after abit of fresh air


BUT his second wind was abit pathetic and looked worse then before!


I had to prop him up



Dunno if we got booted out again or we went of our own accord, we then hung around with some French gangsters!

[Superman]

Duece bigalow wanted in on the fun too



returned to the hostel abit...



The Germans molestered us and stole our beer, the next morning they locked us in the carpark and threatened to ring the polize unless Z+K paid a soiling charge for not using the sheets, I had scammed out of it but Teebag the fool then paid my charge when they quizzed him! They backed out and told us "leave and do not ever return". Me and Nick got split up from Zac and Koop, we crashed out in a large park for a few hours then headed back for the ring.


For Tom



Koln, looking at the less attractive side



Mel Gibson's truck he used to pull down the South African drug dealers condo in Lethal Weapon2!!!



Stopped in a small town in Germany for some grub and there was some impressive vehicles there...

RS2000



BMW Z1, id never even heard of one of these!!!









boat car





Mingled with the locals...



Zac



Me and Zac off out for a hot lap

[Superman]

We ****ed off to Amsterdam, but somehow ended up having a rest in Belgium!



dont know whether koop in dutch is good or bad, probably bad!






grizzly ladies in Dam






then my journey forwards was cut short with god damn clutch failure, at the time was un driveable, later on fiddled the cable and managed to get it going and headed to Rotterdam for a ferry home, on the way ditched that idea and went to Oostende in Belgium - Ramsgate, and drove 400miles not been able to change gear without some massive struggle, ah well was fun in itself, the HM Customs guys had a giggle at us after they had searched us for drugs


towed it around the courner but wasnt really going very well so risked it for a biscuit at night time when there was minimal traffic on the road, once on the high way hoped we wouldnt have to stop till the ferry port, could at least push it on the ferry then, but was useable at least until it hit British soil!



had a final laugh on the ferry



Titch, answer?






and as expected England was up in smoke as we returned home!



The End.

[Mat]

Far trip that was, looked a wicked experience tho!!!! Shame the grape didnt quite make it unscaved!!

Loving the grape pics on the ring tho!!!

[karting]

awsome pictures, took ages to look at them all. I was gonna make a trip to lemans but never did. Some awsome cars there mainly the cobra though

x