James Stephenson

What do 90 or so L2CT rally competitors want to do the night before start: sleep.

What does the rest of the patrons in the hotel want to do on NYE when they have a Disco in one function room and a drum and base/dubsteb rave at the other end, and no licensing laws so the bars were open untill 6am: not sleep.

Guess how it all went down? Not brilliantly is one way to put it.

At Breakfast time this morning you could easily tell who’s rooms were more effected by the noise and ruckus and the wrecklessly loud dubsted playing from the ground floor by the degree of grumpyness and complaints hahaha. I’m glad i can sleep like a rock and was marginly inconvenienced.

EXCEPT, no one could avoid the fire alarm going off at 6:30 am……. that was bad. Word on the street is that some people were told to go to bed, and they didnt agree with management decision so they did what they thought was the most appropriate thing to do……… pull the fire alarm at 6:30…. Now that did not go down well…. at all.

oh well, it is what it is. Today is d-Day!! we have 30 minutes to check out of our room and make our way to scrutineering and then london. wow. today is it. no turning back now!

I will update as often as possible/practical so stay tuned!

James! 🙂

Today everything got real… This morning we went out to Newbury and most of the rally had a navagation briefing and training afternoon to introduce those (to newbies like myself and veterans alike) to the style of maps being used on the first night rallying through the Kent Forestry and the route books used everywhere else on our trip. Me and dad smashed it out, we will be fine in terms of navigational stuff.

I’m sitting in a top notch hotel room at the Brooklands Motor Museum (got here early this evening along with a large percentage of the other fella’s) and thinking, “well wouldnt the next month be nice if it was like this!” but at the same time, knowing full well that i will be lucky guy to get a flushing toilet (of any quality) at all throughout the middle bits of africa.

So yes, the nerves have definitely set in. 2 more sleeps. 1 more day.

James

How convenient is that! The local Sainsbury’s (supermarket chain) has a crew of Polish car washers in the car park giving cars a wash and a polish for 9Quid! And they did a fantastic job as well, even gave her some wheel shine, probably the first time ever!

We also found out that all petrol stations over here have a filling limit of 100 liters on ultimate unleaded, not very handy when you have a 90 year old vintage rally car that has a 130 liter tank that needs to be filled. Not even counting the reserve tank of 60 liters in the back. Now im going to make a pretty safe bet and say that today’s picture of Penny right after her tub will be the last time she will look this clean and shiny for quit some time, no time for a cut and polish on the rally!!

Now, the first of January: If any of our followers/supporters are in london and fancy to see us off the start line, then there are two options. We are at Brooklands motor museum with scrutineering and breifings most of the day on Sunday the 1st and then the first car leaves at 4pm to head into the London start at Big Ben for an official 7PM start. There is a big carpark and starting gate being set up for us in the carpark of The House of Lords, you’ll see the press and visitors. We are the 11th car to leave so we’ll be gone by 7:10, be there earlier if you want a hug and a wave 😀 that would be much appreciated and welcomed.

James

The Christmas season is over and we are ever so close now. Only 4 more sleeps!! Me and dad had fantastic Christmas’s at our respective host’s places. We are spending the best part of 3 months together so it wasn’t totally neccessary to do christmas with each other, Dad took the treck all the way north to Yorkshire and had it with Daniel Ward, a friend of his from Peking to Paris. And I spent a great few days with Andrew and Emily Wenman and thier family/rellies.

The last of our rally stickers and packing was done today and pretty much the only thing now is to wait it out. Friday we move to the hotel at Brooklands Motor Museum with most of the rest of the competitors and I bet that is when the nerves and true anticipation will set it. Time will tell.

James