*****UPDATED*****

Evelyn, David, Scott and Charlotte are taking part in something called S2N on the 20th September.

S2N is a trip round most of Europe, with a bit of a twist. The way we are doing it is slightly less classy then some would hope for. In other words, we are going round in a £100 car, which is a Peugeot 405 Turbo Diesel Estate.

The purpose of the trip is to raise money for charity, The Motor Neurone Disease Association. We chose this charity because the sufferers currently have no cure from this terrible disease.

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the upper and lower motor neurones.

Degeneration of the motor neurones leads to weakness and wasting of muscles, causing increasing loss of mobility in the limbs, and difficulties with speech, swallowing and breathing.

The cruellest aspect of this disease is that whilst the body physically shuts down, the mind remains 100% alert.

About 2 people in every hundred thousand are diagnosed. There are 5000 people living with MND at any one time in the UK. It usually affects those over the age of 50, but it can affect people a lot younger as well.

Thank you for visiting our fundraising page. Please do what you can to support this Cinderella charity, as it is a worthwile cause and 50p donated is 50p more than they had a moment ago.

Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor us: the Motor Neurone Disease Association will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

So please help us and lend your support now!

Many thanks.

David, Evelyn, Charlotte and Scott

Driver’s Log - Star Date October 2007 

Having never taken part in such a venture we were certainly not prepared for the sight that presented itself at registration in France on the first night of our trip.   This was nothing like any registration I had experienced in school.

Amongst the four hundred competitors we found ourselves surrounded by sights - and sounds - rarely seen outside asylums.  We were to spend the foreseeable future with an assortment of characters which included:

Novices - such as ourselves - who had taken the challenge to heart, decorated our cars with our charity names and sponsors and appeared bright eyed and bushy tailed with our papers to register, PLUS SERIOUS PROFESSIONAL RALLY ENTHUSIASTS!

These took the following forms:

A Rover car totally covered in brown fur complete with ears, tail and nose (that squeaked when pressed) and with an external music facility playing the theme for the Cornetto advert.   The team of three was also dressed in furry outfits, in view of the fact that one of them was well in excess of six feet tall you can perhaps imagine the sight for yourselves.

A Volvo in American Air Force colours complete with wings, air force markings, the three man team dressed as Top Gun applicants with one of them each time jumping out of the car at parking spots to guide them in with a couple of table tennis bats

Another Rover was totally covered in black and white fur with a long tail at the back looking exactly like a cow - honestly.   Again audible mooing equipment had been attached and was regularly heard.

A dayglo pink Ford complete with three girls dressed in pink overalls, pink scarves, pink crash helmets etc etc.  Team name kiss, kiss, banger, banger.   These were female at least.

Other specimens included a 4L Jaguar, a BMW with a drinking habit that used up over £1K’s worth of fuel on the run together with some true wrecks.  I was amazed to see what looked like the local Takeaway Kebab Shop personnel with an old Vauxhall, complete with metal BBQ bolted to the boot with two blow up plastic lambs tied to a spit roast slung across the top. The Swiss police promptly asked for this to be removed as they entered the country as it was deemed to be a health and safety risk, (looks like the Health and Safety Executive risk assessment sheets have reached Switzerland too!) but it was soon replaced as soon as they got across the border and into Italy.
   
You may be starting to think that you have slipped into another time warp here, well I gave up when a large hearse appeared in full funeral regalia and out stepped the entire Adamms Family, yes, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Cousin IT, Thing (bolted to the roof),  Gomez, and Wednesday!   I decided at that point that I would just go with the flow.

The assorted array of vehicles inspired David and Scott to add to the designs on the Pug and they rushed off to the nearest shop and returned armed with coloured sticky tape and a siren system.    A short while later our team number was emblazoned on the rear window and back side quarter lights and the siren system had been rigged up on the roof.  Charlotte and I then found out that the siren was able to play every different version of the police sirens used throughout Europe - a real asset that was going to be!

Funnily enough the French police were very helpful, they stopped the traffic and seemed keen that we should get on our way quickly, I can’t think why.                 

The first day through France was relatively uneventful if you ignore the teams who were chasing each other along the motorways sounding horns, waving madly at each other and firing enormous high pressure water pistols at each other.  Having arrived in the dark we were not impressed with the Swiss hotel but forgave them almost everything when we woke to the view of the alps from our window the following morning.

The second day was much more eventful - driving old cars vertically up mountains and then back down again is definitely not a good idea.   We lost our brakes about half way through the day, they had overheated to such a degree that the men had to walk to a stream, fill up water bottles and, after letting the brakes cool for a while, spray them with the water to cool them down.   They had been so hot that the tyres had developed smoke stains!

Now driving steadily to avoid any form of speedy braking we eventually made it to the Italian hotel.    The lady owner and her son bore a remarkable resemblance to Norman Bates and his mother - we were one of only two teams staying there and one of the drivers from the other team asked me if I thought they were an odd couple, I agreed they were and voiced my concerns about their similarity to the Psycho pair, he visibly paled - having thought the same himself.   We managed to make it through the night though and met everyone else in the town square specifically made available to us by the local police.

The day called for all teams to be in fancy dress.   There are just some things a wife should not have to witness in her life and her husband in black fishnet tights with a schoolgirl’s uniform - a la St. Trinian’s films is one of them.    My husband, daughter and her boyfriend all dressed in the schoolgirls’ uniforms and I decided that the attire of Flash Harry would preserve what little dignity I had left after two days with this mad crew.   I used my husband’s jacket with the collar turned up, a trilby type hat and a piece of black duct tape as a moustache.  

Each day required us to undertake a task, this one was to travel to Venice Mestre station and, with the car’s spare wheel, travel by train and take a picture of the team holding it in St. Mark’s Square.  ALLTHIS STILL IN FANCY DRESS.
 
You have no idea of the number of emotionally damaged Venetians we left behind us that day - the number of times I was asked what was going on by locals, Americans, Germans, other Brits on holiday and some other nationalities I could not understand at all.  

My daughter, in stockings and suspenders and school uniform was welcomed with open arms by an Italian restaurant owner, he offered to marry her and I must admit she was seriously tempted - her love of pasta nearly swayed her but thankfully she chose her boyfriend!

This trip caused us the next breakdown problem.   Arriving at the multi storey parking area David got out to check whether we had hit the roof box on one of the beams whilst we were approaching the roof of the building.   We hadn’t, but the increasingly large puddle forming around his feet provided the answer to the noise he had heard - the fan had disintegrated and we had lost all our water!  David and Scott told us not to worry - they would soon fix it on our return later - and off we went to Venice.   On our return much discussion took place under the bonnet with nodding of heads and a final request for a bottle of nail varnish.   Charlotte handed over her much prized bottle of Chanel nail varnish and we were despatched to buy bottle of mineral water.   By the time the men had finished they had by-passed to broken fan, connected another that was usually not used on the model of car we had as it had no air conditioning, sealed it at some point with the nail varnish and the radiator was re-filled with aqua minerali!.   The car was exceptionally frugal on diesel but cost a fortune on water!   I am still using the car now with the same bottled water.   A truly excellent pit stop repair.
 
Everyone eventually arrived at the next destination - Sottomarina - late that night.    We were conscious on our way through the main town road - which was extremely busy even at this late hour - that Fluffy (the Rover covered in fur now having gained a nickname) was parked at the side of the road.   Charlotte hit all the buttons on the siren to give the full array of sounds available just before we noticed the inhabitants were being spoken to by the local police.

Apparently a discussion was going on between the Fluffy team and the local police about the brightness of their respective blue lights on the roof of their cars.   The local police were upset to see that Fluffy’s light was far superior and they tried to swap lights.   They subsequently asked the team if they also had sirens (which they did not) and when they heard ours asked them if there was any chance they could have our siren system as they didn’t have one at all.   Fluffy’s team denied all knowledge of us and beat a hasty retreat.

I have to be honest the Italian police are extremely friendly, at least the Municipale Polizia are - the Caribinieri are a different matter altogether and should not be approached under any circumstances.   They have no sense of humour, only large guns.

There appears to be three types of police so far - the Finanzia teams who were very pale and resembled IT geeks who spend all their time in dark rooms.   We assumed these were the ones you had to bribe.  The Municipale teams were the ones who invariably turned up in battered old cars with badly creased uniforms, smoking and eating something unrecognisable with crumbs down their front.   Then there are the Caribinieri who had the fastest cars, smart uniforms and guns.    

We desperately wanted to photograph the Pug by the Coliseum but with the parking arrangements being unfriendly we dropped David off and did a lap so that he could take a picture whilst we stopped momentarily.   We sped off again just as a car was being lifted and towed away across the other side of the road, we did stop and pick David up after the second lap though!

In Rome arrangements had been made for us to meet in the central Piazza and it became very crowded as the evening wore on.   The speed of Italian waiters cannot be considered to be anything other than ‘first gear’, and we all settled down to wait for a leisurely meal.   A round of drinks was ordered by the table next to us and, when delivered, choking sounds could be heard when the bill was produced.

The cost of nine beers - albeit large glasses - was 270 euros!   A discussion ensued regarding the service charge placed on top of this exorbitant fee and, in view of the fact that the gentlemen at the table were engineers, this involved a great many calculations.

Serviettes were used to scribble down figures to work out distances between the bar and the tables we were sitting at in the piazza, obstacles between the bar and the tables, deflection of angles and speeds of cornering for the waiter, height at which the tray was carried and weight of glasses and consequent handicap affect on delivery time of drinks.  

The waiter watched in amazement as they discussed the merits of the service charge and then politely advised that the charge they were considering was for the restaurant, his tip would be on top and at their discretion, he smiled broadly and proffered the tray towards them!   I cannot print the result of this.

I cannot by any means tell you all of the adventures we had but some of the most memorable were:

Ø Driving through a pedestrian piazza in Florence to the amazement of two guided walking tours and a number of stall holders who looked as though they were about to run for their lives, David having flatly refused to take notice of the no entry signs we pointed out to him.
Ø The terror of travelling up the mountain with a sheer drop to the Eagle’s Nest to Kehlstein in Germany in a bus - only to realise I had to do the journey back down the mountain again!   That truly was a white knuckle ride.
Ø Visiting the Porsche factory and museum
Ø Driving around the Nurburgring Grand Prix racing circuit in Germany amongst racing motor cycles, Lamborghinis, BMWs, Porsches etc and staying at the hotel on the north bank of the circuit literally between the racing lanes of the track.   The day we were there the motor bike broke the speed record on the track taking only 7 minutes to do the circuit, I took over 20!
Ø The stark beauty of the national park in Slovenia and the total lack of people seen whilst driving through that area of the country

Our final list of countries visited was:  From England to France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and back through France to England.

We have been truly lucky to take part in such an adventure. 

David, Evelyn, Charlotte and Scott

Email received from the organisers of the rally upon their return to England:

A big thank you to everyone on the event for making it something really quite special.

The moment we made the start line in Calais which was over quarter of a mile long, you knew that this was something out of the ordinary. It never amazes me how much work StreetSafari teams put into decorating their vehicles!

The start line was over quarter of a kilometre long in the end! It was a sight to see.

I must thank the guys who, with the aid of a blue flashing light got pulled by the police 50 feet from the start line.    This was a record that will never beaten.      It was also a fantastic way of distracting the Police whilst our ‘scrapboxes’ passed by - Well done guys.

The Swiss Alps for Staples2Naples were as amazing as ever. When someone tells you about global warming, just remember that this means more driving days in Switzerland.

Home2Rome had a new route through the Gorge du Verdon.   I had nothing but good reports from H2R teams about how much fun the Gorge was.   It’s certainly something we will be revisiting next year.

And who can forget St Trinians’ day?    Nearly 80% of the people dressed up as school girls that day - a fabulous turnout. In many respects it was quite a disturbing day as far too many guys discovered their feminine sides!    The wearing of stockings was apparently a topic of conversation far and wide!

The water pistol fight on the beach at Sottomarina was hysterically funny.   Staples2Naples were the winners because their tactics enabled them to completely drown the Home2Rome team captain (Jon) whilst protecting their own captain.

Next year, we are back to two separate events. This year was a lot of fun and a lot of work. There is still room for improvement and we will be working through the winter to address those issues. We are committed to being the best motoring events company out there and we will continue to push the boundaries of what we can do!

The 2008 season signups start on October 13th for veterans. There will be a 1 day head start for veterans as per normal. We will also be launching 2 new banger rallies and 2 new open events on the 13th.

In signing off, let me say that you guys rock. I hope to see you all in 2008!

Regards,
Justin Clements

A Final Word from the 'CREW / TEAM'

We would like to add a footnote to the above and thank Colin and Elaine for all their support during our trip and that of our friends and colleagues who supported us and made this rally a reality rather than a dream.  In addition to the £1800 raised we understand that at least £115 further has been raised via Gift Aid, more is hoped for on this system.   The total therefore to date for the Motor Neurone Disease Association is £1915 which we hope will help this worthwhile cause.  

Thank you to everyone for your support
David, Evelyn, Charlotte and Scott