Welcome to Mario-Kart

As many of you know, team Jokes of Hap-Hazzard will shortly be embarking on the 2008 Mumbai Express Rally, we're looking forward to what will be an outrageous, cow-dodgingly ridiculous coast to coast rally adventure across India.  Tikka-fuelled and grossly underprepared we will race 2000km in a Tuk-Tuk through 12 stages from Chennai to Mumbai for two and a half weeks this August.  

Commanding our 7 horsepower chariot of justice with all the exuberant idiocy of two utterly unstoppable fully grown buffoons we will create glorious mayhem.  At the helm of a clapped out, rusted up, beaten down old party-wagon stinker of a Tuk-Tuk, we’ll blaze an almighty trail through mountains, rainforests, coastal villages and cities before crossing the finish line in Mumbai on the 16th of August 2008. Hopefully before anybody else.

Of course there is a little more to it than that.

Who we are

Myself and my twin brother Tyler are 25, I am older, a bit fatter and probably better looking, Tyler owns a house in London and is quite funny. All things considered I guess we're pretty even.  Pretty much everything in life so far has been a competition between us.  I reckon I could win in a fight.   We can certainly put the beer away and if we really try, we can usually dance worse than anybody else at the party. 

As kids we had the pleasure of being dressed in the same clothes, we both have frankly cruel middle names, and as young students we excelled ourselves - primarily at mischief and rebellion, switching lessons at school, and systematically achieving exclusion at one time or another from pretty much every organised social group or activity going. 

Tyler once drank a full bottle of Chilli sauce. It was a remarkable feat and probably replaces sleepwalking off a balcony as his most inexplicable action to date. I work in sales, Tyler works in IT. I'm painfully impulsive, I've got the Jumping stilts and the unused 30ft Kite to prove it, not to mention the overdraft. I’ve always thought of myself as some kind of ninja, we both foster an unhealthy appreciation for big wooden clubs from Africa and neither of us has ever been able to keep a plant alive for any respectable amount of time. Oh and don’t ever ask us to fill a form out for you. Especially if it’s important.

Our family is pretty extended, relatives in just about every corner of the globe, one of those is our cousin Imogen Harmston. Imogen is two years old and has just been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

What we're doing

We are raising money for a charity called Cure Leukaemia, it does exactly what it says on the tin, they are based in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, close to where little Imogen is being cured. 

Fancy joining us for the rally, do it!  Find yourself a partner in crime and click here.

Why we're doing it

Our motivation is pretty simple. Right now Imogen is just getting started down the long road to remission, there's no switch to click, there's no quick fix, but there's one thing we do know - it's not just possible, but Easy for boring old money to be transformed by the folks at Cure Leukaemia directly into happiness in the lives of people living with Leukaemia. One of those will be our cousin Imogen.

If we Welmans’es had a family motto, the word ‘Organised’ would not feature in it, the term 'Organised', to be frank, has rarely been uttered in the same breath as ‘Welmans’, and where it has it is usually preceded by “dis-“, in turn usually preceded by an expletive. It took me two and a half years to complete the form to apply for a driving licence and the last time we went to Mauritius Tyler forgot to pack any T-shirts.  On this occasion however we are committed, we have an opportunity to do something good for someone we really care about and we’re going to make the most of it.

What you need to do

To make Imogen’s life better, and perhaps improve the lives of many other children struggling to make sense of the world, not to mention the thousands of families coming to terms with living with leukaemia, we'd like you to donate a hundred quid or whatever you can afford to Cure Leukaemia.

As an added incentive, donate the princely sum of £100 and you can supply an outfit of your choice for one of us to wear for an entire rally stage, with photos supplied as proof of humiliation, weather conditions (and knowing some of you, laws) permitting.

Thanks. Thanks for Donating. Thanks for your Support. Most of all thanks for playing a small part in curing our little cousin of Cancer.

Thanks for visiting our fundraising page.

Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor us: Cure Leukaemia gets your money faster and, if you’re a taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

So please sponsor us now!