To make matters a little more funny, Whilst Rob and I were having a very quiet, very slow lap of shame, I got a phone call from Andy, saying he had been jumped on by an Angry Scotts man asking who owned the black Leon.
Apparently Rob had cut him up a tad at Karussell, dropping in below a bike who looked like he was going round the outside, but was infact just dropping in very late.
Either way, whoever was at fault, the bloke sounded pretty angry!
Andy explained that it wasn't his, but infact his mate, who would be there soon. He then called to Warn us.
Rob started to worry a bit more. A very tense lap for him then!
We walked into the Burgstube to be greeted by a really rather big ******* Scottsman, who seemed really quite angry. A few angry words directed at Rob, and a few expletives, and Rob confessed to not remembering the incident at all
''Look, mate, I'm REALLY sorry if I cut you up, I honestly didn't mean to. I've just crashed my car, and I'm not in the best of moods. Can I buy you a beer and call it quits''
''Aye, that'll be a start lad''
So, Rob bought the chap a beer, and hoped for the best!
As it turns out, the bloke wasn't angry at all, he was just trying to **** Rob up for a laugh.
It worked! Had me going for a bit too!
We ended up chatting to the guy, he was there with his mate Stuart, and the pair of them had bought their kids too.
Stuart on the left, then his son (sorry didn't get your name) Then Kirsty (daughter of Mac), then Mac (the big angry Scotts *******)
Mac bet andy a beer that he couldn't down a glass of Heidis sauce, being a pompey lad, Andy wasn't about to lose a challenge:
I don't think he enjoyed his beer though, after half a pint of thick white sauce :S
A couple of pints went past, and a few drunken stories exchanged:
It turns out, Mac and Stuart live in Camberly, just 15 minutes away from me, and even better news, Mac had a spare 16'' leon Cupra alloy wheel, just like the one Rob had just ruined, and the best bit was, it was FOC!
After abour an hour sat there, Mac got up to go and find the bathroom.
I have to say, none of us were expecting him to be sat there in the worlds tightest cycline shorts!
His poor 15yr old daughter looked thoroughly distraught at her Dad dancing in the bar in some skin tight shorts!
As always seems to be the way, we ended up heading to bed at Stupid O'clock, after sitting at the Bar chatting to Martin again, I'm sure he must get very bored talking about the same stuff to new visitors all the time, but still, it's this friendly approach that makes the place so appealing. Massive thanks to Martin for all the advice over the weekend
After about 3 hours sleep, we got up at 5am, and packed our bags, it was looking like a beautiful day in Nurburg:
The infinitely solid Leon of Love was looking a little sorry for itself, but ready for the trip ahead none the less:
We hit the road around 6am, thankfully, Rob was looking really rather with it:
Andy and I, were not so:
A bit different to how we all looked when we started out 3 days ago!
Whizzing through the german countryside
A quick stop for refreshments, somewhere in belgium I think. I bought the most horrid sandwich ever
so soggy!
Not far to go now:
Listening to StuBru radio most of the way home, some of it actually isn't that bad!
Here we are, pulling into the train/tunnel terminal:
The trains are looking pretty grotty these days:
parked up behind a nice TT on the train, not far from England now!
I decided to try and get some shut eye on the train. For some reason in my tired state, it seemed like a good idea to Don my helmet and glasses to air sleep:
I soon realised how much of a tit I looked, and gave up on the sleep idea.
Back in the UK! and the weather already looked more miserable:
Andy was being really vocal, clearly he was excited to be back on home soil:
100 miles completed off the ferry port, and thing were going well. We were only 20 miles from my house, and aside from Robs Talent fail, the trip had been a huge success!
As we passed Fleet services, Rob pulled out to overtake a lorry, and put his foot down.
BBBBBRRRBRBRBRBRBRBRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..................
The Leon started sounding like a ****** Subaru!
We were greeted by this:
The dreaded engine management light.
Would you believe it, it had only gone and blown a coil pack! After all our joking around about giving the spare away to James in the Elise, I guess it's only Sodds law that we blew one at some point. Thank god it was only 20 miles from home though!
We unplugged the injector on the dead cylinder, so as not to cause bore wash and kill the cat, and carried out, very slowly, back to Basingstoke.
We tried the Audi dealer, and the VW dealer, but none had a parts counter open on the bank holiday.
So we headed over to City Seat, to try our luck over there:
No joy, plenty of people, but none that could function in enough of a human way to get a coilpack from the store room, so we limped back to mine, where Rob borrowed a coilpack off my car to get him home, and dropped it back later that night.
From one ring road to another (I'm SO lucky!)
Not quite the same I know, but our Ring Road has roundabouts. you dont get them on the Nurburgring!
And that people, concludes my trip report!
Massive thanks to everyone involved in making our trip great, Thanks to Andy for the mental idea, to Rob for driving, Thanks to Martin and Heidi, for putting us up at such short notice, Mike for all the entertainment and a friendly face, and all the boys at Rent-4-Ring for being as cool as ever.
also a big thanks to Tori my girlfriend, for letting me go to the Ring twice in a month and not being the slightest bit annoyed about it!
See you all again in September folks