172, Tiguan
Hi guy's, did promise a report so here goes - its written for elsewhere so forgive the copy and pastes etc.
Jon
Ill start the report on the Tuesday of that week (the 24th) four days earlier than we left for Germany.
I had been given a call earlier in the week to say the welder had time to look at the car for a couple of days to start on the cage. We had planned to get this done weeks ago, but because Erik (welder) was so busy with other work he never had more than a few hours spare at any one time. The car was dropped off with him on the Tuesday evening and friend gave me lifts back home.
Thursday afternoon I received a call to say he had done all he could at the moment and I could go and collect the car. Favours asked and beers owed I arranged for friends to collect me and we headed off to see what had been done. I had given Erik a 3D CAD diagram a few weeks previous (thanks Chris) to work from and he had followed it quite precisly :thumb:
Apart from the rear most cross and the door bars the rollcage was done and in! It had been fully welded in place so was never going to come out! The car is going back soon for it to be completed at some point.
Thanked Erik and set off in the direction of my parents to collect Weeman's seats that had been in their loft for a month or so and my spare wheels which had been clogging up Dad's garage for what he thinks is forever
Noticed immediatly that I couldn't get the harness on and the seats weren't bolted in where i'd left them. Erik had removed everything to put the cage in and had managed to bolt the harness under the seat! He'd also caught the front bumper on something and it had popped out from the front wing (the car is currently far to low).
Set about fixing everything and by the time I'd finished it was quite dark, the neighbours thought I was mad :shame:
Friday dragged big time as I sat at work thinking about the following day, sod's law I had so much to get done before I could leave though (why does that always happen?)
Eventually it was done and I got home and started to pack everything together, clothes packed, car levels checked, all was ready. Chris and Tom arrived to stay and other Ringers turned up and we headed into Tunbridge Wells for a curry and a few beers. Wasn't exactly the earliest of nights considering our 3:30am start the next morning, but was a good laugh!
An early morning blast accross country to Ashford and then down the M20 to Dover was more eventfull than planned. I forgot about an uneven bit of tarmac in town and the car bottomed out and threw sparks everywhere (told you it needed raising). We accelerated onto the M20 with 20 odd miles to the port and my newly purchased chav sunscreen (visors were removed due to cage) accelerated off the windscreen! Useless! Gaffer tape was the makeshift replacement.
Reached the terminal and luckily got in the queue with about 5 minutes to spare. Said our hellos to the other 12 cars travelling with us, then noticed all the MX5's and others in other lanes! Northloop should get a deal with Norfolkline as I think we kept them funded that morning!
We all ate the usual cold expensive breakfast and the crossing was uneventfull.
After grounding out going on to the ferry I repeated the process coming off again and we all set off towards Brussels, Liege etc.. With so many cars in the convoy it took a while to work out what had happened to Paul and Luke in the second Elise but it turns out they'd been marched off to pay a 50 Euro fine - unluckily they were at the back of the line and got caught as we were all doing a similar speed (138 in a 120 apparently - this was news to me as the speedo is about 15 mph out at 80mph )
Waiting around:
Remainder of journey was uneventfull, the Primera maintained 40 mpg which pleased me! Not so pleasing was the bumpy road which was painfull to say the least.
Arrived in Adenau and caught up with Weeman and Karl in Karl's local. Had a well deserved beer and then wandered up the hill to see the F1 car.
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/...ip May 2007/?action=view¤t=MOV00031.flv
Guessing there was no hope whatsoever of the hours TF that evening we all went and checked into Eddy's guesthouse and began work on Weemans seats.
Hours passed.... not much happened.... rest of the group dissapeared for dinner......
Rich got fed up waiting and drove down to Adenau and bought BBQ stuff. Not the greatest BBQ I've ever had but was a good laugh none the less!
Slept very well after many beers and Wii bowling and it was rather a nightmare to have to get up early on the Sunday to buy a ticket and get out on track. We arrived at the carparks to find it already full. I bought a 15 lap ticket and headed out anyway. It wasn't so bad out on track and got a couple of sighter laps in early. At the end of the second lap there was a big queue to get off track. I drove over the road and parked in the grassy carpark. Had a wander round the carparks to see all the carpark warriors (there were many).
Sunday turned out to be the busiest I'd ever seen the place. At one point it took 25 mins to get on track and then 20 minutes to get off it again! We all decided to wander up to Hatzenbach and watch for the afternoon.
We had booked a table at the PK in advance (there was 27 of us) and ended up getting the best seats in the house!
27 Steaks on stone made it quite warm in there!
Beers, chat, bed!
Monday was a complete contrast to Sunday. We turned up at 10am and the carparks still had spaces in them and the track was lovely and empty. Headed straight out and did a few laps. Took the Canadian guy Mike round. Think he enjoyed himself as he offered to pay for the lap, I declined but thanked him anyway!
(Thanks to whoevers pic this is - was forwarded to me!)
Managed 10 laps that day and broke them up with lunch in Adenau and some spectating at Bergwerk and showboat:
Nice!
Wipperman
Good god!
A brilliant day on track and the car was proving to be reliable and great fun. I decided the best tactic was to treat each lap in three parts. Flat out down to Bergwerk and then slowly up the hill to give the car a rest. After that it was back on the gas again. I didn't see the point in killing the car up the hill to carry 5 mph extra. Quite a few times we were passing Porsche's et all round the bends only to let them past up through Kesselchen, but then to overtake them again later in the lap.
We all jumped in cars that had more than 2 seats and drove to Adenau for a Pizza.
Tuesday was the same as Monday, clear track and a hot day again. I finished off my lap ticket then jumped in other cars and had some pax laps. I had two great laps in Rich's Elise following Pauls and then swapped round. It was great fun!
More laps:
(thanks Steve)
At the end of the afternoon Day offered to buy me a lap if he could have a pax lap in the Datsun. I had tried to give everyone a lap, but missed him out. I accepted and we had a great lap to finish of the trip with. Thanks Day! :thumb:
We drifted back to the guesthouse and decided to head to Cochem for a Chinese. A few on the trip hadn't been to Cochem before so it was a nice experience for them as well.
Awoke Wednesday morning and checked out of the guesthouse. We all wandered round the Ring shop buying stuff that everyone else has already (can't break tradition!)
Most were booked on the 8pm ferry so we started off home and took a leisurly pace.
Uneventful journey, though I think Adam got stopped in France for immigration purposes and they pulled his car apart (and crash helmet!!) for no reason at the side of the motorway. Most opted for the 8pm ferry, though 3 cars decided to go shopping for beer and caught the 10pm ferry instead.
Ah....
Was home and in bed by 12:30 am and slept very well!
So another trip done, the first for the Primera and a thouroughly enjoyable one at that. Caught up with old friends, made some new ones and drank far to much! The car behaved very well and the quest is now on for 50 bhp....
Can't wait for the next one! ASAP please guy's!
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/...ip May 2007/?action=view¤t=MOV00075.flv
Jon
Ill start the report on the Tuesday of that week (the 24th) four days earlier than we left for Germany.
I had been given a call earlier in the week to say the welder had time to look at the car for a couple of days to start on the cage. We had planned to get this done weeks ago, but because Erik (welder) was so busy with other work he never had more than a few hours spare at any one time. The car was dropped off with him on the Tuesday evening and friend gave me lifts back home.
Thursday afternoon I received a call to say he had done all he could at the moment and I could go and collect the car. Favours asked and beers owed I arranged for friends to collect me and we headed off to see what had been done. I had given Erik a 3D CAD diagram a few weeks previous (thanks Chris) to work from and he had followed it quite precisly :thumb:
Apart from the rear most cross and the door bars the rollcage was done and in! It had been fully welded in place so was never going to come out! The car is going back soon for it to be completed at some point.
Thanked Erik and set off in the direction of my parents to collect Weeman's seats that had been in their loft for a month or so and my spare wheels which had been clogging up Dad's garage for what he thinks is forever
Noticed immediatly that I couldn't get the harness on and the seats weren't bolted in where i'd left them. Erik had removed everything to put the cage in and had managed to bolt the harness under the seat! He'd also caught the front bumper on something and it had popped out from the front wing (the car is currently far to low).
Set about fixing everything and by the time I'd finished it was quite dark, the neighbours thought I was mad :shame:
Friday dragged big time as I sat at work thinking about the following day, sod's law I had so much to get done before I could leave though (why does that always happen?)
Eventually it was done and I got home and started to pack everything together, clothes packed, car levels checked, all was ready. Chris and Tom arrived to stay and other Ringers turned up and we headed into Tunbridge Wells for a curry and a few beers. Wasn't exactly the earliest of nights considering our 3:30am start the next morning, but was a good laugh!
An early morning blast accross country to Ashford and then down the M20 to Dover was more eventfull than planned. I forgot about an uneven bit of tarmac in town and the car bottomed out and threw sparks everywhere (told you it needed raising). We accelerated onto the M20 with 20 odd miles to the port and my newly purchased chav sunscreen (visors were removed due to cage) accelerated off the windscreen! Useless! Gaffer tape was the makeshift replacement.
Reached the terminal and luckily got in the queue with about 5 minutes to spare. Said our hellos to the other 12 cars travelling with us, then noticed all the MX5's and others in other lanes! Northloop should get a deal with Norfolkline as I think we kept them funded that morning!
We all ate the usual cold expensive breakfast and the crossing was uneventfull.
After grounding out going on to the ferry I repeated the process coming off again and we all set off towards Brussels, Liege etc.. With so many cars in the convoy it took a while to work out what had happened to Paul and Luke in the second Elise but it turns out they'd been marched off to pay a 50 Euro fine - unluckily they were at the back of the line and got caught as we were all doing a similar speed (138 in a 120 apparently - this was news to me as the speedo is about 15 mph out at 80mph
)Waiting around:
Remainder of journey was uneventfull, the Primera maintained 40 mpg which pleased me! Not so pleasing was the bumpy road which was painfull to say the least.
Arrived in Adenau and caught up with Weeman and Karl in Karl's local. Had a well deserved beer and then wandered up the hill to see the F1 car.
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/...ip May 2007/?action=view¤t=MOV00031.flv
Guessing there was no hope whatsoever of the hours TF that evening we all went and checked into Eddy's guesthouse and began work on Weemans seats.
Hours passed.... not much happened.... rest of the group dissapeared for dinner......
Rich got fed up waiting and drove down to Adenau and bought BBQ stuff. Not the greatest BBQ I've ever had but was a good laugh none the less!
Slept very well after many beers and Wii bowling and it was rather a nightmare to have to get up early on the Sunday to buy a ticket and get out on track. We arrived at the carparks to find it already full. I bought a 15 lap ticket and headed out anyway. It wasn't so bad out on track and got a couple of sighter laps in early. At the end of the second lap there was a big queue to get off track. I drove over the road and parked in the grassy carpark. Had a wander round the carparks to see all the carpark warriors (there were many).
Sunday turned out to be the busiest I'd ever seen the place. At one point it took 25 mins to get on track and then 20 minutes to get off it again! We all decided to wander up to Hatzenbach and watch for the afternoon.
We had booked a table at the PK in advance (there was 27 of us) and ended up getting the best seats in the house!
27 Steaks on stone made it quite warm in there!
Beers, chat, bed!
Monday was a complete contrast to Sunday. We turned up at 10am and the carparks still had spaces in them and the track was lovely and empty. Headed straight out and did a few laps. Took the Canadian guy Mike round. Think he enjoyed himself as he offered to pay for the lap, I declined but thanked him anyway!
(Thanks to whoevers pic this is - was forwarded to me!)
Managed 10 laps that day and broke them up with lunch in Adenau and some spectating at Bergwerk and showboat:
Nice!
Wipperman
Good god!
A brilliant day on track and the car was proving to be reliable and great fun. I decided the best tactic was to treat each lap in three parts. Flat out down to Bergwerk and then slowly up the hill to give the car a rest. After that it was back on the gas again. I didn't see the point in killing the car up the hill to carry 5 mph extra. Quite a few times we were passing Porsche's et all round the bends only to let them past up through Kesselchen, but then to overtake them again later in the lap.
We all jumped in cars that had more than 2 seats and drove to Adenau for a Pizza.
Tuesday was the same as Monday, clear track and a hot day again. I finished off my lap ticket then jumped in other cars and had some pax laps. I had two great laps in Rich's Elise following Pauls and then swapped round. It was great fun!
More laps:
(thanks Steve)
At the end of the afternoon Day offered to buy me a lap if he could have a pax lap in the Datsun. I had tried to give everyone a lap, but missed him out. I accepted and we had a great lap to finish of the trip with. Thanks Day! :thumb:
We drifted back to the guesthouse and decided to head to Cochem for a Chinese. A few on the trip hadn't been to Cochem before so it was a nice experience for them as well.
Awoke Wednesday morning and checked out of the guesthouse. We all wandered round the Ring shop buying stuff that everyone else has already (can't break tradition!)
Most were booked on the 8pm ferry so we started off home and took a leisurly pace.
Uneventful journey, though I think Adam got stopped in France for immigration purposes and they pulled his car apart (and crash helmet!!) for no reason at the side of the motorway. Most opted for the 8pm ferry, though 3 cars decided to go shopping for beer and caught the 10pm ferry instead.
Ah....
Was home and in bed by 12:30 am and slept very well!
So another trip done, the first for the Primera and a thouroughly enjoyable one at that. Caught up with old friends, made some new ones and drank far to much! The car behaved very well and the quest is now on for 50 bhp....
Can't wait for the next one! ASAP please guy's!
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/...ip May 2007/?action=view¤t=MOV00075.flv
