sparky_spit

Howard - with the Super Oscars on my Spitfire the beam is so narrow that doing as you say would not give any forward illumination when on a straight road, but I can see the idea.  They really have to be setup for straight ahead driving or going round corners, but not both.  That's why a pair of additional driving lamps, with the wider beam pattern, for illuminating round bends would be good. Stuart - agreed, but some HRCR classes forbid more than 4 forward facing lamps, including the headlights.  I think a big saloon or Dolly Sprint entrant has an issue here as, of course, they have twin headlights.  I think Radders has explored this with his MK1 but not sure what he did about it.

AndyF wrote: but I really like the idea of driving some of the old rally routes,  how about the Mille Milglia in the original time frame  :) AndyF How about including elements of the 1954 Alpine Rally route, as partially described in the Aug/Sept issue of TW?  Would be great for any side-screen TR owners....  ;) The finisher awards could even pay homage to the Coupe des Alpes cups.

If you go for just spots, be aware that the beam width is very limited, about 7 or 8 degrees depending upon make and model.  This means that they need to be adjusted very accurately and mounted pretty solidly.  If not you end up illuminating the field beside the road or the tops of the trees. Also, they will probably need stays otherwise you get a wobbly light pattern that is very distracting.  Having said that, they are very powerful and you can see for bloody miles.... Best option is driving lights plus spots so that you get good spread and long range, but this may be against the rules depending upon which events you are doing.

ferny wrote: Do you mean the Union Flag? ;) No, I mean the Union Jack  :P.  None of this new-fangled nonsense for me matey.

michael_charlton wrote:Talking of photos ....did any one take any full blown pics at Reims,pit stop? If they did just view them carefully, and tell us what the faux pas is !! The Union Jack flying upside down?

When we broke down in Switzerland on the 2011 event, it was AA Recovery Services based at Lyon that were contracted to handle the recovery by Peter James Insurance.  They were extremely good, both during the period of organising train times and 3 hire cars to get us back on the event, plus the eventual repatriation of the car to the UK.  I would recommend Peter James for anyone doing European events. The only thing I needed to push was when there was a risk of costs exceeding cover limit and the risk of the car being scrapped in-country.  This was due to the Italian speaking Swiss garage owner not being able to communicate well enough on how much "repairs" would be. I arranged a 3 way conference call between him, the AA at Lyon, and me, to agree the car would come back to the UK and I would carry out the repairs myself. Apart from that, all went very well and the car arrived 3 weeks later.

MikeyB wrote:The Continental start worked for me, as did the night before in Dover - which meant a leisurely trip down, a nice meal with a couple of beers, a good nights sleep and a hearty breakfast before the off on Thu. This in turn meant two refreshed drivers who were able to enjoy the long blat down through France without being tired before we started! I think the long blast down through France on non-Autoroute roads through Thursday evening/night is one of the highlights of the trip.  Valenciennes/Reims/Dijon/Grenoble was brilliant, and so was Rouen southwards to Bordeaux in 2009.

MikeyB wrote: ....with miles and miles of covert average speed cameras monitoring 50kmh limits... I didn't see those?   Ooops  :(

Wherever we go, I would prefer to keep it to no more than 4 days.  Longer than that creates certain family/work issues for both of Team 3, and also makes it more expensive.  Personally, we would like to keep costs down rather than increase them to cater for Scandinavian ferries and more hotel stops. Like SteveJP I liked northern Spain and Andorra and the trip across the Massif Central/Ardeche to Valence/Grenoble/Alps was brilliant. Western France/Brittany has some great roads - why not do something similar to 2009 but in the reverse direction?

And it wasn't the usual male/female dogging either!  There was not a single woman in sight, they were all men. Mind you, after Mark and I finished pushing the Spitfire out of the flooded ford, there were not too many still around.

Another source of info would be Dave Langrick from the Notts area.  He's done this on Maiden and has written about it in Club Torque some time back.

Wow! That Deer poo has even made the rear door bottom go rusty. What is Mr Thompson doing to poor old Roger?

darrenspitty wrote:Steve Radley Wrote a song entitled I haven't had a poo since blighty . hopefully he will publish it at some point at least on here . ;D ;D I like that.  I think you both ought to perform this at the next Essex meeting, video it, and post it up here.

Tristan and I spent some time touring Grenoble's red light district - does that count? We totally misunderstood Ellis at the briefing and thought the new overnight halt was "just down the road" from the original one, still on the D512. Needless to say we couldn't find it.  Tristan had the idea of using the satnav to direct us up and down the road until we found it.  We went up and down it 3 times at slow speed, stopping every now and again to check side roads. There was somebody behind us in a car and they seemed very impatient, and he eventually passed us. I commented that there seemed to quite a few young ladies around and they must be very cold, walking home from the clubs at 02:30 in such skimpy dresses; and why were they hanging around and not getting home more quickly? Then we saw Mr Impatient parked up talking with one of the "ladies" and the penny dropped! Having kerb-crawled that road 3 times, stopping every now and again, it's a wonder that we didn't get arrested. My only defence is that I'm a simple country boy and only rarely venture into the big cities....

76Spit wrote: I thought you might like to know Mike that in my local paper today it reported that there were no serious injuries incurred by any of the Atom occupants. Steve Thanks Steve - that's good to know.

We ran on 98 octane all the way round. One particular tankful seemed to provoke pinking, but 2 clicks retarded on the distributor cured that. Consumption worked out at 39mpg, and just 1/2 a pint of oil. Only failure was the stitching on a seam of the driver's seat cushion.  I can live with that.....

And to add to the pedantry, it wasn't Wedgwood Blue either; it was Powder Blue  :P. It was a very nice car, absolutely lovely.

MWG445 wrote:Theo, What's with the black wheels? Are they spacesavers? :) Jim. I think it's brake dust....   This is Theo's car after all  ;)

Thanks Keith - I've added some pictures.

A massive thank you from Team 3 to Ellis and the 10CR team for such a brilliant event. We both enjoyed it hugely and are already looking forward to 2015's event. We were also very pleased to get the Spitfire round this time after 2011's failure.  The only issue we had this time was a split in the driver's seat cushion....  :)  I'm sure that using high octane fuel at every stop, instead of 95 plus a separate octane booster as we did last time, helped a lot. The highlights for us must be the Thursday night drive through Valenciennes/Reims/Dijon/Grenoble; going over the Col de la Bonnette; lunch on the top of the St Bernardino, and cheering Team Torpedo into Rolduc on the Sunday.  A really great route and great company along the way and at the night halts too. The only downer was back in England, on the M20 when we were so, so close to becoming involved in a truly horrible accident, in a downpour and road-spray, involving a van, lorry, a Fiat Multipla, and the four Ariel Atoms that had shared our Chunnel carriage earlier.  Thank God Tristan's quick reactions and new brakes on the Spitfire just saved us from joining the wreckage, and I pray that the  person who was still trapped in one of the Atoms is okay. Thanks again Ellis, Mike, Andy, Paul and Theo.  Hope I haven't missed anybody?

I was doing a bit of final checking of stuff on the Spitfire that I hadn't already replaced/greased/oiled/adjusted/etc., and decided to have a look in the carb float chambers to see if there was any sediment in there.  This is what I found in one of them. Is this "last minute preventative maintenance" or what?

Thanks Steve!

^^^^^ What he said..... A quick way to remove the black paint is to use paint stripper, such as Nitromors.  Then wash it off and you are left with a bare metal panel with no marks.  A good going over with 400 or 600 to provide a key, and then a coat of etch primer.  Either use the type that needs an activator, or you can now get a single pack version which has much less wastage for the DIYer. I used this last time, it was fine with celly, and I had no problem with it.

My co-driver (son) is meeting up with me on the Wednesday afternoon, somewhere between where the M26 joins the M20, and Folkestone.  We need to find somewhere safe to leave his car until the following Monday. Anyone got any ideas where might be suitable?  I was going to ask Steve Pratt for advice, as he lives near to Maidstone, but I don't know his new forum name. Any ideas? Or anyone know Steve's new forum name (he used to be Spit78 or Spit76)?

bobyspit wrote: went there two years ago on my motorcycle, mad mad busy! no really really busy. Took  an age to get in and longer to get out. But it was fab. However the drive there and back made it worth it! Rob You want to get there early morning, anytime before 9 or 10am.  I managed 3 or 4 decent laps in the Scooby before the traffic got a bit heavier. Any later and it's like you say, very busy and very slow. If it is busy just back everyone up behind you by crawling down to Mirabeau and then you can blast round Loews and Portier and through the tunnel. There does not seem to be any cameras about - or I didn't see any anyway...