Day 4 : Speed, Secrets, and Smoke

Mornin' chicken...

The morning after the night before...   Surprisingly I managed to get a pretty good nights sleep.  Gregg didn't fare quite as well due to some issues when setting up his tent.  Dampness was substantial, but as the temperature didn't fall too low, it wasn't that bad. 

The camp-site was generally quite subdued this morning.  Most people were recovering from, what am reliably informed was, a pretty crazy night on the town. Unfortunately the camp shop didn't have any bread available, and a bit of fail the previous day meant we didn't have anything to eat our bacon with.  Grr.  never mind.  Cuppa tea and a bag of harribo it is... lol

Due to the weather the previous night, the car was covered in petals off the trees.   I am still finding them in the air vents now.   As we still didn't have our route cards, we speculated about the route home.  A straight shot back to Calais would be the better part of two normal driving days, so our ultimate route wasn't going to be substantially more off-piste. Its a shame.  I did want to take in Austria and Italy while we were in that general direction, but clearly time was against us.

While everyone waited for the route cards to be handed out, the fairies fixed the support van.  It wasn't starting properly for some reason, so one of them suggested spraying hairspray into the intake manifold.  A few squirts later the van was ticking over like a charm.  Must be the fairy magic :)

A few teams decided to break out the water pistols and water balloons while there was a delay, everyone else stayed well clear.

The route for today would take us to Strasbourg.  A fairly major drive 600km cross country directly through the middle of Germany.  There were two check points for this one.  The Pilsner Uquell brewery in Plzen (home of the original pilsner) and the Mercedes Benz test track in Stuttgart.

The brewery was just down the road (relatively speaking) so we got there quite quickly, we then passed through the old checkpoint at the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany.  It is now just a straight through motorway, but at the time we would have been required to hand over our papers in front of armed guards.  Scary.

We now had a fair distance to cover, so it was time to open up the taps on the 3 liter engine and see if we can push her to her limit.  On a long stretch of clear road we managed to get her up to 234km/h (about 145mph) GPS verified.   The speedo on the car was reading 160mph at the time so it looks like we have about a 10% under-read.  Unfortuately we only have a photo of 230km/h.  Next time Gadget.

Yes, thats 238km till the next exit.  On the same road....

The car seemed to still have plenty of grunt left in her, (at least another 10mph) but at 160mph on the speedo I decided to call it.  While the tyres are new, they are only budget ones, and rated to 168mph so erring on the side of caution I figured it was best to draw a line at that point.  Maybe come back next year with Y rated tyres (186mph) and a few mods to the car :)  Its worth noting at this point that after a fill up we appear to have guzzled 3/4 of a tank in nearly half the distance we would normally, meaning our MPG was almost half what it would normally be.  Speed certainly isn't economical, bit it is fun.

A few hours later we descend into Stuttgart, heading for the Mercedes "secret" test track and the banked corner.  We find out where the track is, but its not accessible.  We find the car park for the Mercedes museum and we can get a view of the skid-pan at one end of the track,

A quick look on Google maps shows that there is a nice convenient location near the banked corner for a photo-op so we dive over there and run into our other team mates.

At this point we decide to group up, and head for Strasbourg via the windy roads of the black forest (of gateaux fame..) however on the way out of Stuttgart, the Axles' car developed a fault.  It spat a spark plug out.

As the plug in question was on the front bank, it wasn't a major issue to fix, but that might explain their poor performance and petrol smell.  Once that problem was fixed we were off for a play in the mountains.  While still in the foothills a matte black Porsche Panamera came out to play.  We kept him in our mirrors for quite a while, but he eventually found a place to squeeze past.

A brief stop in the black forest for a photo op.  Gregg forgot about the tripod so he's the other side of the lens.  Also a quick look at the front of the car revealed more wildlife than the surrounding woods...

We drove for a bit more and found a very scenic viewpoint which seems to be the top of a ski slope in the winter.  Gregg took a few minutes to have a nap and wake the natives :)

Then it was time for the downhill section. Some epic windy roads were taken at an "interesting" speed until we hit some roadworks.  At this point team Axles of Evil mentioned a strong burning smell. On closer inspection their brakes were smoking.  Maybe we should have taken that a bit more sedately. :)  Still, onward to the camp.

After nipping out for some food we settled down and rigged up a camp fire for some beers and a chill out before the last day.  We know the final destination will be Calais, but where will we be going on route?