B3nsons Summer Of Car Fun - Old Timer GP Germany

[b3nson]

For various reasons my aim this summer was to squeeze in as many car related activities that is reasonable while having a wife and a job, all the while keeping costs down as much as possible. I'm trying to take as many photos as I can so hopefully this thread will be somewhere I can stick them all and do some little write ups as I go along (with the intention of at least some of it being of interest to other members!)
I'll summarise various this in this first post and then start adding stuff as I go along/collect the photos on my laptop in following posts.
*Disclaimer - my photography skills are quite poor*


Roadtrip to Scotland

Some non-retro content as I decided not to take my Dolomite 2 weeks before selling it and my mates Mk1 Golf broke down. But I love a roadtrip (Previous trips) so we went anyway. I'll go into some detail on this one as it's definitely a trip worth doing in any car.


IMG_5819 by L B3nson, on Flickr


Silverstone Classic

IMG_6328 by L B3nson, on Flickr


Nurburgring Old Timer GP




Retro Rides Gathering
Went, enjoyed immensely, so much so I took barely any photos worth sharing.

Firle Hill Climb Revival

17th September

[b3nson]

Well this whole thread kinda got forgotten about so here goes. I'm going to try to do this in chronological order, so let's start first with the Scotland roadtrip
.
This may be a bit wordy but I'll try to supply as many interesting photos as I can.


After a couple of big European trips in the past few years the idea this year was to keep costs down and stay closer to home (especially as we're heading over to the Nurburgring for the Old Timer GP anyway).

The plan changed a few times but essentially focused on hitting the NC500 which is a route around the north coast of Scotland that has had a lot of publicity over the last few years to drive tourism that way. Essentially it's aiming to be a Scottish Route 66. We'd try to see some sights along the way and catch any other good driving roads in Scotland that we could manage. We'd be camping as much as possible and eating BBQ food in the spirit of budget adventuring. The other 2 cars on the trip had to be leaving Scotland on the Thursday so that gave us only 5 full days to explore as many highland roads as possible including travelling up there.



Up until 2 weeks before we left I was planning to use my Dolomite Sprint, my friend his Golf GTI Mk1 and another in a FN2 Civic Type-R so the trip would have a mildly retro flavour with a modern car as back up! However as often happens it didn't quite work out like that and ended up with 0% retro content, so I apologise in advance! It is however a trip worth doing so I hope it is still interesting/relevant for some on this forum.

I ended up deciding to sell the Sprint 2 weeks before we went in the hope of buying a DC2 Integra for the trip, which was a tad ambitious!

So it's the day before we leave, I don't have a car to use but I still thought at this point I might be picking up a DC2 the following morning that I had test driven a few days beforehand. The only issue being it misfired really badly at anything below 7000rpm...

I made a call to the dealer that afternoon and was told unfortunately they still couldn't fix the problem. Luckily my mate Morgie who was going to be sharing a car with me for the trip had prepped his 2003 Mini Cooper S just in case my stupid plan fell through, so at least we had a car to go in.

Around this time Taylor text to say his Golf had decided to set fire to it's entire dashboard wiring loom and therefore he wouldn't be able to make it. We were all proper gutted for him, but again considering it had only been on the road for a few weeks after a huge restoration maybe it was a bit too much to ask.



The following morning we awoke with the usual pre-roadtrip excitement although it was dulled due to the fact we were missing 1 car and 2 people from our group. We set off in the Mini and Civic for the mammoth journey up the A1 to the Scottish border at about 7am (after spending half an hour driving around looking for fuel). I had planned to be in Aviemore by dinner which was about 550 miles away, but I wanted to stop off at Kielder in Northumberland.

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As expected the motorway journey was fairly uneventful until we pulled of the A1 at Darlington and headed north on the A68 through Northumberland National Park. The roads were immediately better than anything we have down south and the sun was shining so it was already worth the many hours of motorway driving. A quick stop off at the Scottish border was required for a photo and then we took the A9 up to Aviemore which boring and frustrating to do being completely covered by average speed cameras. The road would have been so much without them!

IMG_5530

IMG_5596


The overnight stop was in Aviemore for some camping, pizza and beer with mountain views.

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[b3nson]

Day 2 was planned as a kind of figure of 8 with us first heading back east and then south on the Old Military Road past Glenshee. This was our first proper Scottish mountain road and was great fun. There was barely any traffic about and what was there was happy to pull over and let you overtake if you were obviously travelling much quicker than they were!

We had a few photo stops along the way then headed back west towards Loch Ness and then north past Inverness eventually joining the A9 again. The road past Loch Ness and the A9 were again slow and full of tourist traffic, but the views across the lochs and seas did help break it up.








Due to a forecast of heavy rain we chickened out of camping and booked a last minute AirBNB cottage just outside Helsmdale. We hit the jackpot with this place as it was bloody beautiful and had amazing views of the coast. We made a sunday roast to add a tiny bit of nutrional value to our week and got an early night in prepartion for more mileage the following day.

[b3nson]

Day 3 and it was time to head to the north coast.

A short blast up the A9 (now largely deserted being so far from main civilisation) led us to John O Groats. Alot of people said to me before we went that it's pretty underwelming. I'd have to agree.






A photo by the sign was all the entertainment on offer so back on the road we went and tracked west along the north coast.

A spot of lunch in a layby consisted of last nights roast dinner and a few friendly waves from other people tackling the NC500. There were quite a few interesting cars and bikes around over the course of our trip, I can only imagine it will get busier and busier as it's pushed more and more as a tourist route.

For the first hour or so it was all quite bleak but soon the roads and scenery got better. Much better.





There was barely any traffic about so progress was swift and long open bends with great sight lines let us really push the cars. It was great fun listening to the Mini's supercharger whine away with hilarious intake noise from the Civic behind. All of these while following a sea that looked like it should be somewhere far more exotic than a lonely corner of the UK.



After about 2 hours of our tarmac rally (punctuated with a couple of photo stops) we saw this above us as we rounded a corner.






It would appear some enterprising outdoorsy types had banged a couple of concrete poles in the mountain side, laid a cable between them. I stayed well away as I value my life, however a couple of the guys did have a go, and to be fair it did look like good fun.



After a chill out on the beach below we drove a few miles down the road to our campsite for the night in Durness. I don't think Durness sounds like a nice place when you see it on a map, but my god was it amazing. Easily one of my favourite places I've ever stayed anywhere in the world, the photos below were all taken about 20 meters from our camping pitch.

[b3nson]

I realise there is much car related photos on this roadtrip write up so far (there will be plenty of cars in the Silverstone and Nurburgring parts when I get to that!) but it was more about the driving than about the cars so I apologise if it's coming across like a holiday photos thread! It's more in the hope that some of you out there might see the photos and read this, and then want to go do it yourselves.

Anyway, another early start and then we were heading south again, which meant we were halfway through the trip.

More great roads were the agenda today, finishing with the Applecross pass which although isn't really a 'fun' road, it's a pretty breathtaking bit of tarmac and not something you see anywhere else in the UK. 



This road was driven up and down a few times!



And now some Applecross photos











We camped in Applecross overnight which was another awesome campsite, and only up the road from the Applecross in that served us a great dinner while overlooking the sea. Cider was consumed, card games were played and we wandered back up to the tents very happy indeed.

It turns out I didn't take any photos on the last 2 days of the trip, which is rather foolish. I'm hoping to get some more photos from one of the other guys to add so I'll update this part when I do.

[b3nson]

Silverstone Classic

Finally some retro car content!

I was lucky enough to get 2 weekend tickets for my birthday from my sister in law which I was well happy about about. It was interesting comparing this event to the Old Timer GP that I went to a few weeks later as both have a similar range of races and classes. Unfortunately Silverstone will never match the Nurburgring as a venue, but the viewing on offer at Silverstone is definitely better and the staggering range of club cars on show brings it back level.

I'm a huge touring car fan so the Supertourers were the big draw for me, but mostly anything with a tin top gets me excited. That's not to say that there wasn't some very nice, loud and fast other classes though.

Anyway, here's some metal making loud noises:












They had an XJ220 parade on Saturday which was unreal, to see so many of these 'unicorn' cars in one place was pretty special





Some old Grand Prix cars, my knowledge of these is embarrassingly poor but I'd imagine the red one is a Maserati or Ferrari. Anyway it made lovely noises.



Supertourers!

The greatest Primera and Mondeo ever built?





Some badass Hondas

[b3nson]

For the Touring Car races some absolute hero had decided to have the Supertourers and more modern cars on track with the earlier Group A stuff, but with a half a lap staggered start between them.

This made for some really fun match ups between cars of different eras once the packs caught up and merged with each other.

Million pound 90's repmobiles?



Or flame spitting 80's ones?



You can have both!











I'm not a BMW fan, but this one

[ChasR]

Always love these kind of threads .

Great to see you have having fun anyway on the trips. I do love see an XJ220 LM.

[b3nson]

Thanks! Got a some more from Silverstone to put up then i'll get the Old Timer GP ones up

[b3nson]

Here's the rest of my Silverstone Classic photos

Fire!







Mmmm Lancias



Angry looking Porsche







Very loud TR3



I liked the badge on this little TVR







This thing looks frigging awesome

[b3nson]

Not sure if anyone is actually reading this thread but I'll carry on posting photo's regardless!

Next on the calendar was the Old Timer Grand Prix at the wonderful Nurburgring. Obviously the place needs no introduction but the event may do. Essentially it's Germany's version of Silverstone Classic (see above!) but with the addition of a Friday that is basically a rich mans track day on the Nordschleife. Saturday and Sunday are on the GP circuit which is actually much more impressive in person than it is photos and videogames.

To ensure we missed at little as possible while only spending 2 nights away from home, we planned to leave for Germany at 10pm in the evening Thursday night, drive through the night and arrive at the Nurburgring for breakfast on Friday. Thursday came and after a full 11 hour day at work, we all piled in my Alfa daily and set off for the ring. I must say driving through Belgium and Germany in the middle of night with no sleep was a surreal experience. This was a slightly delirious selfie taken at around 5am at a Belgian petrol station.




However we made it to the Nurburgring at the expected time and headed to the official campsite. This is basically a forest with some grassy areas and toilets! It doesn't sound like much but was actually fantastic as everyone pitched up where they wanted and open fires were allowed.





The sound of race cars echoed around the campsite as we were a couple of hundred metres from the GP track so we ventured over to see what was going on. I can't actually remember what was on track at this point as I was so tired! It was also very cold and quite wet so I decided instead to head back to camp and have a quick nap before we drove over to the Norschleife.

By the time I had woken up and the other guys had returned the sun had come out which instantly re-energised us. We drove the short distance from the GP track, parked up and started to wander the perimeter of the 'Green Hell' with the target of the Karussell. Instantly an amazing range of cars (not all retro/classic but mostly of a German flavour) entertained us as we wandered in the sunshine.


[/a]





















Soon the weather closed back in again, so we headed into Adenau where we eat awesome and cheap pizza, drank superb German beer and one of our group fell asleep on the table. It was time for bed!

[georgeb]

Still with you buddy!

[wodge]

Great thread! Keep it coming

[ChasR]

Yup, still enjoying it .

[b3nson]

Thanks for the replies guys!

We woke up Saturday to more rain and mist. After a very sleepless night consisting of very loud classic German dance music played deep into the early hours and large vehicles moving up and down a muddy slope a few metres from my head, I can't say I was full of energy! Luckily I'd managed a few hours of sleep once I'd stopped worrying about my head being run over. A quick trip to the immaculate shower block and a nibble on some salami and bread (a typical German breakfast apparently, only received the day before when my pronunciation of Bratwurst was evidently very poor) and we hiked up the hill to the grandstands at Turn 1.

First event of the day was a rally car parade, so spot your favourites below!










It was at this point I realised I needed a better lens as the grandstands were set quite far back!

The rain had properly set in by this point so a wander around the paddock was called for. Lots of awesome stuff to be found here!









I've never seen an M1 Procar before this event, there was loads here!















This RX3 sounds the nuts, and looked awesome too. Pity I couldn't get any better photos of it.




After some exploring we headed back to the grandstand for some more racing - my favourite touring cars!