Tag: Winter Trial

We just arrived at our hotel in Weimar after a day with 170 km of highways to get to the East, mixed with three tests at Twente Airport and four 15km regularity section. A good day to get back into the rythm, because the regularity sections were set on icy, snowy side-roads. Lethal conditions as even one of the Irish competitors, Frank Fennell, who does nothing but rallying, drilled himself into a ditch a few minutes ahead of us. Not something we could fix, but definitely a nice job for the rescue crew with a 4×4!

Our test this morning consisted of three sections and included icy, snowy and asphalt sections and it was a hoot as usual. We had two small misses, which cost us a few seconds, but where last year we had many offs due to abundant risks being taken, this year [...]

We’re about to take you on another rally adventure into Eastern Europe. Winter Trial 2013 is kicking off tonight with the welcome dinner near Hengelo in the east of the Netherlands. As you can see our cockpit is a mish-mash of wires and instruments, as the organisers use a GPS logger device to track the competition. I’d say the mechanics of the logger-company are not much aware of safety aspects…. They tie-wrapped the logger to the fire extinguisher!

Special new feature in our cockpit is a red-light system for interior lighting. Ideal for night vision of course, but I worry about being chased off the side of the road in Czech Republic by the local fuzz, when they see this new system in operation. On the other hand they might ask “how much”….

The gang’s [...]

Silverado – the Twinspark Racing Porsche 911 ST – returned from the body shop last week sporting only a single color 8080 silver and having its rear end corrected. Silver colors and cosmetic surgery are not uncommon on older ladies and Silverado is no exception. However, this paint job covered up a rush job by an incompetent colleague and the bodywork corrected an intimate encounter with a nameless Italian on a Dolomite mountain pass! The things these cars are up to when you’re not looking.

And there’s more work to follow, to get the rear end straight with the rest of the body. On the inside a new, correct 300 km speedo is going into the dash, as soon as we work out why suddenly you need to switch on the tripmaster to get a speed reading…

After our open exhaust race with the Hulk [...]