My name is Chris and I am in no means the leader of this band of idiots, simply the first to post a blog post for this. I have another blog ( www.floppythrottle.blogspot.com )detailing my last European road trip . I want to keep a log and detail whats going on over the next few months as I enjoyed the writing the other one.
I'm 33, I work (occasionally) for myself from home. I have 3 children who drain my life day by day and a wife who's not overly keen on me doing anything with cars. So I do things with cars.
Also going to feature in this blog (no particular order) are Gareth "Gruff" Davies,
Jon "Handbrake" Ridgeway,
Kelly "That Gap's big enough" Foxhall,
Marc "5" Feld-Bolan,
James "Purty Mouth" Curly,
Richy "Hill" Hurle,
Westy "Billy" Westington
Ash "AWM Auto Services" Wallace-Merrett
Matt "Feeble" Moon
David "Jump-Pack" Ganney
I had Gruff as a co-driver in 2011 Scumrun, but have known him for quite a few years, indeed at one point a few years back we set up a courier firm delivering parcels and boxes at short notice from the south coast to North London. Due to some git owing us thousands and not paying, the company died.
Gruff is a full time long distance lorry driver and although spending his life limited to 56 (like Eddie Stobart and Steve Jobs), he likes nothing more than to get in a fast car in his spare time and hit 60 mph. Any more than that apparantly is a waste of fuel. You'll come to love him as much as the rest of us. Nice guy but a miserable oik at times.
Jon Ridgeway is a pleasant enough chap, the sort of guy you look at and think sensible, grown up, has a pension scheme, probably has a secret love of Volvo's and 18th centruy tables. In reality, He's just sold his Volvo estate, is quite sensible, has a government pension scheme but I'm not too sure about the woodwork issue.
I met Jon, along with most of the others mentioned here on a charity car rally this year and we sort of hit it off. He had a blog running wich I followed so that set the grounds for a friendship / stalking.
Kelly Foxhall is Jon's missus. Or, as I like to imagine things in my warped world, Jon is Kelly's missus. Kelly has this amazing interdimensional super power that alters space and compounds to fit a bloody great estate car into a small gap in moving traffic on an autobahn at speed. Hat's off, she didnt crash but my god it was close. Kelly seems to be an editor for an online magazine (Lotus Magma Off The Cuff), IT support, web person and judging from her facebook updates, her pet hates are people.
Marc & James work together. I can't give you their job titles as they don't want you to know. All I can tell you is that Marc rummages though bins and crashes cars, and James' job seems to be falling asleep at inapropriate moments, and scaring pensioners. Both love fast cars and Bikes and last year rebuilt a Mitsubishi FTO from the ground up for the rally. Unfortunately, a wheel fell off in Brugges city center causing traffic chaos. Very entertaining pairing.
Richy and Westy, or Hill and Billy are awesome. Hill works in a death factory and is also a superb artist and tattooist, and Westy is the quintessential Hick. Both have a love for old cars, and veedubs. They are wonderful. If you can picture a 1.0 VW polo bouncing through Europe with no technology and 2 happy hairy hippies, then you're imagining Hill 'n' Bill.
Ash AWM Wallace-Merrett is a legend in his own right. An incredibly competent mechanic known for his love of old fords, RS powered escort van, stripped out RS2K Escort and his tantrums. If something doesn't move, whack it. If something moves and it shouldn't, whack it til it stops moving. Ash is based in Colchester direction (a 300 mile round trip for me, but I still use him for car stuff), and he is the chap that rebuilt my car into an RS2Kabriolet. I have a bromance with him.
Matt Moon. Matt is a Ford fanatic that I have met and know through various Ford Owners groups. Entertaining, funny, charming and now seems to have developed a love for a camel named Clarrissa as he spends most of his time in Saudi. He drives a Citroen.
Dave Ganney I have only met a few times in person but seems to be the other half of Matt Moon in the way Robin is to Batman. Dave came with us to be childish in the Hindhead tunnel with his old skool BMW E36. Looked good, sounded good, but as soon as he stopped for a chat, the jump pack was needed to restart him.
By now, this just seems like a swift who are we and you'd be right. Why am I blogging this...? Well, simple:
We're having a Euro road trip in 2012. We had all intended to go back to the charity rally next year, but we're all skint and can't afford the entry fees.
I use the phrase Euro road trip. I can't be more precise as we cant agree on a route. Also, 2012 as we cant agree dates. I can see things getting tricky very quickly if we cant agree on the simple things.
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