Day 24 Tourists in Nice

What did we do today? ::

Day 22 Brescia (Italy) to Nice (France).

I wasn’t going to do a blog today as there’s no rally to talk about but there are a few things I can report on.

Mark in a relaxed mood in Nice

Last night was like it was the end of the rally.  It’s a week until the rally recommences in the UK, so it's like another rally that will start in Wales in a week's time. 

The Belgians were shouting gin and tonics last night.  The hotel ran out of gin but the Belgians went and brought their own supply in from a service van. They insisted on big glasses and kept topping them up.  I staggered to bed and slept until 6 am.  Dead to the world as they say.

Brescia to Nice is only 417km of motorway so we left the motorway to take a shortcut which looked like a major road on the map.  It turned out to be very slow and twisty, but looking at old waypoints on the GPS, I noticed we had been there before in the London to Cape Town rally (2012).

The GPS let us down a bit getting through Genova (known to us as Genoa - without the 'v').  A key turn we had to take was immediately after a tunnel, and it takes the GPS a little while to get satellites again after a tunnel. Having missed a turn, we were then faced with leaving the motorway at the next exit, (12km further on), pay the toll, make U turn, (ie get to motorway on ramp on the other side), rejoin the motorway, take another ticket, drive 12km back, leave motorway, pay another toll.

This happened nearing Genova.  

The beach at Nice, near our hotel.
I suspect there are better beaches elsewhere

Then later as we approached Nice we ran out of Euros to pay tolls and the toll machines were refusing all our credit cards.  We stopped before the next toll gates and I went to find someone to negotiate with.  While I was doing, that the service truck arrived and gave us €20 to get us through. 

After that we missed another exit and again went through the exercise described previously.

In general, navigation didn’t go smoothly today, but it was a day that didn’t matter. 

Credit cards were also problem at petrol stations in Croatia.  None of our cards would work except for my Amex card which required a signature.  At toll booths, none of our cards work.

Here's how things look at the end of the stages so far:

Staying at Nice again tomorrow so I am yet to work out what I’ll do to fill in the time. St Tropez and Monte Carlo are close. 

Day 22 Riejka (Croatia) to Brescia (Italy).

Today was scheduled to have 2 stages run twice, but the organisers decided to start us half an hour earlier and run the second stage a third time – so five stages for the day.

View through our windscreen,
Car 1 ahead of us about to start the stage

The bad news was that it rained very heavily all the way.

The first (which was also the third) stage would have been very nice in the dry but it wasn’t all that nice on our tyres.  Crews that had wet weather tyres would have made up a lot of time.  There was a section of tarmac with a different surface from 3.8 to 6.00 Km and this was the slipperiest piece of road I have ever been on. The car would break into wheel spin in any gear as soon as the throttle was opened and pretty much refused to respond to any steering input. On our second time through, we went one second quicker.

The other stage which we did three times saw us get quicker with each run.  In the first run we had a spin which probably added 35 or more seconds to our time. The exhaust pipe and the towing hook which sticks out from the bumper bar show signs of contact with a tree, so we did go close.

It felt like we were losing heaps of time. I doubt the Joost Porsch is ahead of us yet but he must be getting very close.

There are to be no stages in Italy or France so the European mainland part of the event is over. We now have informal transit to the UK where the rally will recommence on the 10^th for a half dozen stages.

We will roughly follow the route and stay at the designated hotels and take the booked ferry to get to the UK. We make good tourists. Most of the Europeans are going home for a few days and Mark is looking forward to Nice tomorrow as Anne will be there.

Waiting at a control

I’m writing this as we transport 391 Km from the last stage to Brescia.  It hailed heavily for several minutes and we took shelter in a garage. The heated windscreen just copes with fogging and water drips from the air vent in the front centre of the cab.  

I feel sorry for today’s control officials and the people manning road blocks out in the rain.  

Service crews as always deserve a medal.

Day 21 Rest Day in Rijecka (Croatia)

OK, it's been a rest day.  

Firstly, let me finish off on glasses:  Thank you to everyone for advice, understanding and sympathy on eyesight and management of glasses issues. I do feel better knowing that lots of people leave phones, wallets, glasses and all sorts of things on the roof of cars. 

I will get a sticker made to go on the roof that says ‘ Do not place item here – by order of the Management’.

Mary tried to get glasses made in Newcastle to bring over when she flies to London for the finish, but they need a week to fill the prescription in Australia.  Not so in Croatia. They apologised that it would take two hours, and a bigger surprise, it cost about $190 as opposed to $900 odd in Oz.  Hope Mary likes the new frames. I now have two good pairs and two cheapie backup pairs. (NB: I must remember to take spares in the car.)

Service Crews: The car park was a hive of activity today. Service guys seem to be happiest when they have a car to play with.  They're not even fussy about which car they work on.  Lots of them spent all day with cars jacked up and bits pulled off.

left: Chris Palmer/Phillip Marshall Mustang; right: Richard Bennet/Matt Wallace  (Photos by Plamen Petrov)

There are two Mustangs in the event. The Chris Palmer Mustang seems to always be in strife.  It’s a 427 cubic inch motor but has had to run on seven cylinders after a piston failure. It’s also had bearing problems and they rebuilt the engine again today. They put it off the road again yesterday but no serious damage.  Nothing seems to faze them too much.

The Richard Bennet Mustang is the old Peter Cochrane Mustang (we became friends during the Silver Fern rally a few years ago) which set second fastest time on the ‘1000 Bends’ section yesterday.  An amazing effort!  (NB:  see in-car footage of the Mustang action at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM34PvtBLA4&sns=em)

After lunch, we went down to explore the town and take pictures but we were waylaid by the Belgians (Rene and Eric) who were having a drink in the service area. 

Their Hilux ute running in the Challenge category is fitted with a large refrigerator and is referred to as the food and beverage wagon.  

After a few gin and tonics, it began to rain and we took refuge in a restaurant. After the Chardonnay, pork medallions etc, I noticed the rain had stopped but the light was fading too fast for picture taking.  So it’s been a hard day here in Rijeka.

Note the sugar sachets for Mark's Cappuccino!  (it was in the Ferrari cafe)

Got the washing done!  That’s not entirely true yet - They haven’t returned it as I write this.

We are still 5 minutes 30 seconds ahead of the 3^rd placed Porsche.  We’ll see how much he gets off us tomorrow. They have added an extra stage tomorrow so there will be 70km of stages before a 408 km transport to Brescia in Italy.

After Brescia, there are no stages until the UK.  Some competitors, certainly the Belgians and the Czechs, are planning to go home for a few days before fronting up for a restart in Wales.  We will follow the route and act like the good tourists that we are.

Day 20 Belgrade (Serbia) to Rijeka (Croatia)

(Photo from John and Jeff do Sydney London  blog)

The day started at 7:02 (we are 2^nd on the road) with a 400km transport to Zagreb (left) in Croatia.  Zagreb seems a quite friendly place.  We had almost two hours to spare there as the transport time was generous.

Out of Zagreb, things changed a bit.  A 3km transport to the start of the stage and rain was imminent.  We were OK until about 4km from the end ,when it started to pour down. We were less disadvantaged than the cars who had started behind us.

The transport from the end of that stage to the next stage was tight and that had to be the one we took a wrong turn on.  Geoff Olholm followed us in and then went in front of us as we stopped with doubts about whether we were on the right road.  We all recovered and lost no time.

The next stage ‘1000 bends’ was a great stage. 30km of good, tight twisting tarmac passing through a couple of villages.  Joost took 55 seconds off us.

Differing attitudes in a corner through a Croatian village (photos shared by Autoškola Remetinec)

The real excitement/angst of the day was after the end of the stage.  We were hot and jumped out to take off helmets etc.  I put my glasses on the roof while getting the helmet off.  Half a K down the road, I had Mark turn back.  I was sure they would be on the road. And they were. But Joost had run over them.

Now the problem was that I had no spare glasses in the car and couldn’t read the road book.  We were soon very lost.  To cut a long story short, I used Mark’s glasses (making him drive without them) to try and work out where we were.  They were barely adequate but better than nothing. 

We did find the motorway but couldn’t work out where exactly we were on it. We had the GPS set for the hotel but satellite reception in the narrow streets of Rejeka is problematic.  The GPS couldn’t make up its mind and sent us in a few circles for a while.  We eventually found the hotel but the control was the opposite side of a square filled with restaurant tables.  We back tracked and went around the block to enter from the right direction. 

We later saw others drive between the restaurant tables and cross the road at a pedestrian crossing to get to the control.

At the end of the day....

Eggfried Depoorter (who we know from the London to Cape Town event 18 months ago) who is here servicing for Joost, gave me a pair of ‘chemist glasses’. They cost $2.50 apparently and he has 4 pairs of them.  Joost tried to repossess them.

We are tired but laughing about it all.

Tomorrow is a rest day in Rijeka.