Wednesday 1 June 2011

Less Than Fifty Days To Go

In 48 days' time my Dad and I will be at Dover getting ready to board the ferry to Calais and start the epic road trip to the Nurburgring! I am understandably excited - the thought of my trip to Germany is the only thing keeping me sane through my current exams. Well, that and my blog of course. I thought I'd better give a quick update on where we are with our preparations, hence the post.

The Rangey is now in possession of a shiny new MOT - sailed through as ever. It's lovely to have such a reliably good car! The Wee Beastie has been fitted with nice new Plymouth Blue panels. Well, I say panels - it's actually the whole of the body of the Rangey which has been replaced. Where my Dad and I off road the Rangey so much it has understandably sustained a lot of damage. If you were to look at the car now compared to it a few weeks ago it is simply unrecognisable! That's not to say that it won't get off-roaded at some point in the future. It has been fitted with new tree-sliders (to protect the body from trees by providing a sort of barrier) and still has its armour plating underneath (in the form of tank guards and such). Perhaps the most surprising addition was the new roof. Why would we need to replace the roof? Well, sometimes when we off road the Rangey we kind of forget how tall it is... Low trees are not kind! Anyway, after a day of work we now have a new, straight roof with a very posh glass sunroof. We're going up in the world! The next step is to get a set of Red Bull stickers for the sides...

Aside from the Rangey being tidied up there's not a whole lot more that's occurred in preparation for Germany. I have received the last of my student loan, paid all of my rent for this year and my first month's rent for next year and I'm still left with a good amount of money left over. So, spending spree at the Nurburgring it is! We still have to pay for camping, airbeds, food and such, so maybe the spending spree should be held off for a while.

In non-Germany related news, I'm going to see the Senna film on Friday! I'm going to see it at the Bluewater shopping centre, largely because very few cinemas are showing the film over the country. I'm severely disappointed that the film isn't being shown nationwide. I was hoping that the Senna film would encourage people who weren't F1 fanatics to become more involved with motorsport, but it would seem that the film is being aimed at existing F1 fans. This is a shame, as it's not all that often that F1 films are made, let alone shown in the cinema. Anyway, no doubt I'll be telling my friends to go and see the film - I honestly think that it will encourage people to learn more about F1 and hopefully the audience for our weekend races will increase. Expect a report on Friday to give my opinions of the film - after I've stopped crying anyway. It's going to be an emotional one.