Viper Crash & More Rally Stories

As promised, I found the videos of the Viper crash in Morocco from last year that I mentioned in my blog a few days ago. Unfortunately, the videos may be protected from downloading due to their sensitive/graphic nature.

http://vids.torquenstein.net/

Here are some pictures of the Viper:

Viper Pre-Crash

Post-Crash

Tail lights and bumper torn off the car.

License plate is the only thing worth taking away.

However, there are a bunch of other good videos here:

http://www.gt3000.com/videos.htm
http://www.antandpete.co.uk/Main/2004Gumball3000Videos/index.html

Thought I’d post some more pictures from last year’s Gumball 3000.

Here is Adrien Brody (actor from The Pianist, The Village, and most recently The Jacket). He was interviewed quite a bit but, in all honesty, he wasn’t a very good driver.

Here is the briefing room at the George V hotel in Paris before the rally was to start. The sheer amount of cash in the wallets of these guys is enough to buy quite a few third world countries.

The Garage! Can you imagine what $15 million worth of cars must look like? Well, this garage would be the first image to come to mind.

The starting line w/ Maximillion Cooper.

A few more shots from the starting line.

I figured I’d post Car 53′s story from last year’s Cannonball Run to give yet another idea of what craziness occurs during this rallies.

My Cannonball Run 2004

By car 53

After me and five of my work colleagues enjoyed a great time on the May 2004 Gumball 3000, we decided to enter 3 cars in this years cannonball run.

We entered 3 cars; Joey and I in my silver GT2, my brother Justin, and Jason in Justin’s black M3, and my Dad with Dave W in a Lotus Esprit twin turbo V8.

Justin and I wanted to compete with Tim the organiser in the Lamborghini to get to each venue first, my Dad, in the Lotus, opted to bring a laptop and try to do the Rally at the 61mph average for which there was an award. We had radios to communicate with each other throughout the event.

We finally got off the boat at Calais on Sunday 12th September at around 11:20pm. I got to the first roundabout and took a long line of cars down the inside, there was quite a bit of rain and I was surprised to see nobody keeping up as I pressed on and passed the remainder of the cars on the motorway. I was in first place. I kept up reasonable speeds and kept an eye on my mirror. I could see a pair of head lights in the distance behind me. So I pushed a bit harder and they disappearedâ€¦.for a while.

As I saw these lights pop up yet again in the distance behind I said to my co pilot we are going to have to really max it on what’s left in the tank to get away from the car behind, at this point he said â€œPoliceâ€? I slowed down and slowly approached and then passed a car with stripes. We then started to build up our speed to get away by now the head lights behind had caught right up and passed the suspect car at full speed I Realised it was Justin and Jay in the black M3 that had been trying to catch us the handheld radio muttered for the first time since leaving the boat, â€œhello boys glad we caught youâ€? We punched it and then got on the radio to the Black M3 they said they had been flat out since getting off the boat and knew they passed everyone except us. We kept it maxed until the fuel light came on then stopped and filled up. In the garage we decided to stick together.

As we came out of the garage we saw two Cannonball cars we found out later these guys were running low on fuel and had not stopped as yet. It was a blue Skyline and a blue M3 as we shot past them the blue M3 put his lights on full beam (Jerry is a twat). We kept it flat out anyway. As we approached the next page (toll booth) the Black M3 got held up he was then passed by a red 360 (Albert). He left the page and managed to catch and pass the 360. He was on the radio telling us what had happened so we decided to keep the average speed as high as possible. To cut a long story short we used a total of six tanks of petrol doing the first 750 miles and got to the first check point in a joint first. It was a big gravel car park (very glamorous), at 6am, the GT2 having seen 201 that night and the M3 181.

The camera crew arrived at about 6:30am and interviewed us and did some donuts and filmed us driving in and out of town etc by now it was light and next in was a Porsche 911, Audi TT, and the Red 360. Any of these guys did bloody well to get there so soon. The check point girls arrived at some point after. Tim Porter was a no show in the Lamborghini despite telling all he would get there first. (yea right)

Jerry in the blue M3 got a rocketing from Paul the guy driving a Diesel Volvo it turns out that as Paul passed Jerry, Jerry used his intimidation tactics (Jerry’s words not mine) to blind him by putting his lights on full beam! Turns out he did it to a few people who passed him. Very dangerous. Nice one Paul.

Anyway at about 9:30am we were told we could leave for the next checkpoint. We passed through the car park entrance and got our envelopes. I opened mine and thought oh ****. Benidorm, Spain here we go again. Despite Tim’s promises to me before we booked the event, we were off to Spain again, the place where I had told Tim in May 2004 the Gumball 3000 drivers had all been fined for holding an organised driving event on the public road without permission.

Oh well time to listen to â€˜CrazyRobGT2’s’ advice from last years Cannonball DVD and get out in front and floor it. We did and we got to the very swanky place of Benidorm in first place. Again.

Only this time no one else turned upâ€¦.for a while. A few cars started to turn up including a Skyline and an EVO. We were told of the Spanish Police stopping cars on the rally and taking them to 2 or 3 Police stations around the Barcelona area at around 2.30pm-3.00pm that Monday afternoon. A couple of hours later Mark the event Manager of Cannonball 2004 approached us at the Hotel and said he had spoken to Jerry (blue M3) and that it was a black M3 and silver Porsche that had caused everyone to get fined. Mark said that on this basis we had better leave immediately as the police were coming to get us. Having spoken to my Dad who was at one of the Police stations he told me this was bullshit. The Police stopped the cars because they had no warning of what the Cannonball rally was doing in Spain. My dad had spoken to the Deputy Chief of Police for Barcelona Region, he asked him why they were all stopped especially as he had only been doing 61mph. The DC said that it was because the Police panicked believing the Gumball was back in town again and they did not want any more bad TV and Press as they had in May with the Gumball. He asked the DC if anyone had been speeding, the DC said that almost everyone had been speeding, that was not the problem. He asked my father what the rally was doing in Barcelona, he told him we were on our way through to a track day near Benidorm, he invited him to join us and said he would find crash helmets in the cars.

After that the DC agreed to accept to take my dads and two other drivers’ statements confirming the track day near Benidorm and then we were free to go, no fines. They then waited for an English speaking Lawyer to arrive to take the statements. After about 2 hours I spoke to my Dad again. He then told me that when they were about to complete their statements, news came from the other Police station in Tarragona where a larger group of the rally members had been taken, that someone there had made a statement that resulted in every one getting fined.

What followed then in both Police stations was that they were told they would all have to make statements and pay a fine of â‚¬315-00 before they could leave.

In the statement interview the police asked questions about three cars, the black Audi TT and two other cars in the rally, a silver Porsche and a black M3. As I understand it most people denied the fact that they knew of such cars. Later on my father called me again, he told me the latest happenings as he was in constant communication with the Deputy Head of Police in Barcelona Station, the Police charged everyone â‚¬315 Euros for holding a driving event upon a public road without permission and then let them go, about 7 hours later. I spoke to my dad at this time he said â€œget out of the hotelâ€? leave the cars and go. Tickets have been booked for you to fly home. I asked him what had happened. He had heard from the people at the Tarragona police station that Jerry Marne (blue M3) had spoken to police on his own demanding he be allowed to act as spokesman for the group, apparently he came out after his interview and told everyone â€œI’ve done a deal with the Police, I’ve told them what they needed to knowâ€?. His statement caused the serious problems that followed, up until that point the Police had been convinced by my Dad in the Barcelona Station that we were just on our way to a Racing Circuit near Benidorm, after the statement made by Jerry the Police decided we were holding a driving event on public roads without permission. I don’t know if Jerry was fined. The result of his deal, unlike the drivers in the Barcelona Police Station, was every cannonball driver in the police station in Tarragona had to pay an extra â‚¬600-00 for legal fees and the â‚¬315 fine for; â€˜Holding a driving event upon a public road without permission’. We later found out that Jerry had Tim Porters son travelling in the car with him at the time and Tim’s wife Nina had been on the phone to Jerry and wanted her son out of the Spanish Police Station, it was she who had got the British Consulate involved, a bad move if you know anything about Spain, the press then got involved.

Tim Porter has consistently denied the fines were for holding a driving event on public roads without permission, the fine document states exactly that offence. So we were all stitched up by the Organizers who all avoided being detained, they had some good press coverage though they say, at our expense.

During this time Tim can be seen on some footage running around with no shirt on as he pealed the stickers off his car and threw his cannon ball t-shirt away. He avoided the police at all cost. He did nothing to help people who were in the Spanish police stations, he later claimed he had a permit to bring his rally to Benidorm, why did he not bring it to the police and help sort out the situation. When Tim finally got to Benidorm and spoke to people he blamed the Porsche and BMW for causing all the problems. Cheers Tim. I know this because I spoke to people after who told me Tim and Mark had gone around saying this, my dad was confronted by angry driver when he arrived in the Benidorm hotel car park, threatening him with abuse as Tim told them it was his sons fault they had to pay â‚¬1,000 in Tarragona. Expensive things lawyers. When Tim spoke to the Spanish press he told them the police were corrupt this made matters only worse for Cannonballer’s driving in Spain.

OK so what did I do when my father told me he had arranged flights for us to leave? Did I leave my car there and go? No way. I would not let the Spanish police get hold of my Porsche!

The four of us who had been travelling in the two cars got together and decided to peel our stickers off. We started to do this and asked anyone around to help us peel them off. One of which was a hotel porter who told us the police had called the hotel to ask if they could come and view the cars in the hotel car park that night. Oh ****. We dumped all of our cannonball merchandise (including about 40 t-shirts we got from Tim, most went over the balcony in the hotel room) we destroyed all of our video tapes and left. Our plan was to get out of the country. The Police had been given our Registration numbers (thanks Jerry) we slowly drove out of town. We later got a call from a cannonballer at the hotel, who said the police had been and picked up the Audi TT.

We drove to Granada then up through Madrid (gave me a chance to visit my sister, she lives there).We passed a few police cars on the way and **** ourselves each time. We headed to France. We were also followed by a police car when we were about 30 miles from the border I can not tell you how relieved we were when we ducked in to a service station and he didn’t follow. Absolutely knackered we drove over the border in the early hours 48 hours after leaving Benidorm we made it into France. We crossed the Pyrenees on a back road that took us through the longest tunnel ever.

When we knew we were in France I stopped on the small mountain road and proceeded to carry out some celebratory donuts! Yes we made it. We pulled up at a road side jet wash at 5 am and proceeded to wash the cars (after being up all night 2 nights in a row) I like to keep my car clean and in the panic of things never got the chance to wash it until now. We got on the main road that would take us to Andorra. We stopped on the way at a services had about 2 hours sleep then some coffee and croissants and got on our way to Andorra.

We really wanted to meet up with all the other Cannonballer’s and we also needed a private word with Tim and Jerry. We arrived at Andorra and parked the cars outside the front of the hotel. Later we caught up with Tim he was obviously worried. I told him I had spoken to other Cannonballer’s so I knew what had been said, at first he denied everything. He then came to his senses and apologised for blaming us on everything he said he was under pressure from angry Cannonballer’s. Apparently people had said they were going to kick his head in etc. He needed someone to blame and that was us. Tim informed me at this time that he had been talking to news papers radio and he could have not got better publicity if he tried.

Even after Tim had caused us all these problems we came to an agreement Tim would make an announcement that night, and tell people the truth. It was not down to us. I told Tim we needed to see Jerry, he said he was around. We never saw Jerry at all for the rest of the trip. He must have gone home. I approached Tim sometime later to find out what was happening with his announcement he said it is probably a bit late and he would do it at breakfast. He never made the announcement.

When I asked Tim the next day about the announcement he said he had spoken to most people individually and had let most people know the situation. The next day my car was found to be damaged I showed Tim he said not to worry his insurance would pay for it. I told Tim public liability insurance would not cover this, he said no I have a tour operator’s policy with Lloyds of London that will cover it. I remember thinking wow that’s handy. (Turns out it was more of his bullshit).

Anyway, on to Paris a slow run out of Andorra to avoid attention of police followed by some quick driving to Paris along the way we had a tear-up with the Gallardo now being driven by someone else who could drive the car. We hit over 200 along the way. This was when the footage was taken of us as seen in the final night short film and the preview Cannonball film. They also caught some interesting driving past the traffic into Paris using the â€˜extra’ lane. All of this was caught on film by the outside film crew employed by Tim. These were the most Professional people on the rally, even helping people with problems, problems that Cannonball staff should have been helping with. Anyway passing many Cannonballer’s along the way we had a great tear-up with a Black Toyota Supra at over 180 it was a fun run. We got to Paris and some were surprised to see us there midfield but they did not realise how late we had left, Tim was out of bed so it must have been at least midday!

That night Tim turned up at some point and told me his Nissan Skyline was being brought down to Paris and he was going to show me how to drive tomorrow. He told me you think you can drive I’ll show you tomorrow. He said my Nissan can do 210mph you will be able to see it doing that on my DVD that’s coming out after this rally. I told him yea OK mate I will look forward to it. The next day I got up late about 8:30am I was told cars had been leaving since 7:00am. Found the car was damaged again, but didn’t let it bother me. We jumped into the cars at about 9:00am and searched for a fuel station we found one after a lot of looking filled up and were on our way. We went for it to Belgium. We passed every car that left before us apart from the blue skyline that had left early that morning. Sadly not Tim’s car as he had promised. Turns out Tim stayed in bed lateâ€¦again and had hoped on a boat home. He seems to spend a lot of time in bed on these rallies!

We pulled up at the checkpoint in Belgium at the same time as the blue Skyline that had left quite early. We enjoyed a pretty good run to Belgium. A nice lunch was had by all, we went for fuel and came back and found some people had left for Calais before the checkpoint had opened including the BMW that won the event, but that is another story.

Some nice photos with the Tourism Councillor for Knokke for the local paper (Tim can communicate then) and then the check-point opened and we were off. Caught most of the cheats and passed them on the way to Calais. When we arrived at Calais
we found a lot of Cannonballer’s had missed out Belgium and gone straight to Calais, What a waste!

Our 3 team cars made it first second and third to the last checkpoint, Tim was on hand with excuses of how the skyline was a bit poorly. Too bad.

I told Tim I wanted talk to him after the event and sort everything out including the damage to my car. He said fine call him next week which I did. I called him the next week he said he would phone me back but he failed to do so.

I tried calling Tim again but was told he was busy. So I then decided to cancel a cheque paid for some 50 tee-shirts. If I hadn’t, my Dad would have. He could not believe the outcome of the event. The times were a Joke. I called him again and told him the cheque had been stopped until he took the time to meet with me and my father to discuss everything. He said fine I will call you next week.

I got a call from MasterCard two days later looking for authorisation for the sum for the t-shirts. He had kept my credit card details from the 9k I had paid to enter 3 cars and was trying to put through the T-shirt money. I did not recognise the amount at the time and did not give authorization. When MasterCard found it was Cannonball who tried to put the money through they let me know and asked if I wanted to take steps as this was fraud. I said I would contact Cannonball. I did and Tim’s wife answered when I called I asked to speak to Tim and she said no she deals with accounts she then proceeded to tell me all the things she thought I was, and that I was responsible for upsetting 250 people on the event. She then handed the phone to Tim who told me any footage of me was going to the Police he then said his wife was ill and told me to **** off and put the phone down. That was Friday 24th September, the last time I spoke to him.

The reason I am writing this all up now is because I was hoping to meet up with Tim and get everything sorted out amicably. But now Tim has applied to the small claim’s court to try and get his money for the T-shirts. He also claims because I had my wife at the party at the end I avoided paying him Â£75 for an extra ticket. I entered three cars into the rally thus giving me seating for six people at the party. There were only five of us there including my wife. The worst part is you are supposed give notice before issuing legal proceedings and this notice came attached to the claim form and it was back dated to seven days earlier.

Thank you very much Tim Porter, nine grand well spent!

Anyway, enough of Gumball and other road rallies for the day.

Unforutnately, I haven’t been able to do a quick write up on the history of how Pakistan ended up purchasing the F16′s. Maybe during my next study break I’ll put it up.

In other happenings, my childhood friend Rehan wrote an entry in his blog about Pakistan Day. Quite interesting because he quoted a section of a speech that I hadn’t heard in a while.

On March 22, 1940 at Minto Park, Lahore at the historical All India Muslim League annual session, which passed the Lahore Resolution, categorically defining the demand for a separate homeland for Muslims, Quaid-i-Azam state that:

â€œHindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature. They neither inter-marry nor inter-dine and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations that are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their concepts on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.â€?

I’ll reserve comment but thought I’d post the snippet myself.

And lastly, for the filthy minded people, this video of a fat kid stalking girls had me laughing pretty hard. (thanks to another blogger)

Viper Crash & More Rally Stories

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Viper Crash & More Rally Stories

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