It's only gone and bloody passed!

I'm stunned. Literally, stunned. The Safrane has sailed through the MOT without any problems, and not an advisory in sight (if you ignore the tyres being low on tread).

It's beginning to look like this £51 car was a bit of a bargain.

Roll on September!

Eagle eyed readers may notice this is a repost of a previous post. That happens sometimes.

Going for an MOT

Risking £45, I've put the car in for it's MOT. As it'll no doubt fail, I figure that at the very least I'll have a nice list of what absolutely has to be done to the car.

As it's still spewing hot oil from the top of the engine, and the air intake isn't actually connected to the engine, there's a very good chance they'll simply laugh at it and fail it there and then. Still, I'll then have a month to put things right before I go for a free retest.

As an aside, the tester at local specialists ASAP looks at the daily list of cars to test, and suggests whether they'll pass or fail before even seeing the car. The Safrane's down as a fail...

Eagle eyed readers may notice this is a repost of a previous post. That happens sometimes.

Fiiiiiiiight! (Or, more accurately, scrap!)

Its finally happened. A recovery truck turned up at Cima Racing Towers to remove a Safrane and take it to the scrapyard.

However, it's the old 'spare' Safrane that's gone, so the rally car remains. It's not been declared off road (or SORN'd) and there's no insurance on it, so it won't be going anywhere any time soon.

Next step is to get it through its MOT...

Missing, presumed can't be bothered

Whilst the Renault Safrane FW14B sits ready for another pan-European rally, it's with great regret that the people who drive it aren't. We're reluctantly not entering Staples2Naples 2008 for numerous reasons, although they mostly revolve around me being in China at the time.

Despite being a Communist nation, China isn't too hard to get in and out of, but taking a break from the country, flying for 12 hours to the UK, driving across Europe, and then flying back to China, might not go down to well with the current Mrs Cima Racing.

However, there's already some vague plans in place for a bigger, better entry in 2009.

I can't wait. Although, as time can't really be moved around to suit my own desires, I'll have to.

The Rally in Numbers

Immediately following the rally, I disappeared on a well deserved holiday. However, being the slightly geeky person I am, I couldn't resist producing a few stats on the rally itself...

• Miles Covered : 2,681
• Challenges Completed: 3 of 4
• Points Scored : 950
• Finishing Position : 24th of 150
• Average Speed : 50.8 mph (81.8 km/h)
• Fuel Economy : 30.8 mpg (7.6 l/100km)
• Fuel Used : 87.0 gallons (395.5 litres)
• Road Tolls : £141.13 (€203.13)
• Border Crossings : 5
• Mountain Passes : 6
• Longest Drive: 677 miles (1,089 km)
• Breakdowns : 0
• Speeding Fines : 0 (so far)
• Accidents : 0 (just)

Day 7: Archamps, France to Huntingdon, UK

The final leg. Getting up early (no, really) I was on the road for 7:30am, in temperatures of just 5 degrees. From the car’s perspective, that’s great, as it’ll keep temperatures in the engine and gearbox nice and low. From my perspective, I wasn’t quite so keen, thanks the heating and ventilation failure yesterday.

Still, the roads were clear, if a bit cloudy up the mountains, so it was time to press on. A five hour stint behind the wheel, stopping only for fuel, left me at Reims for a brief pitstop, before moving on to Calais.

I’d write more about the drive but, as you’ll have seen from the blog on the way down, it’s all a bit dull.

Grabbing an earlier ferry than planned, the priority loading I’d paid for left me wishing I hadn’t. In force seven gales, the nice people at P&O had my car seemingly dangling off the back of the boat with nothing more than a small fence keeping it in place. Still, it survived, even if it did get more than a bit wet – and with gaping holes in the bonnet for cooling purposes, that was a concern!

It’s home.

Milka Cows

I am taking this window of opportunity whilst Phil drives the car back from Italy to state that the Milka cow is my new favorite animal. These Alpine cows are truly wonderful creatures with fluffy ears and a lilting moo and to top it all off they have cute bells round their necks. In short they are completely adorable and if I could have cownapped one from the slopes of a Swiss mountain then I would have! Needless to say Phil thinks I am mad..... all those in agreement say Aye!

Reims Pitstop

Travelling back to England, I’ve just taken the opportunity to head to Reims, or more specifically the long abandoned Reims-Gueux race circuit. The French have been gradually building motorways over the old circuit that hosted Grand Prix racing from 1950 to 1966, with the last remaining pieces now subject to a campaign to save them. I wish the campaign every success.

As a racer, it’s almost emotional being here. However, the urge to drive fast has grown too strong, so I’ll soon be back on the road towards Calais…

Day 6: Rome, Italy to Archamps, France

I know, it’s not really the rally anymore, but I’m still hammering the car for all it’s worth in order to make it back to the UK in under two days.

Today was interesting. Leaving Rome at 9:30am after Juliana had taken the hotel bus to the airport, I’d travelled around 5km by 10:30am. From there things got better, if less interesting. The motorway network from Rome to Genoa was efficient, if not cheap and interesting.

However, that all changed once I was past Genoa, as the roads became a real joy to drive. Little traffic, high speeds, long flowing twists and turns, tunnels, massive bridges and mountains all made life very interesting. As I started my eighth hour behind the wheel, I was as fresh as when I started. Working up towards Mont Blanc, the mountains got bigger and scarier, unlike the big but pretty mountains Switzerland. As I hit the Mont Blanc tunnel the sun was just drifting towards the horizon, and the weather was cool but dry. As I came out the other side it was as dark as possible and torrential rain. Welcome to France.

A short 90 minute blast to Archamps, just south of Geneva got me to the hotel just in time for some sleep before I do it all again tomorrow.

The car covered 990km in around 12 hours with one major failure. The air-con has now died, along with all the other heating and ventilation controls.

Day 5: Sottomarina, Italy to Rome, Italy

The big finish, but first we had a big start. After joining up with the Home2Rome rally teams overnight, it was off to the beach for the S2N vs. H2R fight, the weapon of choice being the Super Soaker XP240. At the crack of dawn (or about 8:30am) around 200 people made the lengthy trek across the road to the beach, armed and dangerous.

Facing off from one another, the order to soak was given. Despite being massively outnumbered, the S2N team reigned supreme, drowning the H2R competitors quickly. From there, it was to the cars and off to Rome.

The challenge for the final day sounded easy. Find nine Italian number plates, use the numbers and some basic maths, and try to get as close to a total of 100,000 as possible. Oh yes, really easy. Our total of 24,000 suggested it wasn’t quite as easy as we’d hoped.

The drive was tough on the car, with temperatures again around 32 degrees, proving a bit bothersome for the Safrane over longer distances, so reasonably frequent stops were needed to keep temperatures in check. Arriving at the outskirts to Rome at around 5pm, we elected not to try and take the car to the centre, but instead parked at the Best Western hotel and made our way to the finish line without the car.

Of the 270 starters, only three that we know of took their car in, so we were in good company. Arriving at the Caffe Bernini in Piazza Nuvona for around 7pm, we’d finally made it! Meeting up with those that hadn’t made it through the early stages, chatting with friends we’d made along the way, and cheering as the official results and prizes were handed out, we realised what a good time we’d had, and plans were started for 2008 before we’d even finished our meal…

As Juliana heads off to the airport in the morning, the last challenge is to be faced by me alone – driving the car back to England.

In the meantime, thanks for all your support. We’ve had a great time doing this, but without you it may not have been possible, and SPARKS certainly wouldn’t have raised as much as we’ll raise. I’ve no idea of the total now but, once I’m back in the UK, I’ll tot things up and let you know.

What a week!