I flew out to Sweden on Wednesday last week for 4 days of snowy petrol heaven, Shane and Neil picked me up in Elevrum which is about 1.5 hrs from Oslo international airport, I had booked a C class car which ended up being a WRC 1.6 diesel Nissan Note!! But hey what a great car it proved to be, with Shane and Neil in a 1 series beamer we had the best of both worlds.
It took a further 1.5 hrs of driving along very snowy slippery roads before we reached our holiday home in the village of Rorbacksnas, we were sharing the cabin with another 2 Essex boys Lee Beverstock and Rob Russell (neil had them both signed up as cmc members with in 10 minutes) who had won the 1400 challenge and there prize was a free week on the lake with all expenses paid. Rob had driven his 1400 challenge car over from the UK and now we had 3 different cars to practise in.
Got to the lake nice and early on Thursday morning and within 10 minutes I was stuck in a snow bank!! And got pelted with snow balls (a challenge tradition for stuck cars) buy all the other crews who had to dig me out. We seemed to be digging cars out of the snow every hour and our Essex boys were no exception with me, shane, Neil, rob and lee all getting pelted with snow balls on a daily basis, as Pat said its all about finding the limit and the only damage incurred all week was to the beamers rear quarter panel as we were trying to pull the car out of a snow bank (invoice is in the post rob). Practising Lift off over steer, left foot braking and driving with no braking was just some of the skills Pat Flyn was putting us through.
I suppose my big moment happened not on the lake but on the way back from the local sky resort of Slain, we had been out for a bit of sledging and a few beers it was about 1AM and we were driving back to the cabin, the fog was heavy and visibility was very poor, I called to the back of the car, bloody hell which way does this road go, Shane shouted back it’s a straight road get on with it, then going quite quick
I was on top of a round about, Wow, every body held on and closed there eyes, steered right then left tweaked the hand brake and some how got the car around, we did end up on the wrong side of the road facing a local taxi who looked amazed but kept it on the island!! So the 4 days on the lake training proved more than helpful.
Neil feel in love with the BMW and proved to be very quick and tidy
Shane was quick in what ever he got into, Rob was very smooth and lee managed to keep rob on his toes all week.
My highlight had to be when I meet Marcus Grönholm in the airport departure lounge, had a coffee with him and chatted for about 40 mins from rallying to families and bussiness, really nice guy.
Cannot wait to get back next year, hopfully with a few more CMC crews.
Robert