the ultimate banger rally experience!
After a great first day viewing all the bangers and meeting all the teams, it was time to get down to business. Today we were driving from St Omer to Koblenz in Germany and it was the first day of the challenges. We gave the morning briefing, distributed the challenges and information packs and the teams were on their way, with the majority working their route around visiting the famous Nürburgring!
The journey from St Omer to Koblenz is around 300 miles depending which route you take (with some bangers falling at the first hurdle, but we’ll get to that later) and the Nürburgring was the highlight of the day for many teams. Where in the world can you see a Masserati Gran Turismo and a Ferrari 360 next to a Banger Jeep designed as a dog, queueing to get on the Nurburgring, you guessed it, only the Motoscape Rally of course!
There was an amazing mix of Motoscape cars, rally cars and super cars, you could smell the adrenaline (or the petrol fumes might have just gone to our heads!) A lot of our teams took their pride and joys around the track (some numerous times) and had an exhilarating experience. Take a look below a small selection below with more coming soon:
While the Nürburgring was amazing for most teams, Sean and Tish from Fuel, Fire & Desire had a somewhat different experience. Their classic red kit car had an engine problem which caused an oil leak leaving oil all round the track, which in turn forced the closure of the complete Nürburgring, not many people can put that on their CV!
Their car wasn’t drivable after that and they had to leave it in the garage overnight (fingers crossed it gets fixed) and luckily the Three Musketeers and the Arthur Ant Hill Mob showed the rally spirit and gave them a lift to the hotel for a well earned drink!
Another banger that didn’t make it was Geoff and Tim’s BMW (Team V4 B4). They broke down on the motorway and the car was beyond repair. Maybe the old Beemer just wanted to end its days in its birthplace, Germany. Luckily they had European breakdown cover so they can continue the rally in luxury! A hire car!
4 Chavs in a Scooby and 3 Birds in a Banger have some other car problems, but looks like they will be able to get them fixed and carry on!
Back to the challenges, and between 5pm and 7pm the teams checked in at the hotel in Koblenz to see if they could make a flying start to the competition. A great effort by the teams who took on our tricky challenges, and congratulations to Team Gee and Macmillan Ricerocket 2 who tied on the most points to share the winnings on the daily prize, the drinks are on them in Feldkirch.
On to the nights proceedings, and each year we highly recommend visiting the traditional German town of Winningen for the final night of the annual Wine Festival, which the majority of the Motoscapers did.
The wine festival is a fantastic mix of live bands, traditional German food and drink, nightclubs and true mix of high spirited Germans, who really know how to party! It gave the teams a great chance to get to know each other, so thanks to all the teams for making it a great night.
The teams were getting into the spirit and dancing the night away in front of the live band, and showing the locals how it’s done!
The evening is further enhanced by what can only be described as an absolutely spectacular firework display. There is no way that words can describe how amazing these fireworks are. Everyone was blown away and the feedback from the teams was incredible.
The teams that came down to wine festival might have sore heads in the morning, but it was a night they won’t forget in a hurry. Check out the pics for an insight into part time in in Germany!
Day 2 was an eventful one, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. 2 bangers down (but the participants still taking part in the rally), 52 teams to go, lets hope everyone makes it to Feldkirch in one piece tomorrow!
