Day 4 – Feldkirch to Ritten / Rennon

There was huge excitement in the group this morning for what is one of the highlights of the trip, the “Stelvio Pass”. The teams were setting off from Feldkirch and heading to Ritten / Rennon near Bolzano in Italy.

The journey from Feldkirch to Ritten / Rennon is around 220 miles and nearly all the teams managed to avoid the motorways today, and stick to windy roads up in the mountains, which really pushed all the cars, along with completing the interesting challenges for the day.

What an amazing effort by the teams today up the cloudy Stelvio Pass. We got some awesome photos from the summit. The teams have two choices to get to the top of the pass, firstly the shorter route using the Umbrail Pass which leads on to the Stelvio or secondly using the beginning of the Stevio near Bormeo. If you are wondering what this famous pass has to offer take a look at some of the teams photographs.

It was great to see the teams along the way from our journey to Rennon. We caught up with “Piston Broke” and “Booze Brothers” going the opposite direction to the Stelvio, but soon corrected them with a quick lesson on map reading!

“Call the Cops” left the hotel at 8am and decided to visit Lichtenstein and various other passes along the way and rolled up to the hotel at 9pm, one of the longest journeys of the day! Incidentally the earliest team back to the hotel was “Moonraker: Live and Let Drive” at 3.30 p.m, a great effort.

As the drive was so long and hard on the cars, we extended the check in time for the competition so everyone could get their results in. Well done yet again to “Blue Waffle” who were the winners for the day and they bag the £100 prize!

The town of Rennon (also known as Ritten) is a beautiful historic town perched in the fabulous Dolomites. Many of the teams enjoyed a heavy night in the hotel bar sampling genuine Italian beers and of course various “Sherberts”. A few of the teams decided to take a late dip in the pool (around 1.00 a.m) despite the fact that the place was in pitch dark. The hotel owner, did see the funny side of it!

Tomorrow we head to Rimini, which is the end of the trip for some teams and everyone is looking forward to the complimentary meal tonight, followed by a night out in Rimini. Find out how we got on tomorrow!

Day 3 – Koblenz to Feldkirch

After a big night at the beer and wine festival, the teams gathered for breakfast and the days briefing / challenges in the hotel reception. Today was the day to drive down the beautiful Rhine River (stop and have a bite to eat and admire the view), then onto the famous German Autobahns and into Austria and our destination for the night, Feldkirch, where Motoscape had arranged a traditional Austrian meal in the hotel, followed of course by the obligatory few shandy’s!

The journey from Koblenz to Feldkirch is around 325 miles and the journey enables most of the teams to stop off along the way, to admire the beautiful towns and castles… and complete the days challenges.

It was a great effort today by most of the teams in the challenges, especially the ones getting the best scenic photograph. Take a look at some of the photograph entries we received, you won’t see much see much better scenery than this anywhere in the world.

As usual between 5 and 7pm the teams started to drift into the excellent hotels in Feldkirch, but some of the cars struggled today (more on that in a bit) and therefore some got here quite late. A big congratulations to “Super-charged Mario Brothers Gti”, the winners for the day and they bag the £100 prize!

With the cars taking some hammer on the Autobahn, a few began to struggle and we had our first casualty of the rally. “Doggy Styles” Suzuki can go no further, but luckily the guys have European cover so they can carry on with the rally in a hire car. We’ll see how the other cars get on tomorrow after taking on the beast that is the Stelvio Pass!

Last night was a quite night for some to catch up on sleep, but that didn’t stop some of the guys carrying on their road trip in style! With an excellent meal in the hotels, a night on the town for Miss Money Penny from the “Moonraker” car and a few shenanigans in the car park which made in interesting spectacle on some of the cars, and got some dodgy looks from the local Austrians, it was another great night on a so far incredible rally.

Today was one of the longer days of driving, but it’s put everyone in a good position tomorrow to head to Rennon and master the Stelvio Pass! Find out how to teams got on tomorrow!

Day 2 – St Omer to Koblenz

Today was the first day of challenges on the rally, and all the teams met early in the car park for challenge and route guide. Congratulations to all the teams who came down in fancy dress and got the bonus points!

The journey from St Omer to Koblenz is around 300 miles depending which route you take, with many of teams stopping off at the famous Nürburgring. There’s nothing better than ripping a banger round one of the best race tracks available to the public. Where else can you buy a car for £250, decorate it, then take on the race track mixing with Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maseratis and all other racing cars… what an awesome experience!

Gerard from “Monza or Bust” also came across Sabine Schmitz (the lady who drove the Ford transit van round the Nürburgring on Top Gear). She thought the rally was a fantastic idea and enjoyed meeting some of the entrants and their banger creations. Check out some of the pics below:

Between 5 and 7pm the teams started to drift into the 4* hotel in Koblenz complete with the days completed challenge sheets. Great effort by all the teams and congratulations to “Blue Waffle”, the winners for the day and they bag the £100 prize! The cash prize for Best Decorated Banger goes to “Moonraker: Live and Let Drive”, one of the most innovative bangers ever, well done Simon and Peter.

Koblenz hosts a fantastic wine and beer festival and Sunday night was the finale of the festival, so guess where the majority of the Motoscapers were heading!

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 day.

One of the guys from “Team Aerodynamic Smith”, truly got into the spirit of the festival drinking wine by the bottle instead of the by the glass!

The evening is further enhanced by what can only be described as an absolutely spectacular firework display. Similar to the Millennium firework display in the UK, the feedback from the teams was incredible. Check out the pics for an insight into a true party in Germany!

Despite one car with a dodgy battery (they were saved by the Irish boys, “Batten Bees”), everyone made it in one piece and will be raring to go to Austria.

One more thing before we leave for Feldkirch, we had a visit from the German motorway police (yes we thought they were stripograms too, but sadly not!) who came to check out the organisation and legality of the rally, and we passed with flying colours!

So all in all, a really eventful day, with 2 prize winners, zero Nürburgring casualties, all cars present and correct, a visit from the police and an amazing night at the festival made it an unforgettable day for everybody.

Day 1 – Journey to St Omer

Well what can we say. What an amazing start to the 2010 Motoscape Rally ,congratulations to all the teams for making a fantastic effort with cars and costumes. After the worst part of the journey  is over(driving through the UK!!!), a smooth ferry trip and a short drive to St Omer from Calais, ourselves and the teams gathered in the hotel car park for  team registrations

The atmosphere was buzzing and everyone was in high spirits, with some of the best  decorated bangers we  have ever seen, check them out below:

Some of the highlights ……….

All the bangers, especially the Green Maxi, Tommy Coupe’s hat  , the Moonraker rocket, MARMITES Lyrca costume, Cumbernauld’s Flux Capacitor and Chatney Racing’s VW Camper Van, are just a few of the potential winner of the “ BEST DECORATED BANGER COMPETITION”

Last night saw everyone go to the town square in St Omer for a bite to eat and  a few drinks (a few too many drinks for some teams!) It was a great night with all the teams getting to know each other, making a fantastic start to what’s going to be an awesome rally!  Roll on Koblenz!