Motoscape 2013: Day 2, St Omer to Koblenz

After a fabulous first day and night in St Omer, it was time for the teams to get down to business and start the Motoscape 2013 challenges! Today we were travelling from St Omer to Koblenz in Germany. The morning started with the briefing, outlining the day ahead, before everybody started their first real day of driving on the right hand side of the road. Also the teams were able to drive the Nürburgring, definitely something to tick off any worthwhile bucket list!

hazeThe journey from St Omer to Koblenz was around 300 miles depending on teams chosen route. Some opted for the quicker motorway route which skirts around Cologne, whilst others headed for the Ardennes Forest to experience some fantastic scenery. Many ventured into Luxembourg to tick off one more country en-route. Hazel from Venice Bound Birds even managed to find a little town name after her!

The majority though headed for the Eupen Forest and with the Nurburgring not opening till 4.30pm, stopped for a spot of lunch in the charming little town of Monschau. The Nürburgring is for most teams an absolute must! After all, who wouldn’t want to put their skills to the test against the locals in their Porsches and Ferraris etc.

For those of you who don’t know what the Nürburgring is, well it is probably the greatest and most challenging race circuit in the world, described by Jackie Stewart as the ‘Green Hell’. It is 20.8 km long and members of the public can take their own cars onto the track, and in our case gloriously decorated bangers!

Whilst some teams had no problems taking their cars on the circuit, the ones with major modifications (yes the tank!) had to watch from the side-lines or jump in with other teams. Jon and Laura from the Banger to the Future took the option of a ring taxi where a professional driver took them round in a Renault Meganne Sport. It was an exhilarating experience that gave Laura wobbly legs!

A couple of teams attending the ring encountered a police officer without a sense of humour. Super Hero International Taxi had to remove the taxi sign from their Vauxhall Corsa and Friday Nite Idea had to remove the shark fin from the rear of their Mitsubishi before they were allowed to proceed.

There was a great mix of Motoscape cars, rally cars and super cars, the atmosphere was just brilliant! The ‘Not another Rover’ boys in their ‘Super Mario’ themed Rover got more attention than all the super cars put together. It just goes to show that there is no need to spend £100,000 on a car when a £333 motor, a few tins of paint and a bit of imagination will do the get just as much attention!!

There were some teams with car problems though, Team Bulldog had a bit of a freak accident resulting in their rear windscreen shattering. They’re not sure what happened but think something hit it whilst driving along the motorway. They are currently waiting for a replacement. V Rally managed to get their oil leak fixed on the Skoda so they are back on the road!

Back to the challenges and between 5pm and 7pm the teams checked in at the hotel in Koblenz to see if they could strike out an early lead in the competition. A fantastic effort by the teams who took on our tricky challenges, and congratulations to Dr Rally Team (Prague) and 3 Engineers and a Civil Servant (Venice) who scored the most points for the day and won the daily prizes of £50 each! Well done guys you certainly thought out of the box by visiting the Mahymobiles Classic Car Museum. The second part of the challenge required creativity and the artists on the rally certainly showed their skills with their drawings of their team! Take a look below:

Now to the evening’s proceedings, each year we highly recommend attending the Wine Festival at the German town of Winningen. It’s the final night of the festival so it’s very busy and a lot of fun. The majority of the Motoscapers took our advice and had a fantastic night, as you will see in the photos!

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! The freshly cooked bratwursts are tastiest sausages you can eat! 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.

This years group were certainly getting into the spirit and dancing the night away in front of the live German band, and showing the locals how it’s done UK style! 2 Fast 2 Delirious, Hazardous Wasters and Zissou’s Multi Skilled Tactical Ground Patrol (try saying that team name when you’ve had a few German steins!) were certainly enjoying themselves on the dance floor, busting some moves indeed!

The evening is further enhanced by what can only be described as an absolutely spectacular firework display. Everyone was blown away! Afterwards when we asked the teams what they thought of the fireworks, here’s just a few of the responses we got– ‘AMAZING’, ‘Best fireworks I’ve ever seen’, ‘Better than New Years in Edinburgh’, ‘The last one was so loud I almost sh*t my pants!’ – everyone really enjoyed it!

The teams that visited the wine festival may have woken with sore heads in the morning, but it was a night they won’t forget in a hurry. Take a look at the pics of a fantastic night on the Motoscape Rally:

Day 2 was a long but truly memorable experience for all the teams and everyone seemed to have a great day and night!

Day 3 see’s the teams head to Feldkirch in Austria (via the Rhine river), tune in tomorrow to see what happens next!

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