Motoscape Rally 2014: Day 2, St Omer to Koblenz

After a magnificent start to the 2014 Motoscape Banger Rally in St Omer, it was time for the teams to turn their attention to the 2014 challenges! Today we are travelling from St Omer in France to Koblenz in Germany via the Nürburgring.

All the teams arrived for the morning briefing at 7.45am (some looking a bit weary eyed after a rather late night). The teams discussed their preferred route for the day and worked out how they could visit as many places as possible en-route to Koblenz. Most people headed straight for the Nürburgring, an absolute must for any car enthusiast.

For those of you who don’t know what the Nürburgring 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 on a very limited number of dates through out the year

The Nürburgring was very busy with many locals pitching up in Porsches, Ferraris, Maserati’s and the usual mix of pimped out German saloons. There was a great mix of Motoscape cars, rally cars and super cars, ensuring the whole place was buzzing! Lots of the bangers get more attention than all 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 get just as much attention!!

Oliver from team Duck & Lanky managed to spin his Mazda MX-5 on his first ever lap of the ring, luckily no damage was done and one team managed to catch it on video, which we will get online ASAP! The lads definitely looked back on it as an experience they won’t forget!

Team Over the Limit in their London black cab and Team Icescreamers in their ice cream van both managed to do a lap after skilful negotiation with the rings marshals, the icescreamers even had an escort from the tracks safety car, just in case of a hiccup!

The journey from St Omer to Koblenz was around 300 miles depending on teams chosen route. Whilst some chose the quicker motorway route, which skirts around Cologne, others headed for the Ardennes Forest to experience more picturesque scenery. Some teams popped across the border into Luxembourg to tick off one more country, remember you can visit up to 12 countries in just 7 days on the Motoscape rally!

For teams that wanted to experience a different type of adrenalin rush, we included the option to visit the Michael Schumacher Go Karting centre (where Michael Schumacher started out racing as a child). The Ladlords teams decided to give the Pubcar a rest for a few hours and take up this option! The go-karts went nearly as fast the Pubcar!

Today we encountered the first team with major car problems. Kasper and Ian from team Scoobytastic have encountered some trouble with the gearbox in their Subaru. They will be finding out in the morning if it can be repaired so fingers crossed for them!

Onto different notes, Team Fore lost part of their grass roof on the autobahn! Lesson learnt for next year to stick it down with some stronger glue! Other than that, some cars just needed a little TLC after taking on the Nürburgring so lets see how they all get on tomorrows journey!

Teams started arriving between 5pm and 7pm at the hotel in Koblenz with their daily challenge entries, hoping they could take an early lead in the competition! A fantastic effort by all the teams who took part in the challenges, and congratulations to Minter Munter (1st place so far on Venice) and No Lemon / Torquay Fore (tied for 1st place so far on Prague) who scored the most points for the day and won the daily prizes of £50 each!

Well done guys, even though Monty the Motoscape Mascot did give you a helping hand! The lead can change on the Motoscape Rally day by day so lets see how teams get on in tomorrows challenges.

Now onto the evening’s events, every year we highly recommend visiting the Wine Festival at the German town of Winningen. It’s the final night of the annual festival so it’s very busy and a lot of fun. The majority of the Motoscapers took our advice and had a fantastic night! It definitely beats a typical Sunday night in the UK!

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 the tastiest sausages you can eat! It gave the teams a great chance to get to know each other and swop stories on the day’s events,

This years Motoscapers were certainly getting into the spirit and dancing the night away in front of the German live band, and showing the locals how it’s done Motoscape style! Suffolk Mafia, Scoobytastic, Ladlords, Taffy’s Independent Trading Co and Car Keys and Clutch were certainly enjoying themselves on the dance floor, so thanks to everybody for making it a great night.

The evening is further enhanced by what can only be described as an absolutely spectacular firework display, which definitely gets better every year! Everyone was blown away (no pun intended) and it is definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

The teams that visited the wine festival may have woken with a headache, but it was a night they won’t forget in a hurry.

See the photos from all the events from Day 2 on the rally below:

Day 2 was great mix of memorable experiences for the teams, everyone seemed to have a great time and is embracing the banger rally experience!

Day 3 see’s the team’s head to Garmisch Partenkirchen in Germany (a new destination on the Motoscape Rally), tune in tomorrow to see what happens next!

For latest info, news, daily updates, photos and even more visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages at the links below, remember to Like, Follow and Re-tweet!

http://www.facebook.com/MotoscapeBangerRally
http://twitter.com/BangerRally
http://instagram.com/motoscape

Leave a Reply