Motoscape Banger Rally 2015: Day 2, St Omer to Koblenz

Motoscape Banger Rally: Day 2 Saint Omer to Koblenz

After arriving safe and sound yesterday, it’s time for the fun to begin! Today sees us make our way out of Saint Omer over the French boarder and into Germany.

Today is one of the most exciting days for the car enthusiasts on the rally as our journey took us via the world famous Nurburgring. This German race track is one of the most challenging in the world and is certainly worth a visit. If you’re not one for speed you can certainly play spectator! People visit from all around the world to drive their prides and joy around the 20.8 km long track. It seems our teams were not disappointed! After a short closure due to an accident (not one of our bangers) the track was re-opened. Team MR2 cooked the brakes on the first lap but managed to cool off proving that timing is everything as they also managed to reach the Karting track made famous by Michael Shumacher as a child.

Third time Veterans Chris and Shane visited Spa the Belgium racetrack and bumped into some fellow racing friends. The drive to Koblenz was roughly 5 hours, or 4.5 when Paul’s driving. The teams enjoyed the benefit of ‘No speed limits’ on the Autobahn and driving at 120MPH without blue lights behind you is all part and parcel of the German driving experience.

The first challenge was to photograph 22 different HGV logos. This was made difficult by the fact that German roads are particularly quiet on a Sunday. If the lorries wont come to you, you go to the lorries and many teams did just that. Lorry parks were the best bet if trying to complete the challenge in full.

The second challenge saw our teams get snap happy with their cameras. We asked you to photograph a Church clock with the time been as close to 12 o’clock as possible. Monty, the Motoscape mascot got papped alongside our team members and most teams completed this challenge and we had fun checking out your snaps back at the hotel. Everybody is eager to hear the winners announced in the morning, great effort from all the teams! The German scenery is beautiful and you must make a pit stop at the villages set away from the main route.

The Motoscape team headed straight to Koblenz to meet and greet the teams. Welcomed by Hotel manager Helgar who was on hand with a hot dish of Goulash soup and her usual dry sense of humour. The teams all made it over safe and sound with no brake downs (so far, so good). Everybody congregated around the bar to enjoy a pint of Koblenzer to warm up before the wine festival. The evening events were circled around the last night of the Winningen wine festival. This festival runs each year and sees the locals and tourists come together to taste the sweet flavours of german wein! One of the must see sights is the amazing firework display. This is enough reason alone to visit Koblenz, a total of 13 minutes long it replicates that of a theatrical performance. The festival goers were kept entertained by lively german bands that played into the early hours. A well deserved Bratwurst was on the menu and for the sweet tooth’s on the rally a crepe isn’t a crepe until it’s served in Germany and filled with chocolate.

Then it was back to the hotel bar, the teams all congregated round with tales of Day 2. An early night (for some) meant we were ready for a 7am start in the morning.