Tuesday 17th July 2007

Team Rough Runnings triumph in 2000 mile epic

Old Mercedes wins Calais2Casablanca event

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The team, their car and the reason

Three Leamington Spa-based car enthusiasts have won the first Street Safari Calais2Casablanca rally in an old Mercedes.

Travelling 2000 miles through France, Andorra, Spain and Morocco, the trio consisting of Nathan Gore-Brown (29), Joe Williams (26) and Kim Palmer (26) contested the challenge in their 17 year old Mercedes 190E against 70 other teams - all travelling in cars worth less than £100. Notable entrants included an old Ambulance, a Ford Granada hearse and the ubiquitous Austin Allegro.

Old Merc needed a fettle beforehand

With ambient temperatures in the non-air-conditioned Mercedes reaching upwards of 35 degrees, Nathan commented: “As we crossed into Africa, the heat was intense, and we were watching the water temperature gauge with concern at times. Overall the car performed very well considering the condition of the Moroccan road surfaces.”

Team mate, Joe added: “There were some pretty hairy moments in the African inner cities, Tanger and Casablanca. Road regulations don't really carry any meaning there, and we found navigating through the traffic very intense and quite a drain.”

All smiles at the start

“Camaraderie between teams was excellent.” commented Kim, “On an occasion where we had to stop in the Spanish mountains outside Andorra to check a wheel bearing, no less than six teams pulled over to check that we were OK.”

The rally involved daily tasks, ranging from how many different items teams could purchase for 1euro to 'number-plate scrabble' where teams had to achieve as many points as possible on a scrabble board by using letters from 30 photographed number-plates. Team Rough Runnings achieved maximum points in two of the four tasks, and completing the rally in first position winning £1,000.

The RR Merc 'on the limit'...

Kim continued: “We have been raising money for the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance and we always said that if we won, we would donate the prize money to the cause. We have now raised over £2000 for a life-saving charity that solely operates on donations and serves a population of 1.1 million.”

Joe Payne from the Air Ambulance based at Coventry Airport, said: “We are all really pleased with the team's achievement, they have worked hard in preparing a wreck of a car for three months to embark on this unusual adventure and in doing so have given back to the community. We are very grateful.”

Cutting edge technology made all the difference

Congratulations lads on a superb result.

Donations to the Rough Runnings Air Ambulance fund can be made through the team’s website:

www.roughrunnings.co.uk

[smele]

How much of a fettle did that car need? That's a great way to raise some money. Certainly would give that a go myself.

[gavinp]

We've just finished the Crumball Rally - these type of events are great fun. www.crumballrally.co.uk

[Jerrold]

That was a great fun event!
Subtle plug of my pics from there, including said merc in the layby. The picnicing family there were less than impressed when 6 teams used it as a rest stop

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerrold/sets/72157600...

Jerrold: Team "Duct Tape"
Also doing Home2Rome...

[cwoodsie2]

This one's gonna be on our list next year - done staples 2 naples twice now and need another one to test our mettle! Did this involve going over that massive bridge in the south of France that was on Top Gear??

[Jerrold]

cwoodsie2 said:

This one's gonna be on our list next year - done staples 2 naples twice now and need another one to test our mettle! Did this involve going over that massive bridge in the south of France that was on Top Gear??

Yep, Millau, a stunner!
Who needs a Veyron when you have a gold Volvo....

[Kubica]

Saw one of your cars (dark blue Chavalier SRi) at the F1 hotel in Calais on the sat night 23rd June.
Was there a white Mondeo in the rally too? Hope they made it OK.

[lanciaman]

I know everybody will hate me for this, but I have never been able to see the point of events like this, if you look at them solely as a means of charity fund raising. I bow to no one in my respect for the skill, hard work and enthusiasm shown by the people who enter these events and I respect even more the people who make it to the finish, but if they didn`t go, and donated the money they would have spent, it would probably come to more than they made by doing the event. If you want to do such an event and a by-product is some money raised for charity, O.K., but the economics just don`t add up if you say the whole reason for going is to raise money for charity.

[Gold]

lanciaman said:

I know everybody will hate me for this, but I have never been able to see the point of events like this, if you look at them solely as a means of charity fund raising. I bow to no one in my respect for the skill, hard work and enthusiasm shown by the people who enter these events and I respect even more the people who make it to the finish, but if they didn`t go, and donated the money they would have spent, it would probably come to more than they made by doing the event. If you want to do such an event and a by-product is some money raised for charity, O.K., but the economics just don`t add up if you say the whole reason for going is to raise money for charity.

Its about raising a few bob for charity WHILST having fun

[tinman0]

well done guys!

fraid the c2c website is offline at the moment due to an error, which will shortly result in the hanging of a techie. me.

the event did go over millau viaduct, well, most of the event did ;-) some cheeky scallies led a few teams the wrong way.

next years calais2casablanca will be a bit longer though. 5 days was hard work, even for us marshals, so next year will be 6 days or maybe even 7 days.

again, well done guys!

[joewilliams]

lanciaman said:

I know everybody will hate me for this, but I have never been able to see the point of events like this, if you look at them solely as a means of charity fund raising. I bow to no one in my respect for the skill, hard work and enthusiasm shown by the people who enter these events and I respect even more the people who make it to the finish, but if they didn`t go, and donated the money they would have spent, it would probably come to more than they made by doing the event. If you want to do such an event and a by-product is some money raised for charity, O.K., but the economics just don`t add up if you say the whole reason for going is to raise money for charity.

We signed up for the event in order to have a fun holiday, and we had one.

The money raised was part of that fun. We wouldn't have extracted it from our friends, family, colleagues, clients & suppliers just by going round shaking a bucket. Look at the publicity our sponsors have got now :P

Thanks for the photos Jerrold. Our camera had issues with the memory card that day, so we lost the photos of everyone in the layby.

Smele - it needed a quite a lot of a fettle. We spent at least three times more in parts than we spent on the car...

[scottiedog]

Awesome, hats off to the guys who compete in these events.

I am thinking why is there not more of this in the US? I heard of one event on the East Coast, was something like a 1000 mile trip....

Hmmm, think I need to start something like this on the West Coast, Los Angelas to Vancouver or something, hmmmmmmmm.....

[tinman0]

lanciaman said:

I know everybody will hate me for this, but I have never been able to see the point of events like this..........

because its fun.

its a way of getting an adventure without putting yourself at too much risk. the adventure is getting a crappy old car to the end. the larger adventure becomes the problems you may or may not encounter on the way there.

the other reasons people do this is because they enjoy the drive, and for some, because they enjoy fiddling with cars. it sounds strange, but some people want an excuse to get under the bonnet of a complete no hoper to fix it. its a sense of accomplishment. the vehicle may not be part of motoring history like a ferrari would be, but they enjoy troubleshooting and then fixing that car. and because the vehicle is probably a mass produced vehicle the costs are low and shouldn't interfere too badly with their marraige either.

some people do these events for charity, which is absolutely great. however, we do ask that money they raise goes directly to charity, whilst the team funds the cost of the adventure from their own pocket. most teams totally agree with our charity position on this which is a credit to them.

[tinman0]

scottiedog said:

Hmmm, think I need to start something like this on the West Coast, Los Angelas to Vancouver or something, hmmmmmmmm.....

already there. we do BABE Rally (Big Apple to Big Easy) on the east coast and next year we are heading up to the mountains on the east coast. the event will be announced soon.

[QQuentin]

How wonderful it would be IF Mercedes Benz knew about this adventure involving and old Mercedes and felt able to put their hands in their pockets and contribute to your cause themselves....
They should be feeling quite proud really ! .....

[ASBO]

lanciaman said:

I know everybody will hate me for this, but I have never been able to see the point of events like this, if you look at them solely as a means of charity fund raising. I bow to no one in my respect for the skill, hard work and enthusiasm shown by the people who enter these events and I respect even more the people who make it to the finish, but if they didn`t go, and donated the money they would have spent, it would probably come to more than they made by doing the event. If you want to do such an event and a by-product is some money raised for charity, O.K., but the economics just don`t add up if you say the whole reason for going is to raise money for charity.

Did you give that statement any thought before you posted it?

Do you by any chance live in a cave by yourself?

[flattotheboards]

Gold said:

Its about raising a few bob for charity WHILST having fun

i think that it is a great way of raising money for charity.

[Chris71]

Well done to those guys.

We tried Czech Wrecks last year. We were on our second car before the rally even started and only got as far as Dover

[K50 DEL]

We did Staples 2 Naples last year nad it was an absolute hoot.

Would have loved to have done C2C, unfortunately my banger rally partner has cried off doing any more events.

[markh450]

Watch out for team Top Gun in the czech wrecks rally this year!! we will of course be sporting a full re spray in the theme of an F16 fighter.

half the exhaust fell off our 2.0 cavalier the other day which will save us at least 10 kg on the all up weight.

oh yeah since our reg ends in NOS we thought it would be rude not to adapt some kind of nitrous oxide system!!

any advice on the folowing...

we are going to use whipped cream nitrous oxide canisters connected to a solinoid and tube. We are feeding the tube into the air box to throttle body manifold / rubber pipe. Am I right in thinking this is the best place? presumably if we feed it direct to the plenum we will by pass the throttle body and get un controllable engine rev?

this is only for a celebration run in prague so it matters not if the engine expires on use!

we will be doing it for charity of course, macmillan cancer I think!

[LK_V6]

Whipped cream is not really going to do the engine very good is it!?