John 'O' Groats To Lands End - Our Story & Potential Record?
Discussion
I wrote this some time ago but haven't shared it for various reasons. However on the basis that why does one do these things if not to share them with like minded people and for a reason that will become obvious at the end I've decided why not. To be clear this is not intended to glamorise or brag but rather an honest write up of an experience two committed petrol heads wanted to have while the opportunity was there to have it. For a bit of background I have been on PH for years, attended the first ever PH camping session at Avon park and enjoyed the company of many old school members over the years. In short I've wanted to do this for a long time, about as long as I have been interested in all things that go fast and my chosen career has done nothing to reduce these feelings or bolster any amount of common sense that may perturb one from indulging in something that could at best be considered a bit naughty and at worst lead to a sizeable spell 'inside'. Those things being said it should be pointed out that all possible precautions were taken to ensure that any risks were minimised - this wasn't a bid to get on police interceptors but a responsible group of adults making a mature decision to take on a personal challenge.
It all started back in the late 90's when I read several articles regarding "end to end" runs and "competitions" where individuals would attempt to travel from John 'O' Groats to Lands End in the fastest time possible. In one of these articles a chap reported completing the 840 mile journey in a little over 11 hours. I was convinced at this point that we could beat this and beat it by some margin.... however this time was recorded in the mid 80's, years before 150mph police cars, helicopters, SPECS and the vast array of kit available to preserve the thin blue line. Still we discussed at length what the possible repercussions would be, how we would deal with them if the likely situation of police intervention occurred and meticulously planned our journey to give us the best chance of achieving our goal.
Obviously the vehicle we used would have to have some unique features beyond absolute pace and quite honestly there is nothing "off the shelf" that'd do the trick. Some tricked out super car would simply be too noisy, too attention grabbing and too compromised reliability wise to allow us much of a chance. What we needed was a combination of pace, reliability and relative subtlety......we thought long and hard and dismissed a lot of options including tuned rice rockets and uber barges. The choice in the end was simple and came down to us building a certain type of Porsche specifically for the run. We went out of our way to buy the blandest and most blend'in'able thing possible wrapped in just the right "banker on a day out" colour - no mental road going RSR's here! We kept it "standard" looking, narrow body, no big wheels or wings and from the outside it was the epitome of midlife crisis pork. On the inside though it was a very different story.....
One of the big things with anything like this is fuel. To cover 880 miles at a worst case MPG you need a good 280L of fuel. 280L of fuel is quite a heavy thing and getting it packaged in a way that wouldn't result in a fiery death for us and a lot of other people if it went wrong just wasn't viable. Turning to the LM Pork for inspiration though it was clear we could easily carry 145L without too many issues as a combination of a larger 105L front tank and two 20L tanks in the rear seat squab area. The rear tanks feeding the fronts via a collector and transfer pump. Of course pumping 145L into a car on a petrol station forecourt in the middle of doing something you shouldn't be didn't appeal, the time take was too long and the opportunity for us to be prevented from completing our goal was too high. Another think was in order and ideas ranging from a dedicated "fuel dump" enroute to bribing a small local garage type place to close for an hour just when we needed it. None of these accounted for the very high chance of us needing to modify our route whilst in motion though..... what we actually came up with still terrifies me today, months after it worked without everyone involved going fully on fire. The concept was ingenious, take a nod from the world military and fuel the car whilst at speed..... what we should have done at this point is taken a step back, had a word with ourselves and moved rapidly away from the idea. What we actually did was purchased a very powerful estate car and fired up Catia. The end result was a pressurised (at 7.5bar!!) 140L fuel cell terminating in a motorsport style dry break mounted within a cone or as we called it "the willy". On the receiving car was a similar opposite and mating arrangement "the lady garden". Via clever use of the tanker cars height adjustable rear suspension, a bullet cam and two linear actuators to raise the number plates out the way on both vehicles we had our fueling situation sorted.
The second consideration was tyres, whilst a thousand miles on a set was easy what if we came unstuck with a puncture or tyre issue of another third party caused type. For this issue we turned to some old tech and some new tech. The old tech was to fit the car with air jacks and a 15bar onboard air system to allow us to get it off the deck quick smart if required, the new tech was a form of self sealing compound carried within the tyre that in response to a puncture would seal the tyre with minimal air loss. To top this lot off we ran a motorsport TPMS system to update us live on tyre pressures along with a spare front and spare rear mounted over the rear fuel tanks.
Engine wise Porsches M96 has never been considered a strong lump so we refreshed it to a semi-closed deck design with a few extras and tweaks, at 350 beans odd at a lean as we dared ratio we deemed it more than sufficient for the purpose. The gearbox was stripped a built with nothing more than a new 2nd gear synchro and temp sensor to keep an eye on it.
Other miscellaneous bits included a CB for chatting to truckers, radar detectors front and rear, laser detectors/jammers front and rear, some lovely ex Russian helicopter night vision goggles (with IR lamps in the re-aimed fog lights) a very bad ass sat nav, plenty of water and some wham bars.
To avoid too many clues I'll refer to my co-drive as "K", "K" had been in my life for a number of years and I had been lucky enough to wake up with her most mornings as a rare breed of 'car girl' most lacking in the mental she was definitely the keeper and had been up for this mad idea since I had first mentioned it many years before. To avoid putting too many miles on the car we towed it most of the way to Scotland, stopping in a secluded spot to unload it, bid one of our accomplishes a safe journey back and travel the remaining 120 miles or so to John 'O' Groats alone. The mood in the car was purposeful and as we arrived at our hotel (really a guest house) for the evening we had a quick chat to decide if we were going to go ahead or not. A final check on the weather for the next day and we went to sleep. The sound of the alarm at 4AM was as welcome as an alarm at 4AM ever is and we quietly snuck downstairs to avoid waking the other guests, the owner of the guesthouse was a complete legend and as discussed before hand had arisen early to witness our departure time (and agreed to take cash as payment to avoid any paper trail!). Amazingly for Scotland in September the weather was good, a clear early morning (although still dark) provided good visibility and dry roads. We fired the car up and whilst allowing the oil to gather some temperature loaded our route into the nav, turned on and tuned the radios and did a quick visual once over on the car. Happy with the situation we popped the endurance racers favourite (200mg of Modifinil) and set off leaving the guest house car park at just after 5AM.
The roads were excellent, bone dry and being relatively light on traffic compared to the rest of the UK free of the surface slime that makes quick progress so difficult. We soon achieved some tyre temperature and the ropey old Porsche started to do what Porsche does best.... make swift progress with relatively little effort. Our first waypoint was Domoch which we passed 7 minutes ahead of schedule, everything in the car was perfect with all systems in the green and "K" calling out the pace notes with her usual accuracy. Inverness loomed into view in what felt like only a couple of minutes after passing Domoch and comfortably ahead of schedule with daylight seeping through and a road conditions excellent we went "flat" with the lump spinning well over 6000RPM in top the A9 disappeared under us at an astounding rate. Passing our second waypoint of Newtonmore we spotted a reflective livered vehicle parked about a mile ahead, passing it flat around 22 seconds later we worked on the basis that if it was our favourite public servants we'd be over a mile away by the time they'd got out of the layby..... as it was we never saw them again and they certainly didn't make any motion to come after us, however tension was high at this point as no matter how much ground you can cover it's not as much or as quick as radio waves can! Perth flashed passed us totally uneventfully a little over 2hrs and 45 minutes after we set off, "K" did a quick fuel burn rate calculation reporting that we were 20 minutes up on schedule and 2L heavy on our estimated fuel reserve.
The small section of M80 disappeared in no time and as we joined the M74/A74 still up on fuel (only just) and up on time (by a happy amount). The car to this point had been totally faultless with stable temps and pressures, only the gearbox temp had been a cause for concern on the fast M80 run with temps creeping up to 130 degrees, we cursed not fitting a gearbox oil cooler and pressed on hoping the temps wouldn't get past that making some contingencies for what we'd do if they did i.e. how we'd abandon the car and get as far away as possible from it! Carlisle came into view and good 30 minutes sooner than we'd planned and "K" ran another fuel burn calc indicating we'd need to rendezvous with the tanker somewhere around Preston at the 450'ish mile mark. I flicked on the transfer pump and got the 40L from the inner tanks into the nose whilst "K" got a message out advising the tanker we were 30 up and on our way at speed.
We joined the M6 and covered the last 20 minutes to our rally point with the tanker uneventfully if not a little annoyingly - one of things we'd agreed before hand was that we dropped our closing rates for traffic, after a prolonged time at seriously high speeds dropping back down to sub 100mph to keep the closing rates sensible didn't half feel slow! We'd arranged a few possible rendezvous points and just post Preston was our ideal as there was a useful loop of A-Road that got us off the motorway but still provided the mile and a bit straight of good surfaced we'd need to unite "Willy" and "Lady Garden" in fuel flowing goodness. "K" was on the radio and we spotted the tanker accelerating from the layby just as we rounded a long sweeping right. We closed up on it quickly "K" and our fuel guy in the back constantly on the radio calling the distances. I will go on record and say I have no idea how the fighter pilot boys even slightly manage this, with only two dimensions it was hard enough but add a third to things and I'd be reaching for the black and yellow handle well in advance of trying to mate small plane with big plane! I made a mental note to send the chaps who'd lent us a runway to practice on a lot of beer and we lined up for our first go, which ended up with Porsche and Merc meeting in not at all beautiful harmony and a mild exchange of paint, "K" was immediately belts off and out the seat giving the "willy all still good" signal to the tanker and thankfully they returned the same with regards to our "lady garden". The second attempt went much more to plan with the radio loud and the distance being shouted down we made contact firmly and I immediately wound a bit of throttle on, pushing the Merc down the road to keep good contact. Seeing the fuel gauges rise whilst the speedo was sat at still quite a serious speed was an unusual and deeply satisfying event! Tanks brimmed we pulled out (showering the front of the car with a fair whack of fuel, those dry breaks weren't that dry then!) and powered past the now much lighter tanker to a radio shout of "just like loosing my virginity all over again, safe journey" from the tanker boys.
Rejoining the M6 we were back at speed but only for short periods. The traffic was getting heavier and we were finding it more and more difficult to keep our average up whilst being sensible. The passing lights came in for some use and I will admit at some points we just used the inside lane to get past the slower stuff.... in all cases still with a completely clear middle lane as buffer! None the less our time advantage we'd built up was suffering and by Birmingham we were barely on schedule - we'd purchased a toll tag ahead of time so with some careful planning and positioning we'd passed the toll booth still with wheel speed, this was what we felt was our riskiest point as if there had been plans to cease our progress this would have been a golden opportunity, as it was we slipped through like Sunday morning biddies on the way to a car boot! The M6 despite being our highest chance of an issue passed uneventfully and we joined the M5 at speed having clawed some time back. The M5 was quite with us only having to brake to reduce closing speeds a few times, monstering this usually boring bit of road gave us back vital minutes although "K" warned me twice that we had to back off to keep enough fuel in the tanks to make our target. We passed Gloucester 8 minutes up and Bristol nearly 10 minutes up. It was here we saw our second enforcement unit of the day closing them down at many thousands of RPM in 6th as the exited onto the slip road. We stayed flat with "K"spotting for them rejoining, we rounded a bend and having lost site of the slip road leading back onto the motorway figured we wouldn't see them again. A quick CB call returned no police spotted for the next 20 miles ahead and a quick chat with a very nice trucker who wished us all the best and gave us an impressive lights and horns show as we passed him ten miles futher up the road at speed.
Our final check point was Exeter and as the road signs ticked down we knew we'd make it. Fuel was extremely tight but we figured we'd get held up whichever route we took and save a bit there. Four miles from decision point "K" checked the traffic status, weather and fuel calcs again and made the call for A38. The road was clear with good surface conditions and we made progress at the best rate possible, having only minor hold ups around Plymouth that took a bit of rapid overtaking to resolve. We jointed the A30 and headed for Penzance again watching the road signs tick the distance down between overtakes and worried, shouted, conversations about fuel burn rate. The truckers here was diamond with Eddies finest making sure we had a couple of good overtaking gaps and line of sight where there wasn't one. We hit Penzance just a little over 15 minutes up on our target time, nothing could stop us now but fuel! "K" reckoned we had just enough left but it was going to be very tight, we were down to the contents of the swirl pot... a little over 4 litres. The last stretch of A30 was fantastic and heart wrenching at the same time, we knew we could make it but the fuel gauges pinned at empty mean "K" had both eyes on the fuel pressure shouting "still good", "still 50psi" what seemed like every few seconds. We radio'd through to our final destination to check our lift out was waiting and to request they find a random to sign our arrival slip.
The last mile seemed like it took forever but eventually we saw the Lands End Hotel come into view and dived into the car park pulling up next to our lift out where the hotels receptionist was waiting. "K" Handed her the paper "This chap says you've driven here from John "O" Groats ", she said as she quickly scribbled on the paper only then twigging the time at the top "Did you set out yesterday?". "K" and I both looked at each other and burst out laughing. Receptionist lass was at best bemused and asked the same question a few times whilst I helped "K" from the car. Jumping in the get away vehicle we bugged out at much more sensible speeds, our getaway driver having asked if we could leave the Porsche in their car park for a bit and having offered payment accordingly.
Epilogue: It turned out we'd missed out target time by just short of a minute, booking a time of 10hrs and 55 seconds..... however this is still the fastest car time we've been able to find via a huge amount of googling and similar and related to an average speed of 83.6MPH and an average consumption of 13.7MPG. The "Tanker" we converted back and sold via E-bay a few days later, as far as I know it's still going strong now and it's new owner still has no idea what it had been used for. The Porsche we went back under cover of darkness two days later and recovered it in the race shuttle, stopping in a very private spot to strip the wrap off it whilst it was still in the back just in case! I still own the Porsche today albeit without the extra tanks and naughty electronics and have no intention of ever selling it. We never received so much as a speeding ticket from this little escapade although in all honesty I have no idea how! "K" died of the illness she had been suffering from for several years a little over two months after we completed our JOG to LE run, unfortunately we never did get that last Christmas together.
It all started back in the late 90's when I read several articles regarding "end to end" runs and "competitions" where individuals would attempt to travel from John 'O' Groats to Lands End in the fastest time possible. In one of these articles a chap reported completing the 840 mile journey in a little over 11 hours. I was convinced at this point that we could beat this and beat it by some margin.... however this time was recorded in the mid 80's, years before 150mph police cars, helicopters, SPECS and the vast array of kit available to preserve the thin blue line. Still we discussed at length what the possible repercussions would be, how we would deal with them if the likely situation of police intervention occurred and meticulously planned our journey to give us the best chance of achieving our goal.
Obviously the vehicle we used would have to have some unique features beyond absolute pace and quite honestly there is nothing "off the shelf" that'd do the trick. Some tricked out super car would simply be too noisy, too attention grabbing and too compromised reliability wise to allow us much of a chance. What we needed was a combination of pace, reliability and relative subtlety......we thought long and hard and dismissed a lot of options including tuned rice rockets and uber barges. The choice in the end was simple and came down to us building a certain type of Porsche specifically for the run. We went out of our way to buy the blandest and most blend'in'able thing possible wrapped in just the right "banker on a day out" colour - no mental road going RSR's here! We kept it "standard" looking, narrow body, no big wheels or wings and from the outside it was the epitome of midlife crisis pork. On the inside though it was a very different story.....
One of the big things with anything like this is fuel. To cover 880 miles at a worst case MPG you need a good 280L of fuel. 280L of fuel is quite a heavy thing and getting it packaged in a way that wouldn't result in a fiery death for us and a lot of other people if it went wrong just wasn't viable. Turning to the LM Pork for inspiration though it was clear we could easily carry 145L without too many issues as a combination of a larger 105L front tank and two 20L tanks in the rear seat squab area. The rear tanks feeding the fronts via a collector and transfer pump. Of course pumping 145L into a car on a petrol station forecourt in the middle of doing something you shouldn't be didn't appeal, the time take was too long and the opportunity for us to be prevented from completing our goal was too high. Another think was in order and ideas ranging from a dedicated "fuel dump" enroute to bribing a small local garage type place to close for an hour just when we needed it. None of these accounted for the very high chance of us needing to modify our route whilst in motion though..... what we actually came up with still terrifies me today, months after it worked without everyone involved going fully on fire. The concept was ingenious, take a nod from the world military and fuel the car whilst at speed..... what we should have done at this point is taken a step back, had a word with ourselves and moved rapidly away from the idea. What we actually did was purchased a very powerful estate car and fired up Catia. The end result was a pressurised (at 7.5bar!!) 140L fuel cell terminating in a motorsport style dry break mounted within a cone or as we called it "the willy". On the receiving car was a similar opposite and mating arrangement "the lady garden". Via clever use of the tanker cars height adjustable rear suspension, a bullet cam and two linear actuators to raise the number plates out the way on both vehicles we had our fueling situation sorted.
The second consideration was tyres, whilst a thousand miles on a set was easy what if we came unstuck with a puncture or tyre issue of another third party caused type. For this issue we turned to some old tech and some new tech. The old tech was to fit the car with air jacks and a 15bar onboard air system to allow us to get it off the deck quick smart if required, the new tech was a form of self sealing compound carried within the tyre that in response to a puncture would seal the tyre with minimal air loss. To top this lot off we ran a motorsport TPMS system to update us live on tyre pressures along with a spare front and spare rear mounted over the rear fuel tanks.
Engine wise Porsches M96 has never been considered a strong lump so we refreshed it to a semi-closed deck design with a few extras and tweaks, at 350 beans odd at a lean as we dared ratio we deemed it more than sufficient for the purpose. The gearbox was stripped a built with nothing more than a new 2nd gear synchro and temp sensor to keep an eye on it.
Other miscellaneous bits included a CB for chatting to truckers, radar detectors front and rear, laser detectors/jammers front and rear, some lovely ex Russian helicopter night vision goggles (with IR lamps in the re-aimed fog lights) a very bad ass sat nav, plenty of water and some wham bars.
To avoid too many clues I'll refer to my co-drive as "K", "K" had been in my life for a number of years and I had been lucky enough to wake up with her most mornings as a rare breed of 'car girl' most lacking in the mental she was definitely the keeper and had been up for this mad idea since I had first mentioned it many years before. To avoid putting too many miles on the car we towed it most of the way to Scotland, stopping in a secluded spot to unload it, bid one of our accomplishes a safe journey back and travel the remaining 120 miles or so to John 'O' Groats alone. The mood in the car was purposeful and as we arrived at our hotel (really a guest house) for the evening we had a quick chat to decide if we were going to go ahead or not. A final check on the weather for the next day and we went to sleep. The sound of the alarm at 4AM was as welcome as an alarm at 4AM ever is and we quietly snuck downstairs to avoid waking the other guests, the owner of the guesthouse was a complete legend and as discussed before hand had arisen early to witness our departure time (and agreed to take cash as payment to avoid any paper trail!). Amazingly for Scotland in September the weather was good, a clear early morning (although still dark) provided good visibility and dry roads. We fired the car up and whilst allowing the oil to gather some temperature loaded our route into the nav, turned on and tuned the radios and did a quick visual once over on the car. Happy with the situation we popped the endurance racers favourite (200mg of Modifinil) and set off leaving the guest house car park at just after 5AM.
The roads were excellent, bone dry and being relatively light on traffic compared to the rest of the UK free of the surface slime that makes quick progress so difficult. We soon achieved some tyre temperature and the ropey old Porsche started to do what Porsche does best.... make swift progress with relatively little effort. Our first waypoint was Domoch which we passed 7 minutes ahead of schedule, everything in the car was perfect with all systems in the green and "K" calling out the pace notes with her usual accuracy. Inverness loomed into view in what felt like only a couple of minutes after passing Domoch and comfortably ahead of schedule with daylight seeping through and a road conditions excellent we went "flat" with the lump spinning well over 6000RPM in top the A9 disappeared under us at an astounding rate. Passing our second waypoint of Newtonmore we spotted a reflective livered vehicle parked about a mile ahead, passing it flat around 22 seconds later we worked on the basis that if it was our favourite public servants we'd be over a mile away by the time they'd got out of the layby..... as it was we never saw them again and they certainly didn't make any motion to come after us, however tension was high at this point as no matter how much ground you can cover it's not as much or as quick as radio waves can! Perth flashed passed us totally uneventfully a little over 2hrs and 45 minutes after we set off, "K" did a quick fuel burn rate calculation reporting that we were 20 minutes up on schedule and 2L heavy on our estimated fuel reserve.
The small section of M80 disappeared in no time and as we joined the M74/A74 still up on fuel (only just) and up on time (by a happy amount). The car to this point had been totally faultless with stable temps and pressures, only the gearbox temp had been a cause for concern on the fast M80 run with temps creeping up to 130 degrees, we cursed not fitting a gearbox oil cooler and pressed on hoping the temps wouldn't get past that making some contingencies for what we'd do if they did i.e. how we'd abandon the car and get as far away as possible from it! Carlisle came into view and good 30 minutes sooner than we'd planned and "K" ran another fuel burn calc indicating we'd need to rendezvous with the tanker somewhere around Preston at the 450'ish mile mark. I flicked on the transfer pump and got the 40L from the inner tanks into the nose whilst "K" got a message out advising the tanker we were 30 up and on our way at speed.
We joined the M6 and covered the last 20 minutes to our rally point with the tanker uneventfully if not a little annoyingly - one of things we'd agreed before hand was that we dropped our closing rates for traffic, after a prolonged time at seriously high speeds dropping back down to sub 100mph to keep the closing rates sensible didn't half feel slow! We'd arranged a few possible rendezvous points and just post Preston was our ideal as there was a useful loop of A-Road that got us off the motorway but still provided the mile and a bit straight of good surfaced we'd need to unite "Willy" and "Lady Garden" in fuel flowing goodness. "K" was on the radio and we spotted the tanker accelerating from the layby just as we rounded a long sweeping right. We closed up on it quickly "K" and our fuel guy in the back constantly on the radio calling the distances. I will go on record and say I have no idea how the fighter pilot boys even slightly manage this, with only two dimensions it was hard enough but add a third to things and I'd be reaching for the black and yellow handle well in advance of trying to mate small plane with big plane! I made a mental note to send the chaps who'd lent us a runway to practice on a lot of beer and we lined up for our first go, which ended up with Porsche and Merc meeting in not at all beautiful harmony and a mild exchange of paint, "K" was immediately belts off and out the seat giving the "willy all still good" signal to the tanker and thankfully they returned the same with regards to our "lady garden". The second attempt went much more to plan with the radio loud and the distance being shouted down we made contact firmly and I immediately wound a bit of throttle on, pushing the Merc down the road to keep good contact. Seeing the fuel gauges rise whilst the speedo was sat at still quite a serious speed was an unusual and deeply satisfying event! Tanks brimmed we pulled out (showering the front of the car with a fair whack of fuel, those dry breaks weren't that dry then!) and powered past the now much lighter tanker to a radio shout of "just like loosing my virginity all over again, safe journey" from the tanker boys.
Rejoining the M6 we were back at speed but only for short periods. The traffic was getting heavier and we were finding it more and more difficult to keep our average up whilst being sensible. The passing lights came in for some use and I will admit at some points we just used the inside lane to get past the slower stuff.... in all cases still with a completely clear middle lane as buffer! None the less our time advantage we'd built up was suffering and by Birmingham we were barely on schedule - we'd purchased a toll tag ahead of time so with some careful planning and positioning we'd passed the toll booth still with wheel speed, this was what we felt was our riskiest point as if there had been plans to cease our progress this would have been a golden opportunity, as it was we slipped through like Sunday morning biddies on the way to a car boot! The M6 despite being our highest chance of an issue passed uneventfully and we joined the M5 at speed having clawed some time back. The M5 was quite with us only having to brake to reduce closing speeds a few times, monstering this usually boring bit of road gave us back vital minutes although "K" warned me twice that we had to back off to keep enough fuel in the tanks to make our target. We passed Gloucester 8 minutes up and Bristol nearly 10 minutes up. It was here we saw our second enforcement unit of the day closing them down at many thousands of RPM in 6th as the exited onto the slip road. We stayed flat with "K"spotting for them rejoining, we rounded a bend and having lost site of the slip road leading back onto the motorway figured we wouldn't see them again. A quick CB call returned no police spotted for the next 20 miles ahead and a quick chat with a very nice trucker who wished us all the best and gave us an impressive lights and horns show as we passed him ten miles futher up the road at speed.
Our final check point was Exeter and as the road signs ticked down we knew we'd make it. Fuel was extremely tight but we figured we'd get held up whichever route we took and save a bit there. Four miles from decision point "K" checked the traffic status, weather and fuel calcs again and made the call for A38. The road was clear with good surface conditions and we made progress at the best rate possible, having only minor hold ups around Plymouth that took a bit of rapid overtaking to resolve. We jointed the A30 and headed for Penzance again watching the road signs tick the distance down between overtakes and worried, shouted, conversations about fuel burn rate. The truckers here was diamond with Eddies finest making sure we had a couple of good overtaking gaps and line of sight where there wasn't one. We hit Penzance just a little over 15 minutes up on our target time, nothing could stop us now but fuel! "K" reckoned we had just enough left but it was going to be very tight, we were down to the contents of the swirl pot... a little over 4 litres. The last stretch of A30 was fantastic and heart wrenching at the same time, we knew we could make it but the fuel gauges pinned at empty mean "K" had both eyes on the fuel pressure shouting "still good", "still 50psi" what seemed like every few seconds. We radio'd through to our final destination to check our lift out was waiting and to request they find a random to sign our arrival slip.
The last mile seemed like it took forever but eventually we saw the Lands End Hotel come into view and dived into the car park pulling up next to our lift out where the hotels receptionist was waiting. "K" Handed her the paper "This chap says you've driven here from John "O" Groats ", she said as she quickly scribbled on the paper only then twigging the time at the top "Did you set out yesterday?". "K" and I both looked at each other and burst out laughing. Receptionist lass was at best bemused and asked the same question a few times whilst I helped "K" from the car. Jumping in the get away vehicle we bugged out at much more sensible speeds, our getaway driver having asked if we could leave the Porsche in their car park for a bit and having offered payment accordingly.
Epilogue: It turned out we'd missed out target time by just short of a minute, booking a time of 10hrs and 55 seconds..... however this is still the fastest car time we've been able to find via a huge amount of googling and similar and related to an average speed of 83.6MPH and an average consumption of 13.7MPG. The "Tanker" we converted back and sold via E-bay a few days later, as far as I know it's still going strong now and it's new owner still has no idea what it had been used for. The Porsche we went back under cover of darkness two days later and recovered it in the race shuttle, stopping in a very private spot to strip the wrap off it whilst it was still in the back just in case! I still own the Porsche today albeit without the extra tanks and naughty electronics and have no intention of ever selling it. We never received so much as a speeding ticket from this little escapade although in all honesty I have no idea how! "K" died of the illness she had been suffering from for several years a little over two months after we completed our JOG to LE run, unfortunately we never did get that last Christmas together.
http://www.tubbylardo.co.uk/2011%282a%29.html
11hrs 14mins in 1984 on a gpz750 turbo. You could probably do it faster on todays machinery with a fuel cell and no plate fitted.
I know I couldn't ride that fast for that far.
11hrs 14mins in 1984 on a gpz750 turbo. You could probably do it faster on todays machinery with a fuel cell and no plate fitted.
I know I couldn't ride that fast for that far.
What an epic story, albeit with a horrible ending. Sorry to hear your loss but thank you also for sharing the story.
Obviously the cynics will always think it's a lie, but I'll take your word for it, just for the fact that I want this to be real!
That must have been exciting to say the least. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your story.
Put your flame suit on for the speed nazi's.
Obviously the cynics will always think it's a lie, but I'll take your word for it, just for the fact that I want this to be real!
That must have been exciting to say the least. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your story.
Put your flame suit on for the speed nazi's.
MJK 24 said:
Story would have more credibility without a tale of a moving fuel stop which quite frankly makes it a nonsense for me!
Indeed. Most things I will overlook, including the fact that it is totally unverifiable. It's all very neat. But the story of a rolling refuel is stretching things a little bit. It really would have been less trouble to stop at a few fuel stations on the way making smaller fill ups. Modern pumps (ie the ones on the major routes) vend petrols very quickly. I've occasionally had nearly 90 litres into my car on some fill ups, completed in a matter of minutes. Reading this again, I struggle to understand the need for the secrecy and altogether covert nature of this. Going to all the trouble of in flight refuelling yet nearly run out at the end.
What was the need to distance yourselves from the vehicle?
Why do it in the day, surely driving at night, arriving at LE in the morning would have involved less traffic holdups.
Sorry, I don't mean to take anything away from this.
I can identify with some of this though, not just for having done LE-JOG but my wife and I did Le Mans to Budapest in 12 hours which is a similar average as the OP but overnight on European motorways in 1997. That did include lots of fuel stops but much better roads hence the high average.
What was the need to distance yourselves from the vehicle?
Why do it in the day, surely driving at night, arriving at LE in the morning would have involved less traffic holdups.
Sorry, I don't mean to take anything away from this.
I can identify with some of this though, not just for having done LE-JOG but my wife and I did Le Mans to Budapest in 12 hours which is a similar average as the OP but overnight on European motorways in 1997. That did include lots of fuel stops but much better roads hence the high average.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff