John 'O' Groats To Lands End - Our Story & Potential Record?
Discussion
S. Gonzales Esq. said:
I'm looking forward to part two - particularly if there's a way to avoid plod interest and average cameras without doing anything seriously illegal.
If it were me, I would arrange for the front of my car to have light damage / marking consistent with hitting a pheasant at speed, and my numberplate would have a small crack around one of the screw holes as a result. Being a law abiding motorist, I would retrieve my slightly damaged numberplate and place it on display behind my windscreen. However, my passenger would carelessly and without thinking tuck a couple of documents between it and the glass, during the part of the journey where average speed cameras were the limiting factor in our speed.I also drove a car from Southampton to London with no numberplates whatsoever, in an unregistered fresh import 'going for an MoT' - so that's another possible avenue one could pursue.
Edited by samoht on Sunday 15th April 21:05
samoht said:
I also drove a car from Southampton to London with no numberplates whatsoever, in an unregistered fresh import 'going for an MoT' - so that's another possible avenue one could pursue.
I've done that Southhampton pick up several times and driven back to Newcastle for my MOT with no plates. It's certainly an interesting 'legal' suggestion !Edited by samoht on Sunday 15th April 21:05
Apologies Gentleman, I'm currently out of the country, but its given me a chance to write some more of the story. Very interesting regarding the broken plate or fresh import methods and not too far from what we did in the end after considering similar approaches.
Day Before
Having had a late night and big lie in to try and get our body clock ready, we made our way to our first scheduled stop, Lancaster North-Bound Services, it was the first time myself and the co-pilot had been together in the car since it had the second tank fitted. I should explain that the second tank was plumbed through two facet pumps and then through to the filler cap (I had seen this on Ed Bolian’s SL for his US run), it involved a temporary control box specially for the tank, which had a switch for each pump and a gauge. Having tested this a few months before, we realised that the stock fuel gauge was very slow at registering the additional fuel being added, the plan was to time how long the pumps were on for, 2 pumps on for 10 minutes would deliver 15l of fuel, so the co-pilot had chance to get comfortable with the set-up. At the services we had something to eat and brimmed the two tanks and then went on to the next junction to have one final scout of the refuel location, Just In case anything had changed.
We left the fuelling rendezvous and continued North, noting any false alarms on the equipment and keeping a timing sheet (My co-pilot, being the banker that he is, split the entire run into 8 sections and then kept the times of each of the 4 sections we were doing on our way north). I had chosen this specific date for our run, after a lot of research on the Traffic England and Traffic Scotland websites, not only can you access all traffic cameras, but you can also see when scheduled roadworks were going to done on your route. I don’t think there’s ever been a day where there hasn’t been at least some roadworks on the route, however we chose this specific day as it had the least and no diversion, as well as having historically fair weather throughout the country and not being in the school or bank holidays. The journey over the border and past Glasgow was uneventful, there was traffic and heavy rain, yet we were hopeful it would clear (both the traffic and weather), as we started our climb through the Cairngorm's and past Aviemore, we encountered contraflow, which was to be expected as they widen more sections of the A9 to dual carriageway.
Making our decent down the other side, we decided to stop in Inverness for dinner, it was around 7:30pm when we arrived, we sat down near the station and had something to eat, we both didn’t say anything exactly along these lines, but we both knew that it had taken us 7 hours to get from only Cheshire to Inverness and we still had over 100miles to go and on much smaller roads. Our confidence wasn’t exactly growing at this point. We stopped for just under an hour and discussed the 3 sections of 8 we had completed and tweaked what times would be needed to pass back through them to keep our averages up.
Having watched the sun set in Inverness we started our last section of the day, which would become our first in under 24 hours’ time. The tetra detector (emergency network detector) was getting a lot of false or faint readings as we passed Invergordon, I’m sure I remember seeing signs for a military base or maybe it was the oil refineries and thought they may be on the emergency frequency and causing the interference, taking it easy, with the radio on, we both chatted about non JOGLE related subjects as the road continued to unfold in front of us.
As you approach Tain, there’s a distinctive stretch of road, very straight and wide but ends at a roundabout, for JOG you take the 1st exit, which is a 90-degree left. I’d looked at this on the map many times and joked with my co pilot that we must not make the mistake of heading straight over on our return journey, which could have been easily done, resulting in the road ending on the tip of a peninsula out in the North Sea. Suddenly the Tetra detector went red and the V1 Radar Detector made the horrible chiming sound that could only mean one thing, laser. It was at that moment we spotted the reflective decals in the trees up ahead, in a slightly elevated position, we passed and I very briefly accelerated with the aim of getting to the roundabout and taking one of the exits into the darkness, but before we knew it the BMW X5 had us in its sights with its blue lights on, we pulled over to the side of the road and quickly shut down the systems. It was then I realised, on returning to the car after dinner, I’d missed activating the ‘Parking Sensors’. To give you a little background, when you start the Audi you have to turn on all the devices independently, there controlled by the same control unit used by some of the emergency services for their lights, sirens, CCTV and any other auxiliary equipment they may have with both a 999 mode and arrival mode (lights, no siren).
It was such a rookie mistake and it was one that was about to cost me. The stocky officer approached, the usual dignitaries followed, with a few more ‘pardons’ here and there, due to the strong accent that I struggled to understand and I joined him back in his X5, while his colleague took my details. I noticed they had the same control unit as the Audi and hoped he hadn’t seen it, they were both very nice to be fair, as nice as an officer can be having stopped you for speeding and as he passed me my pink ticket, he then asked how much MPG I had got out the S5 on my way up from England and asked what were our plans while we were in the Highlands, I stated around 18mpg and that we were going on to JOG and then doing the NC500, His replied was ‘You won’t be getting far before needing to fill up in that then will ye’ jokingly. If only he knew. He passed my licence and told me to take it easy.
If you haven’t been stopped for speeding before, its horrible feeling, and it stays with you for a while, the last thing you want to do is drive fast. Filled with adrenaline and dread, I got back into the car and we continued, the time was around 9pm, the atmosphere in the car was subdued and we both just wanted to get to the hotel in JOG. We arrived a little after 10:30pm, got our keys, crossed over the road and went to our room. To say morale was low was an understatement, it had taken us 9 hours (not including the stop in Inverness) and one fixed penalty notice to get here, the only saving grace was that we weren’t at our best and we both knew it, we had travelled thousands of miles across Europe together, with the car stickered up in bright battenberg decals and we always managed to stay under the radar (no pun intended) when it came to it and would never make the stupid mistake of not checking the systems when we restarted the car. We spent the next few hours going over our timings and section averages and called it a night around 2am. As we turned the lights off to try to get some sleep, I asked my co-pilot, ‘How confident are you?’ He replied, in his most convincing manner, ‘Yeah, I think we’ll do it’. I wasn’t convinced.
I've nearly finished writing the story and will get it up soon when I'm next near some WiFi.
Day Before
Having had a late night and big lie in to try and get our body clock ready, we made our way to our first scheduled stop, Lancaster North-Bound Services, it was the first time myself and the co-pilot had been together in the car since it had the second tank fitted. I should explain that the second tank was plumbed through two facet pumps and then through to the filler cap (I had seen this on Ed Bolian’s SL for his US run), it involved a temporary control box specially for the tank, which had a switch for each pump and a gauge. Having tested this a few months before, we realised that the stock fuel gauge was very slow at registering the additional fuel being added, the plan was to time how long the pumps were on for, 2 pumps on for 10 minutes would deliver 15l of fuel, so the co-pilot had chance to get comfortable with the set-up. At the services we had something to eat and brimmed the two tanks and then went on to the next junction to have one final scout of the refuel location, Just In case anything had changed.
We left the fuelling rendezvous and continued North, noting any false alarms on the equipment and keeping a timing sheet (My co-pilot, being the banker that he is, split the entire run into 8 sections and then kept the times of each of the 4 sections we were doing on our way north). I had chosen this specific date for our run, after a lot of research on the Traffic England and Traffic Scotland websites, not only can you access all traffic cameras, but you can also see when scheduled roadworks were going to done on your route. I don’t think there’s ever been a day where there hasn’t been at least some roadworks on the route, however we chose this specific day as it had the least and no diversion, as well as having historically fair weather throughout the country and not being in the school or bank holidays. The journey over the border and past Glasgow was uneventful, there was traffic and heavy rain, yet we were hopeful it would clear (both the traffic and weather), as we started our climb through the Cairngorm's and past Aviemore, we encountered contraflow, which was to be expected as they widen more sections of the A9 to dual carriageway.
Making our decent down the other side, we decided to stop in Inverness for dinner, it was around 7:30pm when we arrived, we sat down near the station and had something to eat, we both didn’t say anything exactly along these lines, but we both knew that it had taken us 7 hours to get from only Cheshire to Inverness and we still had over 100miles to go and on much smaller roads. Our confidence wasn’t exactly growing at this point. We stopped for just under an hour and discussed the 3 sections of 8 we had completed and tweaked what times would be needed to pass back through them to keep our averages up.
Having watched the sun set in Inverness we started our last section of the day, which would become our first in under 24 hours’ time. The tetra detector (emergency network detector) was getting a lot of false or faint readings as we passed Invergordon, I’m sure I remember seeing signs for a military base or maybe it was the oil refineries and thought they may be on the emergency frequency and causing the interference, taking it easy, with the radio on, we both chatted about non JOGLE related subjects as the road continued to unfold in front of us.
As you approach Tain, there’s a distinctive stretch of road, very straight and wide but ends at a roundabout, for JOG you take the 1st exit, which is a 90-degree left. I’d looked at this on the map many times and joked with my co pilot that we must not make the mistake of heading straight over on our return journey, which could have been easily done, resulting in the road ending on the tip of a peninsula out in the North Sea. Suddenly the Tetra detector went red and the V1 Radar Detector made the horrible chiming sound that could only mean one thing, laser. It was at that moment we spotted the reflective decals in the trees up ahead, in a slightly elevated position, we passed and I very briefly accelerated with the aim of getting to the roundabout and taking one of the exits into the darkness, but before we knew it the BMW X5 had us in its sights with its blue lights on, we pulled over to the side of the road and quickly shut down the systems. It was then I realised, on returning to the car after dinner, I’d missed activating the ‘Parking Sensors’. To give you a little background, when you start the Audi you have to turn on all the devices independently, there controlled by the same control unit used by some of the emergency services for their lights, sirens, CCTV and any other auxiliary equipment they may have with both a 999 mode and arrival mode (lights, no siren).
It was such a rookie mistake and it was one that was about to cost me. The stocky officer approached, the usual dignitaries followed, with a few more ‘pardons’ here and there, due to the strong accent that I struggled to understand and I joined him back in his X5, while his colleague took my details. I noticed they had the same control unit as the Audi and hoped he hadn’t seen it, they were both very nice to be fair, as nice as an officer can be having stopped you for speeding and as he passed me my pink ticket, he then asked how much MPG I had got out the S5 on my way up from England and asked what were our plans while we were in the Highlands, I stated around 18mpg and that we were going on to JOG and then doing the NC500, His replied was ‘You won’t be getting far before needing to fill up in that then will ye’ jokingly. If only he knew. He passed my licence and told me to take it easy.
If you haven’t been stopped for speeding before, its horrible feeling, and it stays with you for a while, the last thing you want to do is drive fast. Filled with adrenaline and dread, I got back into the car and we continued, the time was around 9pm, the atmosphere in the car was subdued and we both just wanted to get to the hotel in JOG. We arrived a little after 10:30pm, got our keys, crossed over the road and went to our room. To say morale was low was an understatement, it had taken us 9 hours (not including the stop in Inverness) and one fixed penalty notice to get here, the only saving grace was that we weren’t at our best and we both knew it, we had travelled thousands of miles across Europe together, with the car stickered up in bright battenberg decals and we always managed to stay under the radar (no pun intended) when it came to it and would never make the stupid mistake of not checking the systems when we restarted the car. We spent the next few hours going over our timings and section averages and called it a night around 2am. As we turned the lights off to try to get some sleep, I asked my co-pilot, ‘How confident are you?’ He replied, in his most convincing manner, ‘Yeah, I think we’ll do it’. I wasn’t convinced.
I've nearly finished writing the story and will get it up soon when I'm next near some WiFi.
If only for comparisons sake, I managed to get from Hamble in Southampton to Upper Crammond in Edinburgh in 5 hours 20 mins in a Corrado VR6 in the mid 90s. I didn't set out to break any records, I was just of the mindset that driving like a t
t was second nature back then! That's a distance of 440 miles. As averages go, it's my best effort in the UK, so as far as I'm concerned it lends some credence to the op.
It's nothing compared to the nonsense involved in driving through Italy after leaving Crete, almost 350 miles in 3 hours 40 mins including 3 fuel stops. And the memorable 53 miles in 21 minutes in Germany in the rush hour. I wasn't really going faster than anyone else on that occasion!
t was second nature back then! That's a distance of 440 miles. As averages go, it's my best effort in the UK, so as far as I'm concerned it lends some credence to the op.It's nothing compared to the nonsense involved in driving through Italy after leaving Crete, almost 350 miles in 3 hours 40 mins including 3 fuel stops. And the memorable 53 miles in 21 minutes in Germany in the rush hour. I wasn't really going faster than anyone else on that occasion!
2Btoo said:
Now that IS interesting and is a pretty good corroboration of the story for me. If you have any more detail you could post up PPBB then I'd love to read it. Thanks for your contribution.
It was a boggo 996 3.6 so no aero kit etc. 100 and a bit litre bag tank in the nose (which was a pain as C2 shell is different to GT3/Cup Car/C4/Turbo shell), two 20L saver cells in the back under a bulkhead across the top of the tunnel, fuel transfer from them was by pressure tank so 1Litre 232bar cylinder and a reg that pressured them up to a couple of bar (prewar Bugatti style) so they were one shot transfer, Bilstein PSS9 suspension, standard brakes with I think PF pads but essentially stock, Litronic head light units, loads of 12V cig lighter sockets in the dash. I think Hartech did the engine and I think we fitted an LSD to it too. It had a 2" premier dry break in a cone hanging off the front crash bar that went through the front of the boot floor to the cell closing plate for fill, same position as the HP out/Return on the cup cars:
as we used the same closing plates with a mod and the tank was pretty much a cup car cell but drawn to fit the C2 void. I think the original idea for that was that they could just drive into a (static!) fueling rig and I'm very sure we pointed out that was a silly idea at the time. No idea on the refueling whilst moving thing, certainly nothing to do with us that one! I think they did put air jacks on it in the end (but we didn't) as they wanted to use air from the tank transfer cylinder for them, so they'd have been one shot.
Based on the fact that we only ever built one with three tanks, onboard air and a dry break on the nose (and no one else would be that silly) I'm certain it's the one being discussed here. A good 50% of the things mentioned in the first post I have no idea about or don't "recall" being on there but one with three tanks definitely existed in 2011. It was Lapis blue by the way so if you find one for sale with holes in the boot or a repair to the front section of the boot and the tank bulkhead it's probably that one.
I should definitely do a most unusual jobs thread. From a 550i diamond carrier to this Porsche with engine swapping the first Mono over night and an F1 powered streamliner in between
poppopbangbang said:
Based on the fact that we only ever built one with three tanks, onboard air and a dry break on the nose (and no one else would be that silly) I'm certain it's the one being discussed here. A good 50% of the things mentioned in the first post I have no idea about or don't "recall" being on there but one with three tanks definitely existed in 2011.
Very interesting insight, so did you know 'missingk' personally? Family legend has it that my grandfather was given the task, by a magazine, of riding the Great North Road from London to Edinburgh at an average of 60mph. I've tried a few times over the years to find any sort of evidence of this, as it was in the days before bypasses, and would have been a hell of an endurance given it was on a motorbike.
We have (somewhere) a timing sheet from Brooklands where he'd posted an - iirc - 95mph lap so it's somewhat consistent with his known activities.
We have (somewhere) a timing sheet from Brooklands where he'd posted an - iirc - 95mph lap so it's somewhat consistent with his known activities.
poppopbangbang said:
I should definitely do a most unusual jobs thread. From a 550i diamond carrier to this Porsche with engine swapping the first Mono over night and an F1 powered streamliner in between
I'm very interested in the diamond carrier - please do start an unusual jobs thread.
jjwilde said:
Please new OP deliver!
Day OfWe awoke around 11:30am after a fairly poor night’s sleep, snoozed a little, then went for breakfast by the signpost at JOG, our starting point. Being out of season, there wasn’t many tourist and we took in the sights of the lighthouse and the Duncansby cliffs, then fuelled the car up at the Post Office, sent the obligatory postcards home and made the calls to the refuel team back to make sure they were all set. Afterwards we went back to the room and tried to get some sleep, which basically resulted in us sitting in the dark talking. My co-pilot joined the local A9 road watch group on Facebook and kept checking as it was quite a popular group and a useful tool for getting the feel of any real-time issues on our first two sections and comparing them with Waze. I managed to get about an hour’s extra sleep in the end. At around 6pm over dinner, at the JOG hotel, having spent the day discussing our journey up here and how long we had planned this, we felt our spirits lift, we had come all this way and we were ready, or as ready as we were ever going to be. We packed our stuff and checked out, the owner a little confused why were checking out at 7 pm, and we made our way to the sign post.
The car park was empty apart from the odd walker and we pulled down to the small cul de sac in front of the sign where the A99 ends and loops back on its self, we checked over the car again, set the cameras, ensured the tracker was working and allowed the car to get up to temperature, the sun was setting in the distance, reminding us just how far north we were. We wanted to leave exactly on 8pm, I thought the best way would be to listen to Radio 2, they do that countdown in bleeps just before the news, when the clock strikes the hour. The car was up to temp, all systems were a go and Jamie Cullum announced the news was up next. This was it, 6 years of planning all to be laid on the line. The satnav history was reset and the last beeped finished,‘Now’ I exclaimed, the co-pilot quickly starting his stop watch and the engine rumbled as we smoothly accelerated out of the visitors centre and on to the A99, the radio being quickly turned off.
Having only seen one police vehicle on our way up I didn’t expect that we would have much trouble in the first half of the first section, still we had to be extra vigilant, there was added pressure this time, being stopped any other day would result in more points, maybe even a ban, but being stopped tonight would mean we would have failed, there was too much on the line to make a mistake, then, 10 minutes in, we saw our first officer, sitting in a lane just off to the left, I down shifted with plenty of time and cruised by while the co-pilot looked back to see if he moved. He stayed put and we accelerated, the Tetra detector still on amber, we felt we had passed the threat, then over the next brow another police vehicle coming towards us. ‘Two cars in the first 18 minutes’ I said, I couldn’t believe it. Nevertheless, we made good progress as the day turned to night, the odd coaches and cars we came up behind were on nice straight stretches to overtake and we weren’t held up at all. There was a joint feeling we both wanted to get south of Inverness as soon as possible, not because that was the whole purpose of the trip, but because we had been stopped there the night before and realised that the roads are obviously more patrolled than we originally thought. As we approached Tain the false alarms started again, we took it a bit easier, giving us more time to ensure they were indeed false and as we passed the elevated lay-by we both couldn’t help but glance back, I guess to just to put our minds at ease. We were making good time, we weren’t ahead of schedule, it was too early for that, but we we’re on the pace, I felt comfortable and it was very civil, this wasn’t a wheel screeching, red hot breaks affair, this was smooth efficient drive. As we approached the Cromarty bridge we could see the temporary traffic light on the middle of it. We had been lucky on our way up to catch it green. We looked across the bay and realised it was in fact green, bad news for us, there was no way we would get to it before it changed and we approached just as it turned red and the traffic started come towards us. It was the longest 50 second traffic light of my life.
Coming into Inverness across the estuary was a welcome sight, It was 9:48pm, the road opened up into complete darkness as it stretched up over the foothills of the Cairngorms, we both felt that the A9 over the pass, having so many average speed cameras, was less likely to have vehicles patrolling and with us being in the mountains the likely hood of false alarms or interference with the equipment was minimal, which was confirmed on our journey up. Our next section was Inverness to Perth, we were 1:48 in to the trip, we kept our fingers crossed that the contraflow would be kind to us, But the first single file we came to had a Jaguar cruising along at 30 in a temporary 40, with nothing to do but wait we transferred fuel to the primary tank and cracked open an energy drink.The rain started near the top of the pass, it didn’t slow us too much and soon cleared and as we made our decent, we picked up the odd tetra alarm as the A9 passed the small towns and villages, but nothing that concerned us. A stretch of the road just before Perth follows the railway line for a little while and as we banked the corner the Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train from Inverness to London, was up head, the train must have been doing north of 80mph and we slowly overtook the locomotive, both agreeing it was a brilliant moment. We arrived at Perth at 11:10pm, 3:10 in.
The A9 quickly turned into the M9, this is where we could start to pull ahead and make up time. The M80/74 was very lit up and we felt a bit exposed as we carved past Glasgow, we had chosen 8pm as the departure time as it was the perfect balance between having the whole run at night and passing the populated areas (The main 4 being Glasgow, Liverpool/Manchester, Birmingham M6/M5 and the M5 past Bristol) at their quietest. The M80 was empty and Glasgow was quickly disappearing behind us. We were cruising around 130mph as we headed for the boarder, the S5 will happily sit there for hours, allowing for closing distances, as you may be the best driver in the world but you have no control over the car pulling into your lane because they didn’t expect you to be on them so quickly, so we had to allow for that. Now on the motorway the style of spotting had altered, overpasses were checked and every on-ramp closely inspected to ensure we were cruising past unnoticed.
As the signs for Lockerbie approached it was time to think about our pit-stop at Lancaster, from the border at Gretna Green it would be less than an hour to the refuelling spot, but just as we went to phone the refuel team, the satnav announced ‘M6 closed, finding alternative route'. I couldn’t believe it, the co-pilot quickly checked Traffic England’s Twitter and website, Twitter mentioned a closure but didn’t say if it was north, south or at which junction. We phoned the refuel team and quickly asked what was happening there side of the border, turns out that they had been on a long detour to get to Lancaster, as the northbound carriageway was closed due to a collision, they assured us that there was traffic heading south, so we proceeded and ignored the satnav for a couple of junctions until it finally agreed to take us on the route we wanted, we told them we were 45 mins out, they were in the locality of the rendezvous, both ready and trying not to arise suspicion. I thought it would be best to unload all the fuel from the secondary tank into the primary tank before we arrived, I had previously been allowing the car to run down to about quarter of a tank and then we would transfer 30l at a time. However, I now allowed it to run down till the yellow warning light came on and the range was 10 miles, the co-pilot turned on the pumps, not needing the timer as there was ample room in the primary tank for what was left in the secondary tank, but to our confusion, the yellow light stayed on and the range continued to drop all the way to zero miles, this was little concerning as we were less than 30 minutes from our rendezvous where 140l of fuel was waiting. The co-pilot, trying to reassure me of his calculations, was confident that there was around 25l in the tank, while I concerned myself with the thought that the pumps may have failed and what would be our next move if that was the case, a few minutes later we heard the stutter of the facet pumps confirming the pumps were working and the secondary tank was now empty. Thankfully we arrived at the refuel spot at 1:18am. Turns out if you allow the yellow fuel warning light to come on, the cars fuel gauge won’t recalibrate until the engine is switched off and back on again.
The refuelling went perfectly, we took on about 120l and checked the tyre pressures, cleaned the windscreen, lights, emptied our bladders and checked everything over in 9 minutes. The guys had been to the shop and had filled a bin bag with drinks and a few snacks, we were 4 sections down and ahead of schedule, at 5:18 in to the run with an overall average of 84mph. We always knew the bottom half of the run would be quicker, it was later at night and the roads were faster, but it was more populated and in theory more likely for that one officer doing the graveyard shift to be waiting for us to come through. We said our quick goodbyes as we jumped back in the car, turned everything back on and rapidly merged onto the M6. Lancaster to the M5 was our next section, a road a lot more familiar to me. Yet we still had 400 miles to do and less than 4:32 to do it in.
As the M6 darted between Liverpool and Manchester, the traffic increased, mostly HGV’s that kept the fast lane clear and before we knew it Birmingham was in our sights, the dark nights long gone for the orange haze of the city. We were really moving and eating up the miles, the M5/M6 junction was soon in front and then soon behind us at 2:40am, the elevated road way leading us out of the city and back into the cover of darkness. The time of arrival on the satnav had obviously dropped since we left at JOG from 10:30am to 7:30am, this didn’t concern us as the satnav works out times on a constant 50 odd mph average, meaning if we drove the speed limit from this point we would arrive at that time. Our overall average was now increasing to the mid-80s and since the refuel was well into the high-90s. Coming into another stretch of contraflow and an unnecessarily slow temporary 30mph limit, we picked up an amber reading on the tetra detector, a glance to my right confirmed a very sneakily parked car behind the gantry, no decals, but obviously an unmarked car, the ‘parking sensors’ had their first alert of the run and a confirmed jam on a LTI 20/20 device. Decelerating to the speed limit, I quickly switched them off to ensure he got a reading and to avoid suspicion. The co-pilot looked back to see if he was moving, although difficult to tell as we traversed the corner, we were happy that we had slipped by without an issue.
With signs for Bristol now starting to appear we were feeling confident, but realised we had to build as much credit on our average speed as we could, as it was bound to take a hit on our last section. Having come so far, to be stopped now would be devastating, we couldn’t rest on our laurels, ensuring we kept as focused as we had been since the start. The road straightened up through the rural areas and we held a good speed, around 135mph and made the most of it, it was the dead of night and the roads were very quiet even past the M4 and M49 junctions and as the start of our last section was insight, I felt we had done our best so far and had been extremely lucky with all the variables. The A30 approached and we made the junction at 4:15am, we had 120miles to go and 1:45 to do it in.
The satnav now said our arrival time was 6:18am. I knew we could shave 18 mins off that at least. The first part of the A30 went fairly well, not motorway cruising speeds but certainly triple figures where we could, just before the Hayle roundabout I noticed there was lights coming up behind us, I slowed down as we had no alarms on the system, yet this car was keeping pace, I allowed it to pass (The first time we had been passed on the run) just to makes sure, Turned out to be just a man casually having a smoke doing 110mph in a tired looking Toyota Avensis, we let him get far enough in front as he was keeping a pace that wasn’t much slower than what we’re doing before. By allowing him to be at that distance, he was the perfect bait for any law enforcement that may be lurking up ahead and his sharp breaking would give us plenty of time re-assess our position (an effective strategy we used on the rallies round Europe, using the Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s as the bait). It was around 5:15am and just as we were overtaking our bait car, we approached one of the few Gatso cams on the route, he slammed on his breaks for the camera and we sailed on by, the V1 Radar Detector and the lack of flash confirming the camera wasn’t even on.
With the Sat nav now saying our arrival time was now 5:58am, we could have coasted in and broke the 10-hour wall, but this wasn’t even mentioned or even celebrated, after 9 hours in the car we were still feeling fresh and much more focused than I would have thought at this point, the adrenaline was pumping as the co-pilot read out the times and mileage left to go. We had done all we could up to this point and knew we wouldn’t be able to make much time up once Penzance was in sight, the A30 started to pass through residential areas and it wasn’t right to speed through them but having built up the credit on the motorways, we could afford to slow down to the speed limit where it was needed. We got to Penzance at 5:25am, 9:25 had passed since JOG, 11 miles to go, the tension was building in the car as we could feel the end was near.
A sign read ‘Land’s End 9 miles’ as we passed the last roundabout, the home stretch was in sight, it had come to the point that if blue lights flashed behind us now, I would slow down to 20mph and drive all the way to Land’s End and deal with it then. Our speed now much lower as we passed through the small villages and even some speed bumps, I could see the chequered flag in the corner of my eye on the satnav as we twisted and turned around the tight corners, knowing the sea was near from the sandy grass verges. We came around the last corner and the long straight down to finish line lay in front of us. We crossed the walled gateway into the car park and noted the time, the collective sigh of relief and then long inhale sounded like we had been holding our breath for hours. We pulled up to the front of the main building, the moon glistening just off to left, illuminating the driveway. As we rolled round to the car park we spotted the trailer and truck that would take us home, it was then I realised we hadn’t touched base with the lone driver, who had spent the last two nights sightseeing round Land’s End, we pulled up outside the hotel reception overlooking the rocky outcrops of the sea and called him. He came down to meet us and immediately asked ‘Well what was your time?’ I replied in a state of shock and euphoria ‘Nine Hours and Thirty-Six Minutes'. As it all started to settle in, the strain on our mental and physically well-being started to take its toll, I didn’t feel tired but I was glazing over and just drained, we went back to the room for 30 or so minutes until it was light enough to get the photos of the car by the signpost. Just before 7am we loaded the car onto the trailer, removed the plates and covered it up. Jumping into the passenger seat of the truck the tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks. We had done what we had set out to do, all that planning and research that had been done over the last 6 years and even including the 3 points and a fine from the night before all seemed a small price to pay, for the immense sense of accomplishment I was now feeling, as I fell asleep back on that A30.
Depart John O’Groats: 20:00:06
Fuel Stop at Lancaster: 9 minutes
Arrival at Land’s End: 05:36:07
Total Mileage: 841
Total Elapsed Time 9:36
Overall Average 87.6mph
Moving Average 89.1mph
Max Speed GPS Verified 141mph
In the rush of the pit stop, we forgot to cancel the auto off feature on the satnav when the engine was stopped, resulting in 9min+/- error on the elapsed time on the satnav.
The Burden of Proof
As you may be aware, the above wasn't exactly legal, The statue of limitation for speeding is 6 months, excessive speed may be classed as Dangerous Driving and doesn't have a limitation. Its unlikely the video footage will ever be public released for that reason.
The GPS Data is another matter, that I'm currently discussing with a speeding solicitor acquaintance. Its safe to say, its a grey area.
With that in mind its very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt, without incriminating myself. Hope you will appreciate that.
Edited by CONVOIEXCEPTIONNEL on Saturday 28th April 00:27
Edited by CONVOIEXCEPTIONNEL on Saturday 28th April 23:20
CONVOIEXCEPTIONNEL said:
_The Burden of Proof
As you may be aware, the above wasn't exactly legal, The statue of limitation for speeding is 6 months, excessive speed may be classed as Dangerous Driving and doesn't have a limitation. Its unlikely the video footage will ever be public released for that reason.
The GPS Data is another matter, that I'm currently discussing with a speeding solicitor acquaintance. Its safe to say, its a grey area.
With that in mind its very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt, without incriminating myself. Hope you will appreciate that.
If it came to a Dangerous Driving charge, could the passenger or even the refuelling crew be liable under joint enterprise?As you may be aware, the above wasn't exactly legal, The statue of limitation for speeding is 6 months, excessive speed may be classed as Dangerous Driving and doesn't have a limitation. Its unlikely the video footage will ever be public released for that reason.
The GPS Data is another matter, that I'm currently discussing with a speeding solicitor acquaintance. Its safe to say, its a grey area.
With that in mind its very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt, without incriminating myself. Hope you will appreciate that.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff