Day 1 Sunday 15th May

As per the schedule we all met at the hotel in Ashford for briefing where everybody received their packs and maps. We all left in convoy down to Dover.( No speeding tickets this year - so far so good.)

Simon and I (in the M3) were in a queue at Dover going through passport control following the Ferrari 550 Maranello (Rob and Fish Rabbit-Run 2004 champions) and I noticed only one head. Having got out of the car I wandered over to find Rob in the driver's seat but no Fish in the passenger seat, (it is actually Fish's car). “Where's Fish I asked, “school boy error” replied Rob “Fish has forgotten his passport !”.

So we all boarded the 11:15 ferry with Fish travelling by train to Heathrow to meet a mate of his (a good one) who had gone to Fish's house in Leeds, collected the passport, and was driving south to meet the usually cool as a cucumber but now unusually stressed Fish. Whilst all this was going on we were all chilling out having lunch in the club lounge and commenting that if that’s as bad as it gets then we should be ok (little did we know what was coming).

So we all disembarked and lined up in the lay-by whilst the Rabbit (Jon & Paul) made its first nervous getaway of the tour. We all sat tight for 30 minutes then I started letting the cars go one by one at two minute intervals (to ensure a safe and comfortable gap). I had let around six cars go and then a very angry well-armed policeman shouted “stop playing your game, NOW! ” at that point I decided it was a good idea to let everybody go as he looked like he wanted a piece of me (no not like that!) Just for the record we will NOT start next year's event like this. Early indication from Gary and Simon in ST220 was that the Audis were flying and looked to be in touch with the Rabbit pretty soon, that was until one of them took a wrong turn and the other followed, it is like the blind leading the blind. Then the phone went in to meltdown, with ironically the rabbit being the first to get stopped, “speed trap here”, speed trap there”, “I've been done”, “I've been done again”. This went on for the first 80 miles or so. I think they knew we were coming, but then a well publicised similar event the day before will have woken the police up and the bike GP at Le Mans won't have helped either.

Anyway we all made it to Tours, even Fish via Planes Trains and Automobiles, except for the Ford RS Focus(and at this stage due to legal reasons the less said the better, but I can tell you that there were no accidents). Chris and Dave we feel for you. We all had dinner in the restaurant and then it was off for a wander around Tours where we visited a square with loads of bars for a few drinks. Tours was surprisingly good.

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