An Eventful Round Britain Run for Team 30

Well what an eventful weekend, unlucky but lucky at the same time. Our Round Britain Run came to an abrupt end at John O'Groats yesterday morning following an incident that had happened a few hours previously in the early hours. A Stag ran out in front of us on the A9 in the Highlands (Just South of Aviemore) at about 4am. Mark swerved and avoided the beast but the car spun off the road doing a couple of 360s and came to a halt against a grass bank. Doug  & Katie Foreman and another crew stopped to help. I managed to get the car out of the boggy mud and back to the road and drove it along about ¼ mile to a layby, the car was very unstable at the back end and the rear nearside wheel was at a very funny angle. Jacked it up and found that a rear tie bar was badly bent downwards. Managed to straighten it out a bit with the trolley Jack. Tried the car and it didn’t feel too bad so drove on to the next control point at Skiach Services, refueled and then carried on to John O'Groats. On the way the car started making a knocking sound on left hand bends so  after Breakfast in the John O’Groats Seaview Hotel we jacked the car up investigated more in the daylight. We noticed that the tie rod was still a bit bent but couldn’t see much else wrong (except the handbrake cable had come un attached). I tried to straighten the tie rod properly but it snapped. That meant it was game over for us so we had to be recovered by the AA. It took over 24 hours and 4 relay trucks to get us home but that did include a night in a hotel near Warrington paid for by the AA. The car also has some dents, a dented and split rear valance, a dented front quarter valence and a dent in the return flange of the front wheelarch. We realise we were lucky though, the Stag was darn big and would have written the car off if we'd hit it. Also we saw that stretch of the A9 in the daylight from the breakdown truck on the way back and there are loads of nasty drops and sheer rock faces along the rod side so we were lucky it happened exactly where it did.

I think Mark should have drunk more Lucozade looking at the following advert (which features a GT6 and a Stag or two!)

The GT6 at the Start, the Plough, Enfield

More Cars at the Start

Bodders Changes a Wheel Bearing at the Start

Edinburgh Airport Control

Not Entirely Certain but I think this is where we spun off

We made it to John O'Groats

The offending broken tie rod

The end of our Round Britain Run

Doug and Katie overtake the recovery truck just south of Stirling