Busy couple of days...

As you may be aware, I've been trying to grab whatever leftovers are left in the parts bin at various companies since we started this.  Some of my charitable grovelling has worked to gain bits for the car, some hasn't.  A while back I managed to scrounge an exhaust system but took so long finding a fitter on the cheap that the exhaust is no longer available. 

However, this week, Triangle Cars of Havant, have stepped up to the mark and are doing the fitting for us.  At this stage, I know it's going to be discounted to minimal, but depends on the amout of work needed.   You may be thinking one off, one on and thats what I was thinking too.  That is until I stumbled across the array of backboxes that 1 company are considering helping us out with. 

A centre exit looks classy, but involves quite a bit of faffing around for example.  I'm just waiting on their final decision as to what we can liberate from them as to what the fitters need to do.  I did find an appealing 3" rolled box but that means cutting out the rear valence and applying a heat shield to stop the bumper from melting.  So if the 3" needs some cutting out, we may as well go to 4" hadn't we?  I mean, it's only a little bit bigger of a cut out and maybe even an extra 1/2 horsepower on the one I have been eyeing up.  Also saw a tempting one with adjustable / removable silencer.  It's road legal right up until the 2 screws *ahem* fall out, then it gets LOUD.

Think we have a new sponsor waiting in the wings, I just need to persuade them to open the wallet and extract the folding money.

Thats the highlights of the last couple of days.  The lowlights extend very much around the wifes car, which although isn't part of the Scumrun event, I know a lot of you relish in my dealings with those that really shouldn't be allowed out without supervision!

As briefly mentioned in the last update, the wife (love you dear) managed to hit a highly visible skip in the other escort cabriolet we have.  Unfortunately the damage can't just be t-cut'd out so I've popped to Halfords and grabbed some P38 body filler.  I also need some paint so I've asked the guy for some "Spring Violet Ford aerosols".  He cant look it up on his machine under then name Spring Violet, I need a paint code.

I've picked Crash Bandicoot up from work and driven her home.  Given her simple instructions:  look at the plate under the bonnet, theres a section called COLOUR with a code.  Grab the code and we can get the paint.

I arrived back at Halfords with the wife and given the chap the code.  613.  Thats the code we've given him.  The code exists but it's a green.  Bugger.  Wifey wrote it down wrong.  Driven back home, I've looked under the bonnet and the 6 is actually a G.  That makes the code G13 right?  Back to Halfords we go.  I've told the guy the new code and he's put it into his machine and come up with "no such code mate".  If we go for G1, then we get a blue, but not Spring Violet by a long stretch.  At this point I gave up for the day.  I have the name of the colour, I have the plate attached to the car, what I dont have is touch up paint for Little Miss Crashalot's wounded Julian.

I woke up today, drove the wife to work, came home and decided I was going to crack this mystery easily and simply.  I looked on Fords website.  No mention of colour codes but it has got an owners bit on there where you type your reg in and it tells you  what car you have and a few other details.  I decided to play for a bit and I'm a little concerned that when you enter the Scumrunners reg, it returns with "No result found".

Undeterred, I telephoned Ford Main, explained 14 year old car made by them and I need a paint code.  Not a service they are happy to provide and they advised I contact my local dealer.  I telephoned Hendy Ford Cosham who after a few minutes of explaining what I was up to said they would be happy to give me the paint code.  A couple of minutes of hold noise and the guy came back on the phone all chuffed with himself that he had found it:  "Spring Violet.  Thats the colour of your car".  At the very start of our phone call, I told HIM that.  Another couple of minutes go by and he tells me he hasn't a clue what the code is, but how about I speak to their accident repair guys in Sedgensworth.  They'll know.

So I phoned them and spent a little time explaining the info I knew to a very professional lady who paid attention and relayed it to the spray paint gun goon who I can only assume has been near too many fumes this week.  Spray paint gun goon has put me on hold for an eternity whilst he goes off to find his Bumper Book of Bogus Excuses.  After he returns, he patiently explains to me that he cannot sell me the paint I need as they are a repair center and not a retailler.  However, for a figure plucked completely from the depths of his own imagination, they can do the repair for me.  It's a bit of a dent and a scratch, I'll do it myself thank you.  All I need to do it myself is the code to get some paint made up.  "Sorry," you can hear that book working again, "I'm not allowed to give out paint codes, it's against our rules".  So basically he didnt have a clue either. 

I'm starting to get just a little bit tetchy by now as I have googled and visited every website around the globe (truly I have been on Aussie sites to find Euro paint codes) trying to find Spring bloody Violet.  Picked the wife up from work and recounted the days fun and games and she reminded me of a little car place we used once and the old guy that ran it was talking about special order ford cabby paints.  Brilliant.  So we went to see him but looks like he has gone out of business.  Crap.

I put a cry for help on the Escort cab forums and considered the best way to ram raid B&Q and steal their colour match machine, whilst the wife resorted to the desperate tactic of emailing a stranger on eBay who sold her a brake light begging him to find the colour code.

Wifey also changed her Facebook status requesting help from anyone and everyone.

Eventually, one of the Escort Forum guys, Chris, came up with the code.  I was chuffed to bits as in theory, all we have to do is give this code to Halfords and they can make it for us :).

Within seconds of getting a reply, Matt Ball, one of the wife's uncles also came up with the answer.  Well done Chris & Matt, you both came up with the same code so pretty sure that has to be the one.  Thanks guys.

And now it's time for bed.  To dream of exhausts and non existent colours.  I swear it is easier to find a freshly circumcised unicorn than it is to find a ford colour.

Night all.

Savage.

Oh, and please vote on the votey thing in the top right and click on the links provided if they take your fancy.  They're provided by google so I have no control over what appears.  I think they are linked to your browsing history and cookies and other tech things.

Time keeps marching on.

Lets get straight to the highlights and I'll work back to them in my usual tangled way.  Found some recaros on the cheap, we've had a referral from someone looking at dogging sites, I've broken the roof, lost some recaros, wifey crashed her Escort cabbie, Scumrun been on Radio 1 and my reading stats have soared :)

Right, well thats a snapshot of the last week so let's enter my world gently and gracefully.

I have been looking for a cheap set of sport seats for the car since day 1.  I don't want to spend over the odds on new ones as they've only got to caress my own and Gruffs cheeks for 4 days or so.  Every day I have a quick look on eBay and hunt for a MK5,6 or 7 set of Escort seats to come up as I dont want to have to muck about with runners and subframe modifications if I dont have to.  One small (!) issue is that we can't go down the "proper" bucket seat route as I don't think my co-driver will be able to fit comfortably.  Thats not a dig mate, but you are a little larger than the average brown bear.

Anyway, I finally found some local ones in Gosport - 15 mins down the road, should be 25 but I've been practicing my racing lines ;)  Also whilst I'm in entertaining myself mode, I zeroed the clock when I filled up last and in 3/4 of a tank I have achieved only 78 miles.  Thats quite bad but reflects on A) it shifts and B) how much Gruff moans when I hoof it.  It has been idling stationary for a fair few hours which contributes to consumption, but I get the feeling our fuel budget may need to be increased.  That to one side, I found some seats on eBay starting at £50 from an RS2000 so I stuck in a bid of £50.  The price stayed static until 4 hours to the end then went up.  I increased to 55, it went to 57.  I'm quite competitive at times so set myself a budget of £75 and not a penny more.  With 2 hours to go the price went to £77. 

Well, I'm not going to lose out on a mint pair of seats for a couple of quid so I upped my bid to £85 (remember my budget of £75???).  All going well until 30 mins or so to the end.  I told the wifey that I had bid on a pair of seats and that my max budget was £75 and she was HORRIFIED.  Best not to mention I was up to 85 by that point.  Outbid again, I put £95 in the box and hit the confirm bid.  Ooooooh, they're gonna be mine.  They're gonna be mine.....  10 minutes to go, I was outbid yet again, and again, and again.  Eventually the seats went for £112 which is about right and still a bargain but as I hadn't actually told Gruff he was going to be paying half if I won.  So seats found, seats lost. 

If you know of anyone with a decent set of seats for a MK5, 6 or 7 Escort that wont need them for the weekend of the royal wedding, let us know and we'll borrow them and return them (probably covered in potnoodle stains and definately smelling smokey).

For those of you that read the last section of Blog (not Gruff's one, the one with piccy's), you may have spotted in there the words "Portsdown Hill" and "Dogging".  Well, one of the many features on blogger (this site) is that it tells the person who wrote the blog all sorts of useful things, such as how many readers in a day, who's referred them, browser type and most interestingly, what words were typed into a search engine to discover the blog before clicking the link taking them to my page.  I love the feature as I can see what sort of "keywords" are used that refer people to this blog.  Usually things like floppy and scumrun are quite high up.  I was amused to the point of tears and snot when I glanced at the following used in google images "Dogging, Portsmouth, Portsdown Hill".  All in one search.  This chap (I assume it was a male) has been hunting for images to pet his one-eyed trouser gopher over, and then visited my blog.  I feel a little bit dirty. (. )( .)  If you are that guy, the comments box is anonymous, please let us know if you went on to another site or if you did the deed looking at my car?!?!?!?!?

I think I've now found the main leak which is causing the interior to be all squelchy and smell of wet dog.  The roof has been a bit of a git to shut recently and as I'm lazy, I still use the electric option.  As it was raising the other day, it stayed level with the rear quarter glass on the drivers side but was still an inch or so away from the passenger side which would imply it is twisted and not forming a water tight seal.  I did what all man hunter gatherer types do and gave it a gentile whack.  The desired result of making it sit flush has been achieved so hopefully it'll stay dry.  In the process of using a little force, there may have been a bit of a cracking noise.  Sounded like a little rod or similarly important bit of kit snapping.  I havent taken the roof down since but hope it all still works.  Lets see if Gruff does read the blog as I havent told him yet :)

A couple of weeks ago you may be aware that BBC Radio 1 mentioned Scumrun apparantly.  I wasn't listening but one of my customers told me about it.  Since then the stats on this blog have been growing and growing.  With that many new readers I feel the need to once again mention start at the August tab in the 2010 section to the right and work your way forwards.  Enjoy the build up as the car is getting to completion.  I have found an interesting new chunk of car that I'm hoping to get fitted a month before we go.  It'll make us a little more competitive on any track event and will amuse the thunderbird police as we go through the Euro Rally.

In terms of the comment box provided, feel free to add comments in there.  You can do it completely annonymously, or add your name if you wish.  Alternatively, if you wish to contact either Savage or Gruff, please email us at floppythrottle@live.co.uk

And finally:  Wifelet stacked her car.  I received a phone call from Mrs Savages work place yesterday afternoon which is always a worrying thing.  The second worrying thing is that it was the wifes immediate boss on the other end and the first words were "I've got her with me, she's ok".  Turns out Mrs Savage had asked her boss to phone me as she was convinced I was going to go nuts about the car. 

The description I got of the car is, a little scratch, with a small dent, maybe a big scratch, to big dent, paintwork down to the metal, rear light cluster smashed with dirty great scrape from cluster to where the wing mirror "used to be".  So we went from small scratch to full length of car, no mirror or back light.  What caused this you may ask?  A major pile up?  someone swung wildly round a corner?  She swerved to avoid a kitten in the road?  No.  She backed out of her parking space at work into a skip.  A skip thats been there for a month.  A skip thats parked a good few feet to her right.  All she had to do was drive in a straight line backwards.  And once contact made, stop.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Glad she's safe but now I've got to craft some magic with filler and a paint colour that only Henry Ford himself can source!!

The Blog Hero has to go to the Gopher man for making me chuckle:

Savage

Completely forgot - please check out the blog showing top right of the MX5.  The guy is called Joe, lives in Guildford and is also entering a convertible into the Scumrun.  We're probably gonna buddy up with him (If we can keep up anyway).

From Gruff:

Hi everyone Gruff again, well as I am sat on the channel tunnel heading for deepest darkest Belgium I thought I would bore you all by having to read more of my ramblings so here goes....

Well not long now till the date of the epic adventure and I am really looking forward to the off, we took the car up for a photo shoot last week and I was very impressed by Savage aka David Bailey and it was great he got my best bits ie my bum trying to get into the dam car lol,
 
I drove the car back to Savages house in the wind with the roof down and it felt great even though the wind messed up my hair lol, oh and I stalled it twice, and yes I drive a truck for a living and stalled the flipping car !!!.
 
I know my ramblings are not quite up to Savages standards but he hasn't hassled me into writing this one so if there are any spelling mistakes then I do apologise..
 
I know that during this time of economic problems money is quite tight but just spare a few quid for the children who won't live to see us come out of these struggling financial times, we have a future these kids don't...
 
Anyway people I've taken up quite enough of your time so I bid you all a fond farewell and I look forward to seeing all your donations for this very very worthwhile cause,
 

Gruff...

We've been on a jolly :)

I received a text from a very excitable Gruff the other afternoon complete with picture message of a bit of paper.  Turns out that he has been bored enough to read the small print on his insurance policy and it appears that he is insured on the Scumrunner.  He was so delighted to find this out he sent me a photo of his policy.

That was my last excuse blown out of the water as to why he couldnt drive it at the mo.  Truth be told, despite being a "professional driver" I have a sneaky feeling that the big fella is going to do something daft and stack it before we even get to Dover.

That said, I agreed that he could have a go and he is very impressed.  Well, he was after we dried the seats out (yet again) and thumped down the A3 to a place called Portsdown Hill.  Many of you will recognise the name of the hill and be smirking, many of you wont. 

For the benefit of those unaware of Portsdown Hill, it is an area of outstanding beauty where you can park your car, look accross Portsmouth city and to the sea.  The views are amazing.  However.  Should you park in that car park of an evening you will get all manner of people next to you breaking their suspension and tapping on your windows panting heavily.  Yes, Portsdown Hill is apparantly a massive Dogging site.  If you are unsure what a dogging site is, then google it and take the parental control off your search provider.

The result of us getting to Portsdown is the following:

 Above is the creature known as Gruff.  Gareth "Gruff" "Not Stig" Davies in all his glory.

 Above is me:  Chris "can't I just stand here and look good all day" Savage

 Above - Gareth discovering that his 18Stone frame needs the seat back a little further than I had it.

 Success - he fits.

Have you ever seen a man grin like that with the word "floppy" so visible.  This picture should be an add for impotence treatments.

So that was a result - beautiful sunny day deserved to go with the top off.  I did try to pop back later for some "arty moon shots" (pervy ones), but the wife said no.

Unfortunately I'm pretty sure we must have driven over some nipple clamps or similar on the way out as Gruff drove us back and started moaning the steering was a bit heavy.  Seemed fine to me on the way down, but I took it to the local BP and attached it to their tyre pressure thing and it was reading at only 17PSI which is flat.  Or nearly flat anyway.

The sound system really does kick ass although it does take a very large % of the available boot space and where the sub and amp are, is the access point to the spare wheel.  At the moment, the spare wheel is just laying loose taking up the rest of the boot space.  I am hoping to get round to the chest build shortly.

Nothing really notable has occured apart from a moan I had with an eBay seller about feedback I left them.  I left neutral feedback about the speaker pods as their 48 hr delivery took 15 days, but the product was perfect.  They had the cheek to mail me and asked I change the feedback left as they had 100% positive.  I may have been tempted but they offered me a £2.50 bribe.  Either dont offer a bribe at all or make it worth having.  So I changed my feedback from Neutral, to Negative, on the form eBay sent me.  (and kept the £2.50 thank you very much).

I know we have at least one other team following this blog and that is Midlife Krysis.  They left a comment in the box under my last post but if you're too lazy to scroll and click, then here it is:

Guy's, you're doing great.... really.
We haven't even set up the Justgiving site yet, and the car is still sat in my wingman's yard not even mot'd or taxed.
Your enthusiasm is infectious, and I am going to book an mot tomorrow! How many weeks to go?
All the best, Ian - Mid Life Krysis.

Appreciate it guys.  Glad we're giving you the needed kick up the ass. 

I'm pretty sure that team bugsplat have read this as well, so hello guys and here's a link to their blog:
http://teambugsplat.blogspot.com/

If you have a glance at our just giving page you will see that we're not all take take take, both myself and Gareth have thrown an extra £20 each into the kitty.  Thats on top of buying the car, entry fees, fuel costs, ferry prices, car upkeep, MOT, Tax, insurance etc.... 

So please, pretty please, pretty please with doggers nipple clamps on top, donate £2 NOW!
www.justgiving.com/floppythrottle

Only a few more weeks left to go.

There's really not much time left to go now in my opinion.  So much has been done and finally everything seems to be swimming along nicely. 

We've got a car, it's legal, running ok finally, starts and stops as it should, we have some car sponsors (not enough), we have sponsorship (could do with a little more) and we have a Dolly Parton CD so all is good.

As it's a new calendar year I thought it would be nice to reflect on some of the work that has gone into it and say thank you to a few people for help that may or not be recognised.  Without wanting to sound like an OSCAR speech, in no particular order:

Gareth Davies:  Co-Driver and calmer downerer.  Every time I decide that we "need" something, he persuades me we dont.  Despite being a killjoy at times (the full leather white re-trim would have looked very nice), he is an essential part of this.

Maria Savage:  Wife and FloppyThrottle widow.  She has been great and undertanding through all the moody moments when I have had to deal with halfwits.  She hasn't allowed me to use her car for spare parts though :)

Maxine Cheshire:  A permanent anti-Gareth.  Cheerfull and will help wherever possible and has donated some lovely purple fleece for the rear bench chest when I finish it.

Mick Cheshire:  Has been raising offline funds through Tesco Petersfield and done a great job of it.

Louise & Michael George:  They put in the first donations into the just giving account to start the ball rolling, so thats appreciated very much.

Paul McLoughlin from PM Electrical Sytems:  Huge donation and boost to the funds with his generous £100.   This has secured him bonnet width advertising  and just shows what a nice guy he is.

Various eBay sellers (see just giving site) for offering free / discounted products.

Mark at Creative-vinyl:  Got us started with the graphics in a custom colour set, cheaper than a standard version, worked silly hours to get it done for us.

Escort Cabriolet Club:  Every question I asked them, no matter how trivial was answered swiftly by someone that knew what they were talking about.  If you have an Escort Cabbie, join them.

Adrian & Julie Seymour:  They sold us the car and to be honest, I think we would have struggled to find anything as much fun as this for the budget we were given.  Adrian also works for:

Havant Signs and Plastics:  They've already created the white text graphics free of charge (thanks again Adrian) and are handling the rest of the vinyl work for us as well.  Good job guys.

My next door neighbours: for not objecting to me blocking their rear garden access with my car whilst the Scumrunner sits on my drive.

Everyone that has donated:  For donating.

Please please please make a donation of just £2 if you haven't already done so.  This will make a difference and be appreciated.

 

Please please please use the facebook button located to the right somewhere if you like the blog.

 

Please please please use the comments option provided at the bottom of the posts.  I like to know what feedback you want to give me.  It's anonymous, but gives me an idea of whether you want more humour, more factual info or if you just want to be irritating.  The comments will get posted to the right (see Team Mid Life Krysis).

 

Please visit our sponsors on the links available.

 

And a final Please:  please come back and read again another day.

 

Huge massive enormous thanks to everyone that reads this and please, let others know about it.  Every reader is a potential donor.  Every donation helps towards making a British child smile one more time.

 

THANKS.

 

Savage & Gruff

 

 

A few more words from Gruff...

After I may have taken some bladder fluids from Mr Davies about his previous attempt, he has insisted he write another chunk of blog, so here it is:

Children are the future, well in a perfect world that would be right but not for the children we are doing this charity rally for...

Hi I'm gareth aka gruff. Savage told me about scum run a few years ago and it sounded like so much fun this year we decided to sign up and have a little adventure.

I'm more the silent partner at the moment as savage has done pretty much all the hard graft whilst I've been working out the country. I could think of nothing better to do for 4 days then spend it with my mate rasing money for a childrens charity and make sick childrens dreams come true as they won't make adulthood.....

I am just so looking forward to the adventure especially as we don't have a clue where we are going, dover to Calais is about it all we have been told, just hope it's somewhere not to cold as I really don't want to have to share a sleeping bag with Savage for a few nights lol.

Anyway avid readers nip to the website (www.justgiving.com/floppythrottle)  and sponsor us, doesn't matter how much or as little and every penny we raise goes to the charity as all the other financial outlays have been paid by Savage and myself....
 

Thanks for reading this.

 
Gruff...

Update time

Yet again, it has been a while without an update. This is due to a number of factors so lets get the excuses out the way.

1 - It's been snowing, I don't have a garage to work in, and I'm damned if I intend to freeze to death on this project.
2 - December involves Christmas and the birthday of one of my boys, so a lot of time has been spent on those two events.
3 - Most importantly - Lack of donations meant I wasn't going to interupt the rest of my chrimbo to update you.

That to one side, I asked Gruff to update this time round and you willl see below that he has thrown himself at the challenge and pushed his blogging skills to the max. I figured I should knock out a swift update as well.

Since the end of November, we have got the initial vinyl begging run sourced from HSP and it looks very good. The logos of sponsors are going on within the next few weeks so if you havent already decided to sponsor us, now is a VERY good time. a small donation of £20 wil get a company name or web address somewhere on the car, but the bigger the donation, the larger, more prominent placed the ad will be. £100 or more secures full width of bonnet (1 of the 2 available spaces for this already gone).

The car currently looks ok, but wouldnt it look better with your logos on there? If you have a funding issue, then I'm pretty sure if you wish to donate products or services for the car then we can place you on there, or if you want to donate a product or service to be auctioned off for charity then pretty sure we can fit you in also. Every possible penny helps this worthy cause.

OK, so thats a couple of up to date feel goood pictures of the car.  As it's been Chrimbo and good tidings to all men etc, you may think that everything has been tickety boo?  No?  then you'd be right. 

The nasty snowy weather has played havoc with the interior of the car.  There a real issue with water getting into the car and despite having 2 seperate dehumidifiers doing their magic at all time in there, moisture is slowly killing the car.  A couple of days ago I got into the car to find little pods of mould everywhere.  Never a good sign.  I have now anti-bacterialled the whole car and it seems to have settled down a little.

Having cleared the fungal friends out of the inside, I figured it was time to have a run in the car to get some air running through it.  Key in ignition, turned, completely dead. 

Unfortunately, the car is stored on a slightly slanted driveway with a snug set of gate posts at the end which completely destroy any hopes of pushing it out and then jump starting it.  Option B is to borrow a jump pack from somewhere and jump it or option C which was park behind it and jump it from behind.  Having opted for C, it seems that the 3.5M leads I own are a little short for the purpose so I figured I'd just get a longer set of leads.

I trundled down to Halfords, saw how much a 4.5 metre set of leads was and decided not to buy them.  For the same price (ish) I managed to actually buy a jump pack so returned and got it started.....

As you can spot from the picture, the issue of smoke, water, soot and possibly just a side dish of oil has re-appeared.  In order to rectify this, I resorted to the previous fix of a very hard drive to clear everything through.  As usual, the car seems to draw the attention of cap wearing half wits in what I can only assume to be their parents cars.  The latest seems to be an oik in a blue 1.3 Suzuki Swift.  All the time I was on a B road following traffic he couldnt have gotten closer or more aggressive, however, as soon as the opportunity to join the (private race track) straight clear bit presented itself, he was left looking remarkably sheepish.  Although this car is only a 1.6 16V, please remember that there is no roof and very little interior left weighing it down.  This alone makes a huge difference.  I digress, and I apologise. 

After 50 or so hard miles, the soot has cleared and it is running very very sweetly.

In terms of other work completed, there's not much.  I have poppped in a couple of Xenon 55w blue tint bulbs.  These are legal in Europe, extremly bright and really do increase the visibility in the dark by an outrageous amount.  On the down side, if you drive with them on, people flash you in the belief you left your high / main beam on.  It tickes me to flash them back and watch their retina's melt.

I'm waiting on a delivery of speaker pods from a supplier who is really starting to get on my A-Cups.  Ordered 21st December and the guy swears he dispatched them on 21st.  He uses 48 hour delivery.  I make that 23rd Dec.  Still not received.  He hasnt given me a tracking number and I think he's fibbing but he's got the benefit of the doubt right now.  If they don't turn up tomorrow I will be placing his details very prominently here for you all to see though.

We're nearly up to the 1,000 readers mark now worldwide so thank you each and every one for making the blog a success and please please visit our sponsors on the right so they feel appreciated.

Not a lot of humour this lap guys, but Christmas has left me feeling a little drained.  I willl try to keep you all abreast of whats happening on a weekly basis from now on so please check back for updates regularly.

Blog Heroes:

Havant Signs & Plastics for producing the begging text and being fantastic people.  Anyone who needs work doing, please get in touch with them, mention this blog, and say Adrian Seymour deserves a payrise :)

Now, as promised, I asked Gruff to do an update, so following this is his 1st blog entry:

A blog entry from Mr Gareth Davies:

Well since mr savage made a comment over a cup of tea earlier today about me writing the blog I have been racking my brains and this is what I've managed to come up with. Well let me start by hoping everyone had had a wonderful Xmas and new year, it's not long now till the big event and I am really looking forward to the challenge, savage has done a wonderful job with the car, my job keeps me away for weeks on end so he has done most of the work, actually I plugged in the cb mic and pretty much nothing else but I am there on spirit mate lol.....
Anyway this will be rubbish compared to mr savages words of wisdom but I just wanted you to know that I am not a figment of savages imagination and I do exist..

Gruff