Today’s the day! Today’s the day! Today the 10,000 mile journey to Mongolia begins. An entire year of planning have culminated into this morning. Not gonna lie, I (Chris) got really choked up about it once we got our car queued up to leave. It’s been a dream of mine to do this crazy thing for over 6 years and now I’m finally here with some great friends that committed to doing this silly thing to. It’s crazy.
We got packed super fast and were one of the few first cars to get in the holding pen, thinking we would be one of the first out. Nope. There are roughly 360 teams that are part of the rally this year, all of which get to take one lap around the Goodwood track before officially starting whatever route you’ve chosen. We were probably one of the last 20, which we were insanely pissed about and made that very well known to every person who was preventing us from lining up. Showing up early and waiting 2 hours only to wait another hour was super lame. My advice to anyone doing the rally in the future: there are 2 holding pens that they fill the cars with. If you’re there early under no circumstances should you go over to the pen on the right even if they direct you to. If they don’t let you go into the lot on the left, go back to the campsite and wait. If you are one of the last ones there you will be the first to get on the track.
Before it starts they round everyone up for a giant group picture and give out some prizes for worst car choice, best customization, etc… There was an Italian team who had a car with a 1.6L engine, which is considerably more than the 1-1.2L limit. Their punishment was not only being called out in front of everyone there and had the word SHAME yelled at them, they were given an incredibly heavy workout bike spray painted gold. They were told that it absolutely had to be carried with them to the finish line or they would not get their deposit back. Pretty funny, such an awkward and bulky thing to keep on your roof.
We did our lap around the track which was fun, but there was a pace car we weren’t allowed to pass. After that we left Goodwood and officially set off. There are 2 ways to get from the UK to France, the ferry in Dover or the Eurotunnel train in Folkestone. Most teams take the ferry, we decided to take the Chunnel train because it cost the same as getting on the ferry and took less than a third of the time. We had zero interest in sitting on a boat for 2 hours immediately after it started. That train is super cool too, they let you drive right into the huge cabins.
The first day was going to be a lot of driving. We were off the train and into France at around 4, and from there we would be driving through the top of France into Belgium, through Brussels and into Germany to stay in Heidelberg that night. My goal was have an easier second day where it would only take 4ish hours to drive from Heidelberg to Munich, stopping in Nuremberg along the way. One of the Fundraiser challenges we have to fulfill is to plant a small American flag in every country, so we stopped in Dunkirk, France to plant the flag on the beach. We were going to stick around to grab a quick bite to eat but, well…French people can be fucking rude. We stepped into a cafe and asked if we could get something. The guy looked at us like we were idiots and said “No comprehende” until we pantomimed eating, to which he then just said no. Eh, France. We did stop into a casino for about 4 minutes just to check it out. The lady at the front checked my camera into storage, we played one spin of video roulette (I won 5 euros) and left. On the way out a woman behind the desk was thumbing through the pictures on my camera and I said hey, that’s rude. She laughed and said no that was hers, and I’m thinking that looks just like mine and then she went to “put it in the shelf” and pretend to exchange it, but then she pulled out another camera – my camera. So we had the same camera. Whoops.
We stopped in Belgium to get gas which was a real weird experience. We were stuck behind a big truck so we couldn’t pull forward enough to fill up, just had to wait for him. I had already paid for the gas on my pump (also weird inside because all of the dudes were standing uncomfortably close to everyone in line) so we couldn’t scoot forward when the truck left, which was quickly replaced by another truck who blocked our way again. Then someone blocked us in from behind…All told it probably took 30 minutes to get gas. We did run into a bunch of other rally teams at the station though which was cool. We were going to stop in Brussels but it was starting to get dark and traffic was really picking up, so we re-reouted and headed towards Germany. Somehow we ended up briefly driving through the Netherlands which was not part of our original route so we didn’t have a flag to plant. That one doesn’t count, it was an accident!
The drive was pretty uneventful until we hit Germany. Having BMW’s pass you going 100+ mph is pretty funny. There’s a collective “WHOA!” every time it happens. Goodman was able to get it to 104 going down a hill, but for the most part over 80 is a real struggle and we keep it between 60-70 mph most of the time. We got into Heidelberg around 2:00 am and were promptly scolded by a cop for not having an emissions sticker. In some certain parts of Germany this little green thing is required to drive around apparently, but here’s the thing. 1) How on earth is a foreigner expected to know that and 2) what exactly are we supposed to do about it at 2 am? He got pretty frustrated because we thought he was talking about a parking permit, so he eventually gave up and left. The hotel was great. First place that’s had a legitimate shower.
