Mad Ax's Crazy Tamiya Junkies / Iconic Cup Epic Road Trip Adventure Review

[Wooders28]

5 hours ago, Krustybus said:

Probably not a great time tell you that you probably could have done a cheeky short cut through the staff entrance at Stafford services onto local roads  

That still open!?! 

Used to use that decades ago! 

[Mad Ax]

2 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

The bitter/sweet of life at the track, I think the saying is - Some days you're the dog, some days you're the lamp post! 😬😂😂

I used to travel during the night to events (drag racing events mostly), as I absolutely hate sitting still in traffic, in the heat, and much prefer to 'make progress' 🙄.....These days though, being awake for 24+ hrs is sore going, and especially if the kids are with me, I'll be needing to take more breaks.

 

Can you still get out of staff entrances at motorway services..?  I used to do it years ago but every place I've been in the last decade they have been bollarded off by some automatic barrier.  I did consider it but I could only see the a barrier where I thought the exit might be.

[ThunderDragonCy]

@Mad Ax Oh mate what a day! Having raced my Iconic TT01E on Saturday afternoon at BMCC after leaving Junkies in that heat, I don't think the V3 are dodgy necessarily, but they do seem quite heat sensitive. I got heat limp mode out of my ESC halfway through my second race, but stepping the gearing down from 55/28 to 55/25 sorted it. It was also particularly hot in direct sunshine. Hope it hasn't put a downer on your other race plans. 

[Krustybus]

20 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Can you still get out of staff entrances at motorway services..?  I used to do it years ago but every place I've been in the last decade they have been bollarded off by some automatic barrier.  I did consider it but I could only see the a barrier where I thought the exit might be.

I'll be honest, I've not done it for years so you're most likely right. Only live 5 mins from J14 so not really needed to do it

[Mad Ax]

The journey from Carlisle to Pooley Bridge was quiet and easy, in some ways reminding me of the A-roads where I live - lots of up and down, high banks and sharp corners that unexpectedly get narrow, and lots of tourists who aren't aware of that.  But the views were different.  When you crest the brow of a hill in the Westcountry, what you tend to see the the brow of the next hill just a mile away.  It's really uppy-downy here but not exactly big.  It's beautiful, in its own way, but somehow lacks something.

The Lake District, on the other hand, doesn't disappoint.  Where there's a gap in the next close valley, towering, rounded peaks dwarf the landscape.  I expected lakes, not mountains.  In fact I never even knew we had hills like that in England.  Scotland, perhaps, or maybe northern Europe, or New Zealand, but not on our own shores.  My breath was truly taken away.

It was around 19:20 hundred hours PM in the evening on Sunday night when I arrived at the north end of Ullswater, tired and filthy but exhilarated by the view.  I pulled over in a small gravel car park and took a few photos.

Then I was back on the road again.  It would have been nice to stop for a walk - the air had cooled off a little and the scenery was fantastic - but I still had nearly 3 hours ahead of my to get to Stafford, and I was looking forward to a proper shower and a long sleep.  Seeing how quiet the roads had been on the way down from Carlisle, I set the satnav for Windermere and followed the A529 down through Glenridding, and soon found myself on the Kirkstone Pass.  I must confess I had no idea I was going to drive a mountain pass until I saw a sign telling me I was on it.  Google Maps makes everything look totally flat.

Suddenly I'm not in the Lake District, but Middle Earth.  Even the names have a Tolkiensian feel to them.  Kirkstone Pass, Glenridding, Patterdale.  I expected to see a party of Dwarves heading the other way, or the Rohirrim charging across the landscape to save Helm's Deep from the Uruk-Hai.  Instead I saw a few intrepid cyclists and lots of overloaded Nissan Micras struggling to climb the steeper ascents.

The Kirkstone Pass turns out to be just my sort of landscape.  Barren, in places, perhaps even bleak.  It must feel very isolated in stormy weather.  One side of a valley basked in the evening sun, the other already in shade.  Eventually I emerged at Kirkstone and found somewhere briefly to stop.

Again, it would have been nice to stop and explore here, but there was still a long way to go, so I set off again for Windermere, diverted back onto the motorway, and began the long crawl south to Stafford.

[Wooders28]

1 hour ago, Mad Ax said:

Instead I saw a few intrepid cyclists and lots of overloaded Nissan Micras struggling to climb the steeper ascents.

If you where next weekend, it'll be invaded by a couple of thousand horse power V8 Hot Rods , wakes up Pooley Bridge somewhat....

 

 

[c64orinoco]

I might have been born and bred in Australia, but the Lakes District is my spiritual Happy Place. I want to one day live in a nice little cottage in Keswick an equal distance from the lake and a cosy pub; I shall construct a fun offroad track in the field out the back of the cottage. I'm sure my lotto win next week will enable this.

[Mad Ax]

The journey South was reasonably quiet to start with, but it got busier as the evening wore on.  I guess some others had made the decision to get out of the Lakes before the morning rush.  Still, things continued to move, and it was nice to see some parts of the world I've never been to before - Blackpool, Liverpool, Manchester - albeit I only saw signs to them from the motorway.  A few short bouts of 50mph restrictions on the motorway weren't too much of a bother, until I got within one junction of Stafford, and suddenly we were in a seemingly endless 50mph zone.

And then I realised - I'd have to go all the way to the next junction, turn around, and come half way back again before I could get any respite from the 50mph slog.  And having done that, I'd have to do it all again backwards in the morning to get home.  Gah!!

Anyway, all this made me much happier to finally get to the Travelodge at 10:30pm and settle into the hotel room for a bit of writing, a final beer from the van fridge and some snacks from Burger King.  I don't usually eat BK-style food, and at over £7 for some nuggets, chilli bites and fries I could have got a properly nice kebab and chips at home - and technically I didn't even need any dinner since I'd already eaten a really big van-cooked sausage-and-bean medley before leaving Carlisle - but it was nice to sit back and enjoy my last evening of solitude before rejoining the family.  I got a bit of writing done, watched some South Park on the laptop, had a decent shower and went to bed just after midnight.

And was woken up at 3am by some lads playing football in the car park.  As you do.

Fortunately they were only at it until 3:30, so I managed to get a bit more sleep.  If I was a bit younger and a lot fitter I might have gone out to join them.

I didn't have to worry about an early check-out, so I slept in late and did some more writing in the morning before I packed up and set off just before 10am (minus my laptop charger - which is a specialist 180W unit and not easily replaced!) in the wrong direction before turning about and heading south again.

The going really wasn't too bad - traffic was heavy but moving - but it got heavier as I went on and in places it was stop-start.  Google Maps always insists on taking me the motorway route home, down the M5 to Bristol and then along the M4 to Bath, but within an hour of the Bristol junction it decided I should get off at Dursley.  This is my preferred route anyway - it's a nice jaunt across the hills on relatively quiet A-roads and brings me out at the Bath junction of the M4, slicing off a neat corner section.  Obviously there were some long queues around the M4/M5 interchange at Bristol - usually the traffic has got to be pretty bad to overcome Google Maps' stubbornness and put me onto proper A-roads.

Traffic was heavy crossing the M4 but settled down after a mile, and I finally got home at 1:30, a whole 716 miles after setting off, to beaming sunshine and a warm hot-tub and a happy welcome from the family.

[Mad Ax]

So, now the longwinded and overly detailed explanation of all the mileage is done, how was the weekend overal?

In short - epic.  OK, so some things didn't work out, like I didn't get to have my meal in the hotel restaurant so I could work on my novel with some local ales, I booked the wrong hotel on the way home and added 20 miles of 50mph motorway restrictions to my journey, I broke down in both finals and spent too much time running back and forth for cars at Junkies and not enough time actually tuning and driving them.  I also spent way more money than planned and I didn't get to see enough of the fantastic countryside.

But that doesn't mean I didn't have fun.  I had an awesome time, met some old friends and made some new ones, learned a lot about my cars, the countryside, the tracks, and myself.  Here's a few important things I can take from this:

Take fewer cars.  I ran most of my cars at Junkies, but I knew from the start I'd never run them all.  But just to run most of them, I had to constantly go from the van to the track and back again.  I didn't really get time to gel with a particular car or find out much about it.  If something broke, it was a reason to go back to the van and get something else.  If something was hard to drive, I'd give up and try something else.  I've got two cars to race at Revival in just under 2 months and both were really quite bad on track - somehow I need to tame them, and unless I can get back to Junkies before Revival, I'll have to do all my testing on the lawn and hope I can get to Revival in time for Friday testing.

With fewer cars, I'll be forced to focus on learning and improving what I bring.  I might also have more time to sit back and chat and just enjoy myself.

Park closer.  Being something of a lone wolf personality, I tend to park out of the way and work at my own pace.  But that just led to lots of walking, in the heat, carrying broken cars and parts.  I'm not averse to walking, but it adds a lot of time to the day and meant I had to be on the ball at Carlisle to be at the track in time for my heat.  I'll probably also get more involved in conversations and have a more sociable time.  This might mean getting my gazebo out of its never-before-opened bag.

Do a non-RC road trip.  I quite often drive to local scenic spots for a quiet walk alone, but apart from the odd motorcycle ride to the coast on a Friday night, I don't do solo trips without an RC.  But maybe next year I'll let RC take a back seat for a bit and do the same road trip without all the toys.  That makes camping much easier and takes the pressure off travel times.  I could go to the Derbyshire Dales on Friday and go exploring the scenery around Matlock Bath - I've been through it on the way to the Scaler Nationals but never had time to stop there.  Then head north early on Saturday for a day in the Yorkshire Dales, walking up to some of those peaks I could see from the road, then be in the lakes by nightfall for a couple of nights camping there and plenty of opportunity to wander around all those fantastic places I spotted on my little journey from Carlisle to Windermere.  If I had the time and the inclination I could even head south via Wales and see some of the countryside there.  It would probably cost less than last week's road trip because there would be no hotels, no race entry fees and no race tyres!

I'm sure there's more, like not leaving hotel rooms without my laptop charger (they posted it back to me, btw) and making sure the hotel is on the same carriageway that I'm travelling on before booking a non-refundable room, but I'll leave those for another day.

[Wooders28]

Taking fewer cars is a catch 22, I've found to take more than you think you'll be able to run, but concentrate on the ones you want to run (if that makes any sense), if you have a terminal breakage or have electrical issues, grab another car ,and get back running again.

You always find there's something you would have done differently, usually bring a spare driver for breaking up the miles, or if there's any after race drinks...🍻

Sounds like you've had no a bad little road trip. Next time, carry on up the M74 to us up in Glasgow! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😁

[Mad Ax]

14 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Taking fewer cars is a catch 22, I've found to take more than you think you'll be able to run, but concentrate on the ones you want to run (if that makes any sense), if you have a terminal breakage or have electrical issues, grab another car ,and get back running again.

You always find there's something you would have done differently, usually bring a spare driver for breaking up the miles, or if there's any after race drinks...🍻

Sounds like you've had no a bad little road trip. Next time, carry on up the M74 to us up in Glasgow! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😁

Yes, the reason I took so many is that a) I wanted to show off all the stuff I'd worked on during 202 and 2) I didn't want to be sidelined by breakages.  But it became a logistical nightmare.  Just getting some beers out the fridge on Sunday night required stacking 6 boxes outside the van in the motorway services, when I was about to bed down for the night and with no idea who might be watching.  Plus it takes time to unpack and unbox before I can get on track, then time to rebox and repack before I can leave.  I probably lost a lot of time just moving boxes around.  If I'm able to get to the next Junkies meet, I'll take a very focussed selection of cars.

I've never been to Glasgow, but back in late 2018 I finally (after many years of waiting) got an invite to join some family in their timeshare near Ballater.  It was unseasonably wet and rained the entire time I was there, but I fell in love with the scenery, the town and the people.  I'd love to go back and see more of Scotland

[hedge]

Your obviously a man n a mission and this is no recommendation, just how I used to do it. Racing is hard on cars, just keeping two (wet and dry car) up to scratch used to be a full time job for me. I had at least 2 of every spare part needed - including bodyshells. I took all the tools and kit needed to keep running and if the worse come to the worse I would set up the wet car for dry running (or vice verse depending on the weather).

[Wooders28]

2 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

I wanted to show off all the stuff

It's great to see in pit areas, turns it into a model car show, as well as meeting, but can be a nightmare transporting. Mine are usually just thrown in the boot/back seat of the car, but likely to be thrown in a roof box, when I get to head down to a junkies meet. A plastic folding table are brilliant, I used a pasting table, but it didn't like the weight. 😬

2 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

I've never been to Glasgow, but back in late 2018 I finally (after many years of waiting) got an invite to join some family in their timeshare near Ballater.  It was unseasonably wet and rained the entire time I was there, but I fell in love with the scenery, the town and the people.  I'd love to go back and see more of Scotland

There's plenty do see and do around Glasgow (no castle like Edinburgh though), and you're only 40 mins to Loch Lomond and the start of the Highlands.

Yeah, does like to rain a bit 🙄, (the joke about , if Noah went to Scotland to warn about it raining for 40days and nights, he'd be told they where on day 50 the now, and its the summer!!  🤣) 

Once our tracks finished, if you fancy just a long weekend away, you can fly up, I'll be happy to sort you cars to run (and anyone else on here that fancies a trip north! (Cue someone from Inverness saying we're in the south 🤣🤣) ) 

 

 

[Mad Ax]

5 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

It's great to see in pit areas, turns it into a model car show, as well as meeting, but can be a nightmare transporting. Mine are usually just thrown in the boot/back seat of the car, but likely to be thrown in a roof box, when I get to head down to a junkies meet. A plastic folding table are brilliant, I used a pasting table, but it didn't like the weight. 😬

There's plenty do see and do around Glasgow (no castle like Edinburgh though), and you're only 40 mins to Loch Lomond and the start of the Highlands.

Yeah, does like to rain a bit 🙄, (the joke about , if Noah went to Scotland to warn about it raining for 40days and nights, he'd be told they where on day 50 the now, and its the summer!!  🤣) 

Once our tracks finished, if you fancy just a long weekend away, you can fly up, I'll be happy to sort you cars to run (and anyone else on here that fancies a trip north! (Cue someone from Inverness saying we're in the south 🤣🤣) ) 

Yes - I carry an old wooden papering table and a camping table.  Neither are in great shape after many seasons, but I can fit both behind the bed in the camper where I can literally fit nothing else, so they cost nothing to cart around.  The modern folding plastic tables look much better, might have to invest.  We've just had our foreign holiday cancelled so we've booked a family camping holiday next weekend, I'm using that as an excuse to spend some of the refund money on new camping stuff, might go get a new table tomorrow 

The offer of a weekend away racing someone else's cars sounds awesome and very much appreciated, although I'm not sure when I'll have the time or budget for it

I am still feeling a bit of imposter syndrome tho - on the face of it I'm competing in two-day national events once or twice a month and I've just been offered an invitational in a flyaway event when in reality I'm barely good enough to break out of the B final at the local carpet track