Sponsor Your Queen and Country

BABE Rally 2007 - From BA (Big Apple) to BE (Big Easy), a total drive of 1500 miles in four days on the east coast of the USA, in a banger yank tank that has to cost less than $250.

In a moment of madness, Martini and Gausie have entered a team - "Queen and Country", the entry has been accepted, and so long as we can get all of the prelims in place, at the end of May we'll be setting off from New York with "New Orleans or bust" ringing loudly in our ears.

In case you're wondering, we'll start with Martini as Queen (Gausie will be Cunt-ry) and we'll swap over every now and again.

We'll be raising money for Save The Children, and hopefully, in due course, some of you guys will dig deep.

We're planning on getting a car in late April and flying out a week early to prepare it for the journey - which is at the end of May.

We'll be looking for a car with acres and acres of metal and rust, a decent set of brakes, an engine and gearbox that stands a chance of getting us 1500 miles, and a very loud stereo. We've decided that an open top is mandatory - even if we have to take a cutter to a saloon. A custom paintjob is planned, given sufficient time.

Guess we're all waiting for Superman then.

One of the boys here would love to borrow your red cape if you've finished with it, M ;)

Ok quick update of what we have been up to.

After the first day due to some extraordinary negotiating skills in buying womens knickers from Gausie we ended up in the lead.

We were still there or there abouts after the second day when we sweet talked all those people into photographs with us.

The Third day we had to find the oldest car we could --- DCB got is directions from the County Sheriff to a wreck yard along the way.

Despite the dire warnings we entered ---



-- and we found a 1937 Model A Pickup rusting away in a corner of the yard



We then worked our way over to the big one at Deals Gap and The Dragons Tail



Could not get shots of us doing the whole of the Dragons tail 318 curves in 11 miles with the Union Jack flying the whole way.

At the bottom we met up with some of the other BABE rallyers and Gausie went for a dip in the lake.



Going into the last day we were in second place 40 points behind the new leaders as our "Old Car" was beaten by a 20s Model T Ford.

The task for day 4 as we drove the 400 + miles to New Orleans was to photograph registration plates from as many Sates as possible.

We thought we had hit the Mother Load when we went into Birmingham Alabama Airport and drove for 2 hours round this huge car park picking up 90% of our haul of plates.

The screams of delight echoed round the car park when we found Alaska



We then drove on down to New Orleans picking up the odd few along the way



Arriving at Hotel in New Orleans right in the heart of the French Quarter just off Basin Street having collected 47 States and hoping it was enough to close the gap on the leaders.



We discarded the thought of searching the web for a few more plates and did it straight (probably much to the surprise of one person reading this thread) and hoped the leaders had done badly with plates.

Unfortunately they had done exactly the same as us and when we had been cruising round Birmingham Airports car park they had been doing exactly the same a floor below.

When the final points were added the top three were.

1st - Misfit Toys Racing - 3790

2nd - Queen and Country - 3640

3rd - Two More Misfits 3570



If we were going to be beaten it could not have been by a better Team -- as one of the Team members was Rafael -- who had put Queen and Country on his title and insurance and without whos help we may never have got to do the Rally.

I have dropped Gausie and DCB at the airport.
I am staying over in New Orleans for another day to party and then assuming the Olds hangs together I am driving back up to the top of the USA to Cleveland to run Queen and Country in this.

More silly things to do

$200 of roach should go down well :) and what the hell another 3000 miles of driving round America sounds fun.


Finally I know I speak for the three of us in thanking everyone who sponsored us raising such a magnificent amount for Save the Children and giving us a chance to do something totally silly and very enjoyable.

Regards
M

Fantastic job guys.

Well done chaps on your second place, but even more well done on the charity effort - superb!!

pth

Blimey, 2nd place thats a fanatastic result well done the three of you.


Mike

Very Proud of your effort . Very well done glad you didn't have to bail G

THE COUNT--->THE BABE BOYS

Well done lads....job well done and for such a worthy cause...I think your relative youth played a part in getting you there. :-)

How many entrants were there in total by the way?

Regards,

THE COUNT!

Well done guys a fantastic effort.


Think it was 61 last time I looked on the website Count.

Dil, Naw, that's Martini's age. Did they get extra points for the oldest entrant?

:)

THE COUNT--->DIL

Well, that's a relief. I thought there might only have been 2. :-)

Regards,

THE COUNT!

Suppose now it's all over, the pair of you can start that long overdue diet?

ROFLMAO!

Home.

And dieting.

We had an incredible time. Pimping the ride was great fun - we pretty much got the look we were after and our car was certainly one of the more eye catching on the rally.

Driving the route was fantastic fun - and driving the 'tail of the dragon' with the flag flying was a giggle - pretty much every biker coming in the opposite direction stopped scraping their knees on the bends, slowed down and broke into fits of laughter when they saw us.

Some of the other entrants kept blogs - and almost all comment on our daily flag break - we fitted a PA speaker to the stereo, and at 8.30am blasted out Land of Hope and Glory as we stood to attention and raised the union flag

Next year is becoming a must.

:-)

Wonderful!

What a hoot.

Oh and fanmegatastic :))

Well done chaps!

Just got home as my flight from New Orleans to Houston was delayed and I missed my connection. What a fantastic 4 days we had. Its all a bit of a blur but the overall impression that I have is just having had huge fun, I met some great people and didn't get much sleep. The pattern of each day was get up at about 7, shower, bit of breakfast (crap in most of the hotels), pack the car, get the day's challenge and then set off. We tended to try to get off the interstate each day to take in some scenery as well as getting the challenges achieved. For me, by far the best day was when we dressed as Elvis and had to get 10 photos with more than 10 people in each. It was huge fun just talking to ordinary people and getting them to pose. Then we'd get in to our destination between 7 and 10 each evening and just break out the tables and chairs and start making inroads into the American Beer stocks.

The last night in New Orleans is a bit of a blur I have to say. I was helped back to the hotel by one of the younger members of another team at about 4.00am (thanks, whoever you were), only having to get up at 9 to catch my plane, still very much the worse for wear.

Coming 2nd was a great achievement (it was definitely our age and experience that did it). Thanks to everyone who has donated to Save the Children. I'm not exactly sure what the total is, but I think it must be approaching 3500 - 3700.

I don't think I can remember having such sustained fun for four straight days. Thanks Martini and Gausie for inviting me at short notice, which added even more to the excitement.

dcb

well done guys,it sounds great fun,can we get a mini bus next year ;-)
allways best to come second on a babe rally,

Well it had to happen.

And it had to be Mr Martin ;)

indeed rain drops did fall on my head today :)

Made it onto Killboy

Nice one :)

And what did you do with the back seat driver?