Tag Archives: road warriors

A long time ago I set myself a ‘must-do’ for the next time I’m in Southern France/Northern Italy by the sea. I’d just completed a night drive from Nice to Genoa along the E80. That drive was fantastic. Like Crockett’s night-time speeding along empty Miami streets of a night: no cars, great road, great car, great music… but no views due to the lack of sunlight.

The road skirts the northern edges of a sea – not the Mediterranean – the Ligurian. Never heard of it? You’re not the only one.

Anyway, years passed, but my must-do remained. Now, finally, at last, that must-do has turned into a ‘had to, and did do’, and a very satisfactory one at that.

What a road. Smooth as a baby’s bottom, not much traffic, nice bridges and tunnels, plus good drivers who know their highway code and observe lane discipline. The main thing though: the views. To the right – Ligurian loveliness. To the left – impossible Italian impressiveness. Rolling hills, the sea, the cute villages, the castles atop peaks and along the coast.

Read on: a truly must-drive…

How time flies… It’s now nearly two weeks since I was in Abu Dhabi for a high-speed adrenalin injection, and only just now have I gotten round to putting fingers to keyboard. So apologies for the delay folks; sometimes I need a full reboot – a few days of catching up on sleep and spending quality time with my family. Everything else – for later. Now, here’s that later…

So, like I say, I was in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for the Finali Mondiali.

But why? Well, why, that is, apart from ‘it’s nice and sunny down in the Middle East’, like always?

Easy. Sometimes you need to meet face-to-face the folks you normally communicate with only by telephone or email. Mod-coms are all very good, but they’ll never by any match for personal interaction for catching up properly…

To take an analogy, let’s say you’re barbequing on the shore of a lake. Your pal’s also barbequing nearby – but on the shore of a neighboring lake. And you’re Skyping each other.

Question: Are you eating together or separately?

Answer, IMHO: You’re eating separately, and only imitating human interaction.

Homo sapiens – we were all designed to interact with one another. And the closer and more personal, the better. And that’s why I was in Abu Dhabi. Ok, that’s enough theory/work… Now: FUN!

There were tons of fun to be had in Abu Dhabi, so much so I’m struggling to work out which particular tons were the funniest. I think… yes – for me the best was the mega roller-coaster here (interestingly sometimes referred to as a Russian mountain – turns out roller-coasters first appeared in St. Petersburg – in the 18^th century!!). What can I say? It’s mega!

1 second

Read on: May the luck be with us next time!…

What does an ideal weekend… smell like? I mean, an ideal weekend for boys… of all ages? :)

The answer, I firmly believe, is as follows:

An ideal weekend for boys of all ages smells of burning brake pads, of engine fumes, of gasoline, and of adrenalin. Motorsport. It’s like rock’n’roll, only better.

Just recently some comrades and I had some spare time between business engagements and headed down to Italy to take part in the Adria-24 car race. It was a national-level race, but still very much a full-on adrenaline-pumping one. Unfortunately though, the sweet smell of car racing success didn’t pass through our nostrils, for about half-way – after 12 hours – our car… died, and no amount of reanimation measures could save her. A great pity. Here’s her corpse, poor thing:

Read on: Nano-racing…

Now, for any Moscow drivers who were held up one recent sunny afternoon by an army of retro-mobiles slowly edging along Leningradsky Shosse and Prospect – SORRY! It was us, KL, putting on some old-school Ritz for our highly valued partners from all over Western Europe.

The smiles are contagious…

‘State Duma’ [Parliament]

Two mega-cars from Scuderia (a Challenge and a GT3) + a completely empty Aragon race track in Alcaniz, Spain + a fog thicker than school-dinner semolina = tragedy.

You drive in an exquisite bit of motorsport kit, but the pedal stays a good way off the metal. Visibility is down to silly meters, and you’re trying to get some decent speed up. Rather, you’d want to. But you’re not as silly as those meters… So, like I say… a tragedy.

Read on: visibility superciliously silly…

Shalom folks!

Last week I found myself in Israel, where a big fuss was being made over an event we were taking active part in: the Jerusalem Formula – Peace Road Show. In LOUD attendance were Scuderia Ferrari and Marussia F-1 racing cars, and also GT Ferrari Challenge, Le Mans prototype and DTM Audi cars. What a din that lot made!

Around 120,000 motorsport fans turned up to see the spectacle over two days. I imagine the labyrinth of streets in the Old City had mostly emptied while the racing was going on… but I didn’t see that so can’t confirm. This is what I saw:

More: the coolest ever opening of a new KL office…

Hi all!

Here’s the main course (actually the first of five main courses, followed by the desert :), to logically follow the starter (for those who missed it – here!).

More: getting there, fighting jetlag, caves, Middle-Earth & roads…