Gareth Jones

First things first, for nearly 600 photographs of the event, click here.

Last weekend I went to Classic Car Live 2010 with my father, to Mondello Park near Naas (nay-ass) in Ireland. We went in his 1966 Ford Mustang and got the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin on Saturday morning. The crossing was incredibly smooth and you only knew that you were on a boat when you looked out the window.

We got to Ireland to find that it was sunny and pretty hot – a welcome change from the last time we went to this event back in 2008 when it was chucking it down and blowing a gale. Sat-nav on my Desire got us onto the N7 carriageway without having to go through the centre of Dublin and we got to Naas in good time.

When we got to Naas we checked into the hotel that we’d booked to find that the room was unavailable because some woman who had slept in there the night before still hadn’t checked out – and this was at 3pm. They offered to put us up at a house that was also owned by the hotel owner, and since there was some OAP party on at the hotel we accepted. We left them to sort the house out and get it ready for us and headed into town for some beers.

It is at this point that I have to make a couple of complaints about Ireland. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s incredibly expensive over there and despite the Pound having made up some ground against the Euro since last time we were over there, everything still costs at least 1.5x as much as it does in the UK and sometimes more than that. The second is the selection of beers on offer – there’s no Carling, no Fosters, no XXXX and no Stella. There’s Heineken, Budweiser and Carlsberg. I don’t like Carlsberg as it leaves a bitter after-taste and drinking Budweiser is pretty much the same as drinking still water, so that leaves Heineken and not much else. The Heineken in one place was nice; everywhere else is was awful. Luckily I spotted Kopparberg while trying to find an alternative drink, though sadly only the sickly mixed fruit version and not the pear version that I could drink all day. My father took a couple of those but then had to move onto something else; I stayed on them for the rest of the night.

The next morning let itself into my room earlier than anticipated thanks to some super-thin curtains. At 5am the room was lit up like it was midday, so it wasn’t long before we were both showered and ready for breakfast before making our way to the track. The paper-work we had from the organisers stated Gate 1 as our entrance; Gate 1 was closed and locked when we arrived. We continued down the road past gates 2 and 3 before finally arriving at gate 4 which was open letting people in. Since we were so early (not long after 8am!) there wasn’t much there yet, but this gave us ample opportunity to put our names down for some parade laps later in the day and for me to wonder around the paddock taking photos of the cars that would be screaming down the track in a few hours.

Over the course of the entire day more and more cars flooded into the grounds – from a rusty old BMW 2002tii to a quarter-million pound Aston Martin DB5 and everything in-between. An unfortunate down-side to the event being so popular was that the track was rammed with cars for the parade lap, and as a result the traffic was much slower than it was two years ago. The event organisers seem to have come up with a money-making solution to this problem though – for 50 Euros you can get onto a less populated track and race – which I think is what we’ll be doing next year. It’s not necessary to actually race the car, but to just be able to go quickly without being flagged down and without getting stuck behind some 1920s chariot-with-an-engine.

I really enjoyed Mondello Park this year, even though I was pretty badly burned in the Irish sun and even though there wasn’t a familiar pint to be had. The weather was great, the event was a huge success and it was a great opportunity to sink some beers with the old man since the Isle of Man trip a couple of months ago. This event was also the first event that I’ve gone to with my new SLR – a Sony Alpha 500. While I think there are still a fair few things for me to learn about using an SLR, I did manage to make some cool-looking wallpapers from a couple of the photos that I took which are also available to see in the Flickr section.

Next stop: Le Mans!

Last Wednesday I left for the Nürburgring in Germany with my father. We stayed in Dover that night and got a 7am ferry over to Calais the next morning, then drove down to Nürburg.

We got there around 4pm on the Thursday evening to find the place totally packed with people from all over the world. The track was open from 6 to anyone who wanted to take their car – whatever it was – around the famous course. We opted not to go round at that point having just spent a day travelling down, and we’d go the next day.

The next day the course was closed to the public because it was host to some real races. I took loads of photos and videos – and in most of them you can get a good sense of how hot it was there.

Saturday morning the track was due to be open to the public again, but dense fog kept it closed for a couple of hours. Thousands of people had turned up for the weekend as the lower track was also hosting the OldTimer Grand Prix at the same time. Eventually we got on there and did a couple of laps before being pulled off again due to the bad weather.

I managed to record the second lap around the circuit despite having been told to put the camera in the boot when I was spotted while trying to film the first one…

The fog never really lifted at all during the day and so the course remained closed to the public, though the Grand Prix on the lower circuit went ahead anyway. We were due to come home on Sunday and so had no time to use the remaining laps on our card before leaving, so we managed to sell them to some locals who would use them another day when the weather was better.

You could sit in the Aston in the photo while a professional driver took you round the course at maximum speed for just under 300 euros. I never went as over 250 quid for 5 minutes of entertainment is well steep, but I imagine it must be a fantastic ride. Surprisingly it went out with a new customer every half hour or so…!

The food was fantastic and we did’t have a bad meal once. To think that France is famous for having the best chefs, the food in France is crap compared to what we had in Germany. The French could certainly learn a thing or two there.

As part of the tour that we were on we were supposed to stay in Koblenz which is about 35 miles east of Nürburg, but as this meant we’d be 35 miles in the wrong direction on Sunday morning we opted to check out a day early after finding some available accommodation in Wiesemscheid. This village is too small to offer any proper entertainment but so close to the track – and more importantly west of the track for Sunday morning – that it didn’t matter. Once again we had a fantastic meal here – made all the nicer since they forgot to add it to the bill the next day!

We started back at about 8.30 on Sunday morning, again in thick fog. We travelled for about 100 miles before finally making it out of the fog in the Netherlands. In Belgium it was sunnier and in France we saw a return to the hot weather that we’d seen on the way down.

The twitter feed came in handy as I managed to keep certain people updated on our progress through Europe, though now that I’m back in the UK it’s not that easy to see how I’ll use it again until next time I’m off somewhere!

I think it would be good to stay in Koblenz for a night or two again next year despite the distance, because it’s the closest city to Nürburg and has the most choice of places to go out at night. It would be good to have a night or two in Nürburg itself too though so that we can be close to the track all day and be able to drink without having to worry about how to get back to the hotel later.

All in all a fantastic trip and I’m already looking forward to the next one.  :)

Photos and videos are available to view in the usual way.