Bubblebum Bangwhore Rally

A few months back we had decided that our vehicle for the Bubblegum Banger Rally needed to be something a little out the ordinary. Our proposed team was going consist of 5 members and so we needed something big. We purchased a Vauxhall Midi for £400 that we decided would make a great ice cream van, a small part of me wanted to get stopped by the police for speeding just so I could say that we were trying to get there before the ice cream melted. Unfortunately our ‘Ghetto Van’ as we nick named it was a little to past it to race around Europe. With just three weeks to go we still hadn’t found a replacement until we came across ‘Crystal’ a beautiful looking 3.3L V6 Chrysler Voyager Automatic. It was a match made it heaven.

On Saturday 27th September the trusty Voyager set sail with just 4 team members aboard from Crabby Jacks car park at Vazon.

Meet the team:
Rostone – Wannabe Wacky Racer
Kitten Soft – Soccer Mom
The Viking – Navigational expert
Vinyl Matt – Token stoner

Our fifth team member, Dred was with us in spirit but unfortunately had to stay in Guernsey. It’s a good job our trusty wagon had a few spare seats though as god was our co-pilot, unfortunately I think Satan may have been riding shotgun.

Travelling with 50 other Bubblegummers and a police escort (three of which were fake Bubblegum police cars) from Vazon to St Peter Port was a great excuse to disregard the Highway Code for 20 minutes as we drove with our horn constantly sounding. Spirits were high, as my childhood dream of being Burt Reynolds in Cannonball Run slowly became some twisted reality.

We checked Crystal in at the harbour and found the time to tart her up by adding a few more stickers (mostly to her attractive derriere).

The ferry journey was spent munching Croque Monsieurs and route planning whilst discussion revolved around the day’s challenge, which had been handed to us as we departed Guernsey. We arrived in St. Malo at 5pm French time and made a beeline straight for Rouen, our first stop of the trip. Our challenge for the day was to bring an authentic French guest to the evening meal whilst we dressed in traditional French costume. We failed, due to our total disagreement to bow down to typical English ideas of French stereotypes. We did however arrive in about tenth place after being the last off the ferry and testing Crystal to her full capabilities and with a total disrespect for the highway code the RWC crew managed to get her up to a top cruising speed of 125mph, not bad for a soccer-mom car. ‘Crystal’ loves having her photograph taken, only not by speed cameras. Opps. I think The Vikings navigational skills may have also played a small part in our early arrival.

Sunday morning was an early start after a healthy sized continental breakfast. We made sure we stole enough Croissants to get us through the day. We picked up today’s challenge and headed straight out into the French scenery. Today’s challenge involved deciphering several clues to deduce a password that would entitle us to gain entry into the secret area of the Bubblegum Banger website, which would reveal to us the address of our hotel for the night.

We stopped at several impressive cathedrals and completed all the assigned challenges in France before heading straight(ish) for Antwerp in Belgium. Belgium didn’t last long at 125mph on a Sunday afternoon as we made our way to Amsterdam. We arrived in Amsterdam in good time and decided that the best plan of action was to ditch Crystal at the hotel and take the tram straight into the Red-Light District. Crystal didn’t need to witness the seedy side of Amsterdam.

I don’t remember much else of Amsterdam, although I did go temporarily blind for a short while.

After a good night’s sleep we loaded up Crystal with yet another stolen breakfast and pointed her in the direction of Germany. Thankfully Kitten Soft took the first driving shift, as I was feeling a little fragile. I don’t know why. After an hour or two I was itching to drive on the German autobahns. The Germans all drive precision built German cars in a very precise German way on beautifully crafted straight German roads. Everyone drives correctly and no one cuts you up, unlike Belgium. It was on roads like this that Crystal came into her own, she happily cruised along at 120mph for most of the day as we headed down through Germany to Nurburgring.

The drive towards Nurburg was beautiful and offered some of the most fantastic views of the whole trip. The winding mountain roads got me in race driver mode ready for our lap of Nurburgring, as did arriving first. I had the great pleasure of racing around Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Crystal (the most un-race car ever). It was also the first time that I’d actually driven Crystal on a damp road. It started to drizzle 10 minutes before we were due to head out onto the circuit, making for a slippery ride. 'Crystal' likes to under-steer a lot.

The circuit is particularly tricky with plenty of blind corners that disappear over hill brows. The 13 mile lap was completed in just under 15 minutes, which is fairly respectable given the conditions, the car and the first and only time around there. We managed to overtake 5 cars and a motorbike and only got over taken once by some sporty hatch back thing. We reached a maximum of 125 mph and had to do some serious late braking manoeuvres. The automatic gearbox made it hard to keep the power down and made engine braking impossible, which resulted in the brake discs and pads smoking when we left the track.

This challenge was one of the highlights of the trip for me; it made another one of my childhood/adulthood dreams come true. After leaving the circuit I got told that I looked like a small child at Christmas due to the beaming grin across my face.

Given a whole day there in the dry and I reckon I could get ‘Crystal’ into the sub 10min mark...Maybe. I’d love to race Clarkson around there anyway. Check this. Mental.



We ditched Nurburgring pretty sharpish and made our way to the hotel for the night in Koblenz.

Tuesday saw us embark on the longest stretch of the rally. We ate lots of German sausage and robbed the hotel of enough food to last the day. We did of course have the obligatory stop at a fast food joint due to the daily over sleeping/missed breakfast of Vinyl Matt.

Today’s Challenge was to get to the San Bernardino Pass in the Swiss Alps (we arrived third). This challenge involved driving through the bottom half of Germany through Austria and Liechtenstein and into Switzerland. This challenge simply wasn't enough for our crew of intrepid road trippers and so we decided to add in a few more countries, Italy and France. It's a shame that passport stamping is rare these days as the crew visited 6 countries in one day (although we are still not sure whether Liechtenstein is classed as a country), personal bests for every member.

We finally made it back to Lake Geneve in Switzerland and bedded down for the night after an epic 12-hour drive.

The official final day of the rally was upon us. Lake Geneve to Paris was a relatively short drive in comparison to the previous days mission. The only challenge today was to rendezvous at the Arc de Triumphe roundabout.



We arrived early and tried to get our head around possibly the worst roundabout free-for-all that any of us have ever witnessed. We jacked it in pretty quickly and headed straight for our hotel. We ditched Crystal in the underground car park whilst Kitten Soft and The Viking relaxed in the pool and Vinyl Matt and myself ventured out to explore Paris.

This looks like a clip from the French movie C'était un rendez-vous, but in actuality it’s a video of us racing through Paris is Crystal.



We regrouped at the spectacular L’Atelier Renault Bar on the Champs Elysees for the evening party and prize giving. We gained three mentions and came fifth in one of the challenges winning us a staggering 20 Euros. We partied hard, argued about a bar bill and visited the Eiffel Tower at 3:30am. Great.

The final stretch saw us rape the European motorway system for one last time up to St Malo so we could embrace the walled city for a couple of hours before heading back on the ferry. The ferry trip home was a bit on the rough side resulting in some funny videos of passengers staggering around the duty free shop. The heroes welcome that awaited us in Guernsey only reinforced the fact that this had actually been the trip of a lifetime.