CARS & CAMPING
SPA TREATMENT
STEPHEN DOBIE, DEPUTY EDITOR, TG.COM
WHO:
First ever visit to Spa-Francorchamps for a track day in my old Clio 200 Cup, me and my best mate decided to camp in a nearby field rather than stay in a hotel. More money for fuel and fine Belgian fries; you can see our logic. Cue biblical overnight rain and having to dry our tent out in the pit garage while we lapped the world’s greatest race circuit. In the blazing sun, I might add. Spa’s climate is best described as ‘changeable’.
BACK TO SCHOOL
PETER RAWLINS, SUB-EDITOR
WHO:
On the penultimate day of term, the majority of Year 13 hit the town for a celebratory night out before we all headed off to university. Naturally, me and two friends decided that rather than organise a taxi home/crash at a mate’s, we’d camp in my Renault Clio... on the school field. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t get much sleep, and we didn’t last very long the next day. On the plus side, it didn’t cost us anything – more money for the McDonald’s breakfast the next morning – and we didn’t get caught. Win-win.
SWEET DREAMS JACK RIX, EDITOR
WHO:
Borrowed the new VW Grand California for the weekend. A large van with two double beds, a toilet, shower, fridge and an engine unlikely to overheat at the first set of traffic lights – a civilised introduction to camping for my one- and three-year olds, I thought. Idiot. Turns out sleeping in close proximity to your snoring Dad in an unfamiliar white box does not make sleepy toddlers. Less than an hour’s kip, total, and as we wept into our underwhelming bacon sandwiches, my wife and I vowed... never again.
PARTY LIKE IT’S £19.99
OLLIE MARRIAGE, HEAD OF CAR TESTING
WHO:
I spent the night of the new millennium kipping in the back of an Audi S4 Avant. Desperate to celebrate the milestone in London with my girlfriend and the party crowds, walking around with a rucksack full of cheap fizz, but couldn’t find a bunk anywhere. Could’ve kipped at a mate’s, but daren’t risk late night public transport collapse. So I booked the car into a central London underground car park and we slept in the back of it. Low moment when a fellow reveller puked on the bonnet... of the car next to us.
A TIGHT SQUEEZE
SAM BURNETT, SUB-EDITOR
WHO:
My first car was a purple Ford Ka – it was quite brilliant and I’m prepared to persuade someone else to fight anyone who disagrees. In a fit of enthusiasm that hasn’t been repeated since, me and two friends went camping for a week in it, with so much stuff that the person in the back couldn’t move his arms and kept getting hit in the face with a ball when we went round corners. We don’t really speak anymore, can’t think why.