Road Trip Canda: Banff to Whistler (1162km)

I took up the driving seat again and began on the next leg of the journey from Banff to Jasper, via the Banff national park, and past all the ice fields, this was truely amazing scenery, the glaciers were so good, and the frozen lake in the middle of May was surreal! Words can't express the wonderful scenery and beautiful water features along the way! The road from Jasper to Kamloops completed the next leg of the journey and was pretty quick it only took 3 hours of the 5.5 i had expected it to take us, there was also loads of wildlife on this road, I saw 3 male elk with all the antlers etc, at the side of the road, 3 bear cubs in the road, 1 bear sat on top of a burnt out car, and a very confused female elk in the middle of the road! Lee took over the driving in Kamloops and drove all the way to Whistler through some very twisty and slow sections of road at the top of highway 99, we both thought it'd be an ace location for a tamac rally!
The last 200km seemed to take an eternity Lee an I just wanted to get home and have a nice shower, after living in the car for 5 days and having driven from the east to west coast in just 4 days!

Road Trip Canada: Niagra to Banff (3670km)

From Niagra it was back towards toronto, before breaking off towards Barrie, and onto Wasaga beach! We reached the beach at sundown, which was lucky because the sun was the most exciting thing there! The place was absolutely dead, so i only stopped here to take some pictures of the sun going down over the wonderful sandy beach (apparently trade picks up at weekends and bank holidays)!
From Wasaga beach was the long slow drag to Owen Sound, knowing that there was no ferry service at that time of night, we were able to slow things down and take our time to get to the ferry terminal for the ferry across lake Huron. We had a near miss at driving the car right onto the beach... (the road suddenly ended and there was just a beach (Suable beach)), then we realised we'd missed a turning! But a quick correction and we got back on our way to the ferry terminal, using the relaxed travelling time to discover quite how close we could get the drivers seat to the windscreen whilst i was driving! God knows why anyone would want to drive so close, it was crazy! We finally got to the ferry terminal, and after a bit of a recce, settled down for a good nights sleep, knowing we had a huge driving blitz ahead of us!
The ferry journey was quite short and sweet, just 2 hours which was broken up by a breakfast we bought on the ferry! Lee did the next driving stint along the coast up to Thunder Bay, where i managed to get a good sleep in ready to drive through the night across manitoba! I took over again at thunder bay, and lee was understandably knackered! We carried on our blast across Canada, i was determined to make it to Winnepeg or beyond in the next 6 hours, or before lee woke up! Things seemed to pick up in Manitoba, as the speed limit increased (so i was a little less illegal) and the road changed from single to dual carriage way! This was to stay the same for the WHOLE of Manitoba including the ring road around Winnepeg creating an excellent opportunity to make up time, so it was foot to the floor and eyes out for the cops, oh and watching the fuel gauge drop, as an average of 148kph was achieved during one hour (just short of 100mph). Lee took over before the end of Manitoba as i began to suffer from extreeme boredom, more so than lack of sleep! Lee drove a hard leg through the rest of Manitoba and Sachz... right through to Alberta and Banff, where he immediately crashed out! Beofre i took over i managed to hook up with Tessa and Chris, meeting them for a hot chocolate to boost my sugar levels before quickly moving on to Whistler that night! It was so good to see Tessa and Chris again, they both looked extremely well, and seemed to be enjoying their time in Banff. Thanks for the hot chocolate Chris... you're right it is the best in the world! I have to admit that Banff looked a little nicer than Whistler in some ways, maybe thats just my soft spot for the rockies!

Road Trip Canada: Toronto to Niagra (141km)

We left Toronto, and headed for Niagra falls, the trip to the moderately sized sea side resort took just over an hour!

The falls are magnificent, and the flow is controlled by an HEP station, there is sooooo much water it's unreal, yet the water is so clear, you can see the bottom through the fast torrents at the top. Amazing!
We also took a small trip below the falls, which was again very spectacular, to see the falls side on, and all the eddys created at the bottom as well as the immense sparay which you could feel 500m away! There were also tunnels uder the falls where you could watch the water hurtling past!
The sky dome in Toronto, with the roof open!

Road Trip Canada: Motreal to Toronto (465km)

After a short cruise around montreal, we began our next long drive through the night to Toronto!
The Toronto stop was another very short one, as we were on a tight schedule to get back to whistler, we managed a short trip up the CN tower, the largest building in the world, we saw spectacular views from the top, and i found the glass floor particularly amusing, and the fact it was a gorgeous day, and you could see for miles!

The steamboat brewery

Road Trip Canada: New York to Montreal (575km)

We left New York about 6pm, (getting a bit lost in the process), and passed through albany, before crossing back into Canada and reaching Montreal at about midnight! After searching long and hard, we found the illustrius strip clubs, but alas they were all closed! Montreal seems to be a pretty small downtown area, but the buildings look spectacular at night including the Molson brewery!

Road Trip Canada: Detroit to New York (1229km)

We set off the evening of sunday 22nd May from Detroit, and drove through the night a total of 1035km and reach New York by late morning, a quick tour by car, dodging the hectic chaos of taxis and busses weaving through the traffic to find the quickest route, not using indicators.

We managed to see some of the main sites thogh, like Madison Ave, Madison Ave bridge, 5th Ave, Harlem, Central Park, Empire state building, Madison square park, World trade centre site, Brooklyn bridge, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and the statue of liberty!

Detroit: The day afer and the presentaion - Sunday

Well i think everyone woke up feeling the effects off the beers etc from the previous night, and despite the bet by Oxford Brookes the previous night, we all made it to the end of the design finals for the top two cars, but more importantly to the final presentation, and free food at the GM offices! Our car finished 21st out of 140 entries, and we still holding the title of top uk team!
After all the boring presentations and awards (only boring cause we didn't win anything), and the overall bollocking for leaving the site in such a mess (for what ever muppets left a set of tyres there) we headed back to the hotel, where me and Lee bagan packing up our stuff ready to leave that night! I had a nap ready for the evenings drive and headed out to the Shopping Mall to say goodbye to detroit, and pick up a few bits and pieces!
We all ended up chatting in our room, before packing the car, and reluctantly saying goodbye to all the boys before heading to New York at 11:30pm

Detroit: Endurance, and Celebrations - Saturday

From the previous day's running in the Autocross event, we were given the 35th slot of the day for the endurance, so we were confident that we weren't going to be racing till after 12:30, so we managed a huge lie in, and made it over to the even by early afternoon, ready to finish prepping the car, with new tyres, and a fuel top up!
John and Adam used the time in the morning to scrub the tyres and get used to the car again on the test track, before topping up the fuel again ready for the endurance run! The endurance run, is a 22km race, split between the 2 drivers!
Adam took the first turn, after sunbathing and eating left over pizza(yeah.. just like a real race driver), and put in some stonking times, just a few seconds of the quickest time of the day, but they were very consistent, only beng slowed by traffic, after 11 laps, he pulled over to let john have a go, the tyres were clearly worn and john had trouble achieving the same kind of times, rubber was flicking off the tyres, and they were obviously graining as John suffered a small spin on the track, this lost him some time, but he drove the car safely to the end of the endurance!
Brookes had a fuel related problem during the endurance earlier in the day, and had caused them to drop out of the endurance right at the start, so by finishing the endurance we were very happy!
The car was re-fueled to calculate how much had been used, and the car was returned to the pits, where we bagan to pack up, the car was then taken out again for the panoramic picture of all the teams and cars - this should turn out to be a good picture!
Then like other teams we took our car out onto the huge expanse of concrete to take a few pictures of it, and also had a joint photo with the othe UK team Oxford Brookes! We return the car back to the pits, and packed it away in the race transporter, before heading off to the hotel, picking up beers on route, to drink as soon as we got back!
Once we were all ready we headed back out the "Big Bucks" for a meal we'd organised, and it turned out most other formula student teams were there too! While waiting for the table we ended up going to a tent/marquee thing in the car park, there was a band playing reggae music, so it was pretty cool, and it was funny watching drunken people try to ride the mechanical bull! So after a few more beers and a Jaeger Bomb we headed over to the resauraunt for a steak, and a good feed, and of course more drinks, if i could remember the rest i'd tell you, but you'll just have to check out the pictures!

Detroit: Acceleration, Handling and Autocross tests - Friday

Today we had earn't ourselves a lie in, after getting up so early the previous day, we got the the event around 8am, the weather was raining and wet, we were glad we'd bought some astro-turf as flooing from home harware a couple of days earlier.
The car was prepped and ready to go, so Chris, and Ant set off with the car to start the dynamic events: Chris set an excellent time in the 'skid-pan' event (a figure of 8 circuit, for testing the cornering abitily of the cars) There was alot of standing water around, and Chris did well to keep the car on the track, after this, Anthony went onto the Acceleration track to do his 2 runs, before returning to the skid pan to do his 2 runs of the day!
We held out a bit with the weather, while i took to the test track to get a feel for the car again, there was an amazing how much grip there was in the wet, in fact the car only tended to slip at the back when you came off the power, i managed to get some practise starts in, and then headed over to the acceleration track to do a couple of runs, unfortunatley there was a huge puddle right after the point where i wanted to change gear, making the runs a little interesting but i was happy with the results.
When i was done, i handed over to john and adam, so they could go to the practise area, and get used to the car in the wet, ready for their autocross event later that day. After a couple of runs the car ran out of fuel, and so it was taken to the re-fueling area to get re-fueled.
After lunch, it was the spring/Autocross event, this is a single one shot lap around a course for the quickest time. With the threat of a lightening storm later in the afternnon, John went first on what was still a damp track, and posted 2 quick times, then we held back for as long as possible for the track to dry out, before sending out Adam to do his stint, the track had dried out enough to warrant slick tyres, those of us watching from the side lines could see which cars were going quicker, and could relay messages back to those with the car, to inquire as to which cars were running on what tyres. Adam completed his runs on slicks and put in a couple of good ones, despite running wide on one of them.
By the time we got back it was quite late, and we were knackered, so we ordered in pizza to the hotel rooms, and got an early night, ready for the next day!

Detroit: Tilt, Brake, Noise and Weight tests - Thursday

Another early start leaving the hotel at 6:15, Me, Jim, John, Ant, and Lee had been elected to get to the venue first to sort ot the car to pass scrutineering, we got to the site fairly early and began to get the car ready!
At 10am, John and Anthony disappeared to do the business presentation to the judges, shortly after they returned, the wind started to pick up as a storm came in, we we're ordered to drop or tools and proceed immediately to the nearest 'storm shelter' as there was a Tornado warning! After wasting over an hour twiddling or thumbs waiting excitidly for a tornado, nothing materialised, not even rain and the wind began to die down, so we could go back to work! After lunch the car was re-scrutineered and passed with flying colours, it was then weighed, and came in at 493 pounds (223kg), 5kg lighter than last year!
The car was then fueled and taken to the tilt table, to test for leaking fluids at high cornering forces, and also the rolling point of the car! In the UK they only do the test to 45 degress, so i was a little suprised when they kept going afterwards, not to mention a little bit frightened, it went all the way to 79 degrees!45degrees79 degrees
So we passed the test, and went on to complete the noise and brake tests; the noise test is to make sure the car runs under 110dB, so as not to create too much noise pollution, we scraped in with 109dB, then we carried straight on to the brake test, again this is a bit different from the uk event, all you have to do in the uk, is lock all four wheels at the same time, end of story! But in the US you have to lock all four wheels, come to a complete stop, and then drive off again, which in theory sounds easy, but we had a problem...
I'd been worried about the clutch pedal, it seemed really sticky, upon launching the car, I was dumping the clutch and it was slipping, and the pedal was taking ages to return, thinking the cable was just trapped under the seat, we took the seat out and messed about with the routing, this seemed to look better, but actually made no difference. The problem was the car was stalling at the end of the run, despite drilling the clutch to the floor prior to diving on the brakes, once the car had stalled, i was off the brakes trying to bump start it again! I got frustrated, after the guy at the end of the course was trying to explain to me how to use a clutch, when that wasn't the problem! I knew the only way to stop it from stalling was to heel and toe it, but there was no way i could hit the brakes with enough force and not hit the throttle with the same, so i handed over to John to do the job! After a couple of attempts, he got us through the test, so we were all ready to start competing!
We decided to change the clutch cable, and found it had got too hot, and melted the inner teflon liner, cause it to stick very badly, so we change the outer, and the pedal felt like a dream afterwards.
Next was the cost presentation, this is a static event where the cost of components and labour are evaluated against the other teams, and where 2 of us had to describe the manufacuturing process of a componet on the car; Mark explained the steering wheel very well, and Adam cleared things up on the fuse front, both claiming us top marks!
Next up was th Design presentation, where the idea is to sell the car to the judges based on new innovative designs, i think the judges were more interested in facts and figures!
Later on Anthony, Chris and I attended a drivers meeting, where the design finalists were announced, we were disappointed not to be included, especially as our arch rivals Brookes had made it in.
That night we stored the car in one of the buildings, along with Helsinki, and Oxford Brookes' cars with the fear that a possible tornado could destroy all our cars. Then we set off to Hooters, to cheer us all up, i think the waitresses sorted us out!

Detroit: Setup and Scrutineering - Wednesday

And so the early monings, and the work started, we left the hotel at 6:30, arriving at the event site by 7:30, but after a lot of confusion about getting into the venue, and having to take busses, and wait for convoy escorts we didn't get to the car till 9am! We started unpacking and sorting out the car, everything had been shipped in cardboard boxes, another genius cost-cutting idea from the uni! Unfortunately some of the boxes had got wet, and disintigrated, alot of duct tape was spent over the weekind repairing the boxes!
We finally got setup under an awning, and did the little bits and pieces on the car we needed to, and were in the queue for scrutineering by around 3 (scrutineering didn't start till 4), unforunately we failed scrutineering on 3 points, none of which were too serious, but nothing we could fix that day, as one of the jobs involved welding, and the welder didn't turn up till 8 the next day!
So we packed everything up, and headed to home hardware, the US equivalent to B&Q, and picked up some bits and pieces for the car, in order to get it through scrutineering the next day!
After driving round for a bit we finally found a restaurant to eat in called Champps, after a good meal, we all headed back to the hotel, ready for another early morning!

Detroit: Recce and Early Registration - Tuesday

We got up about 8, and headed downstrair for some hotel breakfast, which wasn't anything special, just bagels and juice really, then as a team we decided we should all practise presenting the inividual components we needed to know about for the cost presentation, so we disappeared to our rooms for about 3 hours resarching various parts, before returning back downstairs to do our presentations, and for Anthony and John to run through the business presentation.

Afterwards we decided to go on a recce to find out where the proving ground was where the event was being held. Once again Anthony's navigating skills led us on a scenic tour all the way around the muddy perimeter road of the proving gound, thus leaving us with some filthy cars, and a perfect opportunity to carve ammusing words in the mud! The pontiac became a "ponce-iac" and our car evolved to a turbo with corvette ducting and aston martin trim! Well it made onlookers smile anyway!



After finding the site, and the correct way of getting in, we set off to the hotel where the judges were staying for early registration - this would save us some time the next day! After driving straight past the hotel, again under our team leader's navigation skills, we finally found where we were supposed to be. We had arrived a little early, do we headed over to "Dave&Busters" for our dinner. This is one of those american themed resaurants , but with a huge amusement arcade inside, where you simply eat, drink and play!




After eating we went to register, and then came back to "D&Bs" to play on their arcade machines - specifiacally the 8 player Daytona race game, where we managed to get the whole team on at once, i came 5th in the end, after leading at some point!

When our credit had run out we returned home for a few beers!

Detroit: Chill out day - Monday

Monday was more of a chill out day than anything else, i woke up early, something to do with the time change, and my body clock being completely out of sync. So i went out on a bit of a recce to find a supermarket, the hotel was on a crossroads, so i began to venture up each of the 4 roads. After travelling about 5miles down 3 of the roads and finding the dead centre of Auburn Hills, I still hadn't found any shops, so i set off back to the hotel! Lee was up when i got back and we went out again to find a supermarket, trying the one road i hadn't and about half a mile down there was a huge Wal-mart!
We picked up a few bits and pieces and Lee bought a wireless stick (which was such good value for money i went back and bought one for myself) for his laptop, so we could get internet acess at the hotel!
In the meantime the rest of the team had gone out to a Mall to do some shopping, when they got back, we all went out for a meal at ‘Big Bucks’ bar and grill, a steakhouse which brews its own beer! It was nice to have a propper meal, after surviving on burgers, fast food and service station sandwiches.
After the meal we went to one of the rooms, and stayed up drinking and chatting before finally turning in for the night!

Road Trip USA: Chicago to Detroit (559km)

The final leg of the trip to Detroit was a relatively short run after everything we had done before! But after a few texts to the rest of the team and finding out as we left Chicago, they were still at Niagra falls, Lee and I began to wonder if we were going to make it to Detroit before they would, after all they still had to cross the border and could expect the same sort of grilling as us! A view of Lake Michigan from the Sears Tower before we left Chicago
Unfortunately the Miller Brewing Company was closed as it was a Sunday, so we pressed on to Detroit! Lee stared the drive, and drove for 190km, before handing back over to me, where i continued the drive another 370km, to Detroit!The famous 8 mile road in Detroit, but no Eminem to be seen anywhere! It's not as rough as everyone makes it out to be though!
The Chrysler building in Detroit lit up by the sunset!
We arrived in Detroit before the rest of the team, who had flown into Canada the Day before, and stayed in Toronto! This was great, apart from the fact we had no idea where the hotel was, the best info we had was that it was an Extended stay in Auburn hills! Fortunately Lee noticed another extended stay hotel just after we left 8 mile, so I went in to get directions!
We got to the hotel first, about midnight, after the rest of the team folloing Anthony's directions got thoroughly lost (this theme from Anthony was to carry on throughout the weekend) , so we managed to get the best room before anyone else rocked up, and sort ourselves out! We just had to wait for them before we could go to bed! We spent some time chatting, chilling and catching up before turning in for the night at about 1am!

Road Trip USA: Milwuakee to Chicago (125km)

The trip from Milwaukee to Chicago was a short one, and we barely even left the suburban areas!The Chicago stop was another brief one, as we were determined to make it to Detriot that night and join the formula student boys, plus the promise of a hotel, a bed and a good nights sleep was just too much to pass up on, after having lived in the car for 3 days!A journey up the Sears tower, based on 9 columns of varing heights (no longer owned by sears after some financial history, and is now various offices), from here we experienced some magnificent views of Chicago and over lake Michigan from the 12oth floor!