Road Trip to Essen, and...

[pkracer21j]

The Ring, Amsterdam, St. Anton, etc
Fellow pelican JuiceRSR and myself had the bright idea a few months ago over a few beers of how cool it would be to do a road trip to Techno Classica in Essen Germany. Starting from his house in Sicily just off the old Targa Florio circuit, with all the stops along the way, it had good time written all over it! What better way to start then with a drink to celebrate our holiday away from America. As it turned out, we just so happened to have a bar right across from our terminal leaving RDU! And it begins…





Funniest corn cob I’ve ever seen in an airport…

[pkracer21j]

The best part of the international flights is….Open Bar!





And since we somehow caught the most boring red eye to Rome, we started roaming around the plane in search of something entertaining; little did we know the stewardesses were looking for the same thing, it turned out to be a pretty fun flight.



WINNING!!!

[pkracer21j]

Catching the Sun coming up on us after getting 30min of sleep on the plane...





We arrived in Palermo Sicily just before lunch and were greeted at the airport by Justin’s friend Mimo, super nice guy updating us on everything that’s been happening in Sicily while we’ve been away. We quickly found ourselves relaxing the afternoon away with our local friends at the café in the center of Caccamo while waiting on Tony, a friend of Justin’s who doubles as the caretaker of his Targa while he’s away. Around 3 in the afternoon, we heard the flat six faintly through the Sicilian countryside, it slowly became louder and one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard is an uncorked flat six echoing through the cobblestone streets of Caccamo. What a sight it must have been to see the Targa Florio in all its glory! Tony showed up with Justin’s targa, just serviced and Freshly repainted. Not a scratch, chip, or swirl mark on her…yet, haha

[pkracer21j]

Tony and I with the Targa...


Applying the Sponsers Graphics...







almost done...



what better place to work then the church parking lot???

[pkracer21j]

The Sun went down on us, so it was back to the Garage for the Hard Parts Install.
Gettin there

Almost

Victory!


roughly 9pm on day of arrival to Caccamo...Escape from Sicily!

[pkracer21j]

Stretching our legs for a bit on the ferry that took us from Sicily to mainland Italy.



Our first fill up in mainland Italy...$$$

[tharbert]

What an epic trip! I'm looking forward to this. I drove from Comiso Sicily to Bitburg Germany many moons ago. I ended up taking the ferry to Northern Italy. I've always regretted not touring the length of the country. In my defense, my wife was 7 months pregnant and in no mood to add any more time to the trip and I certainly didn't drive a Porsche back then. Good luck and take lots of pictures!

[juicersr]

Now that the hangover from two weeks of daily 120-140mph blasting, multilple run-in's with the Italian cops, Ring running, partying in Amsterdam, and no sleep in general has abated, we can finally get around to posting stuff up. If u got a mongrel 911 SC targa RSR hanging out at ur place in Sicily, a need to test some performance 911 parts, and Europe's biggest vintage Porsche trade show calling in the north, what r u gonna do?? Fkn right, road trip, that's what.

[pkracer21j]

After driving till about 2am, we were getting pretty beat, so decided it would be best to get a room and get a couple hours of sleep. We pulled off the autostrada into the seaside town of Salerno in Southern Italy. We weren’t in town for more than 5 minutes looking for a Hotel when we had our first run in with the Carabinieri …err, Italian police. I swear there has to be an international memo out somewhere telling cops where I’ll be and what kind of Porsche I’m in. So we’re pulled over, and the cops ask us for our passports, and driver’s licenses, etc. of course we don’t have Italian driver’s licenses and our car has American plates on it. The cops have our wallets and passports in hand, and tell us to follow them, what follows is Getaway in Salerno, except the cops are the ones trying to get away…Kind of a role reversal for me when I have to chase down the police. How cool is that?

[pkracer21j]

In Juices sleep deprived state, he handed them the registration to his 934 instead of his Targa, and numbers didn’t match, and the language barrier didn’t help. The Targa was impounded overnight, and the police took us to a hotel.
The next morning we had figured out all the problems and with a few calls to Franco, Juices friend in Sicily to translate for us a potential 3000euro fine went down to a 38euro fine. And we we’re back on our way to Rome.

[pkracer21j]

Not even 3 hours down the road we had our First encounter with the Polezia Stradale…or Italian Highway Patrol. After being detained for another 3 hours, we were let go with no fines. we did have to give away a couple D-Z T shirts though.

[pkracer21j]

Continuing on our way to Rome, cruising around 120mph the car suddenly died. We pulled over and went to work, the polizia stradale showed up a few minutes later, this time here to help. They towed us to a SOS pull off area that was a safe location to work on the car. After checking connections and fuses and spark and fuel, we couldn’t find a roadside fix. Our coil was bad….err, our Slovakian coil was bad. Juices bambino was dead in the water. The bright side of this was we were broke down in Tuscany! Things could always be worse…

Broke down under a Tuscan Sun...


For once its someone else under their decklid instead of me under mine...

Being towed to Safety!


waiting..



The village where mucho vino was consummedo.

[michael pagano]

nice helmet and from the look of it, a awesome trip! I race maranello kart by the way, an off brand of the CRG you seem to race from your visor strip.

[pkracer21j]

Thank you, I remember Maranello Karts...I stopped racing in 2001, My visor strip is a reminder of great times these days. I started racing for tonykart and JM racing. then got picked up by SSC/CRG then PSL/CRG racing in SKUSA formula S1. I miss those days.

[juicersr]

With two BS pullovers by the cops and a breakdown due to a crappy czech/slovakian coil that had somehow found it's way under my hood, by the road trip gods, things could only get better. Like Muller and Van Lennep running the RSR flat out in the 73 Lemans under orders of Fuhrmann 'or else', it was time to put the hammer down on the old girl. And with a proper Bosch coil providing spark, the 3.2SS put the bit between her teeth and ran flawlessly.

Pete and i flogged her mercilessly and she loved it, averaging well over 100+ as we destroyed the miles past Florence, Modena and Verona into the pass through the western dolomites into Austria.... and finally into Deutschland herself








And THIS is why i truly love Europe...(well, besides the food, culture and art completely lacking in this country outside of NYC) but intelligent people with intelligent laws about driving that allow you to drive the way u are capable of to get to your destination. this is Nirvana for me.

[juicersr]

Well, we finally made it into Koln (also known as Cologne to americans) Sat morning at 1am, still jacked from the day's ride, checked into our hotel... and then proceeded to find some cold beverages. Needless to say, we ended up doing a tequila sunrise with some of the locals. the Kebab and schnitzel shops are quite good in the city at 6am.

Koln, if u have never been there, is a beautiful city on the Rhine river that suffered the same fate of a lot of cities in the Ruhr during WW2 and was bombed extensively, then rebuilt. Still, a lot of the old city, including the magnificent cathedral, still remain.

We crashed a couple of hours, then showered, put on our Essen duds, and actually did some sightseeing





And then it was on to the road to Essen, about an autobahn half hour away.......

[t6dpilot]

Another juicy road trip thread by the Juice! And I thought keeping a car in CA was the bomb for Porsche blasts. Nope, you are living the dream. Keep 'em comin'

[pkracer21j]

Juice feeling his tequila sunrise as we gassed up to go to Essen.

[Sigurd]

Great road trip!

However, the fuel you are filling is only comperable to 90 octane US gas, ((ron+mon)/2). You should find RON 99 octane (US approx 93) at the same Aral station.

[kiwiokie]

Hard to get for enough back to photograph the Dom! What is www.dzug.us?