ED Memories: August 5, 2023

Saturday, August 5, 2023

I'm up early today because we are about to get on the road for the Malojapass on the way to the Nurburgring, only 4 days left with the cars and we intend to make the most of them.

It's Mum's birthday so I must remember to text her - she should be out here on these roads having a blast with us!

Interesting note, the Beyond the Grid podcasts episodes I downloaded in France have French ads in them while the ones I downloaded in Italy have Italian ads in them, inserted in the ad spaces. Interesting. As we get underway, I'm listening to a Charles Leclerc podcast with him playing the piano - he's a beginner - and it's very funny.

Chris is trying the Cayman first thing, so it's nice and calm to start, and I find myself easing into it just the way I like. I think it's why I wasn't usually very good qualifier in karting, especially compared to Andrew. It just takes me a while to get confident. But hey, with such an expensive sports car under my control, nothing wrong with a little prudence and caution.

We are on our way up to the Maloja Pass, which was a huge highlight for us in 2018. Another set of absolutely spectacular curves with perfect asphalt. Years after we went there the first time we would still talk about it, and we knew that on this trip we would have to take the red beauties there.

Unfortunately - frustratingly - the weather isn't cooperating right now, as it is raining, hard! We stop for breakfast at the hotel at the top of the pass while we check the forecast and decide to wait for the rain to pass … with a bit of luck will get a weather window here.

While we eat (yet another) excellent breakfast, we have some 'total distance' discussions. I am pretty panicky at first as I think Andrew is indicating we will be travelling some huge increase in distance over the 6000 km limit we were told we had to stay under in order to avoid paying the European VAT (value added tax). I know Andrew considers it extremely low risk that we would have to pay that at all if we exceeded the limit, but since we are talking about thousands of dollars, I am essentially NO risk. I do NOT want to go over and I press my point pretty firmly. I can tell Andrew is a bit frustrated by me and my desire to adhere to that. If it came to it, I would have to consider us separating and meeting up at the drop-off point, in order to keep my car under that limit. It wouldn't be the best for the GTS Chronicles but it is a risk I literally cannot afford to take. Andrew senses that and to his credit he is gracious about it and sets about calculating the distances we have left.

After breakfast, while still waiting, for the clouds to part, we spend our time walking down and up part of the pass to check it out for filming locations. This means finding good positions for cameras and, most importantly, turn-around points. Always tricky in a pass, but as it happens, this particular pass is smooth and super-wide, with paved pull-off points. Perfect for us. It's because it is a super-busy pass so there needs to be room for slower traffic to step out of the way - not that everyone complies!

The rain has eased off now and the sun is actually drying a part of the road, so a little bit of good luck on our side - I'll take it! Andrew gets some amazing drone footage and then we start some up and down runs to capture different angles and elements. Amazing stuff. The low-end pull of the 718 is very handy for hauling a— out of a tight hairpin, and the sound as the revs climb is glorious.

Once again, behind the wheel of my impressive Teutonic piece of engineering, I'm in seventh heaven - automotive Nirvana!

From there, moving on to the last pass of the trip, we hit the Julierpass. This one is wide open country - high up, a huge broad pass between two rough peaks. There's a cold wind blowing quite strongly, so coats are in order. But it IS sunny, with a few clouds around, and only a few spots of rain. Time to get some more great shots!

Heated seats and steering wheel make it all rather comfortable, and my grin is wide as we set up the gimbal on the side of the Cayman for some car-to-car footage. This will look extremely 'pro''. This is we're having our reference photos from our gear set up session with Steve back in Ottawa pays us dividends. Makes mounting cameras onto cars rock-solidly much easier than trying to figure it out in the moment.

Even so, it takes a long time to set things up properly, and several runs to get things all working, but in the end it's worth it. The camera rig transfers to my car easily, and we do a few more runs filming Andrew's car too. Altogether, it's two hours of work, so we need to get moving if we don't want to be driving at night, all tired from the day.

With that solid work done, we are in great spirits as we head to the Austrian border for our hotel. A bit of a longer drive, because we spent so much time up in the pass, but that's OK. I had a good brunch at the hotel at the top of the Maloja Pass, and just now stopped for a bite near Lenz in Switzerland, so I think I probably will skip a big dinner tonight.

By early evening we make it to Dornbirn in Austria, so only about 500 kms to go tomorrow to Nurburg, woot woot! I chow down on a BIG SALAD for dinner and it feels great after snacking on bread and cheese during the day. I need the greens, yum!

We huddle around the table and spend a bit of time reviewing the footage from the day - there's some really good stuff in there and I can't wait to see it on a bigger screen. I'm bubbling with anticipation for tomorrow and the ‘Ring, and especially for Monday which will see us mountain biking around the track interior and then more lapping at the end of the day.

~ Luke

p.s. You can read the full, no-holds-barred accounting of this day at gtschronicles.com.