First Round: The bowling bangers stunt
Arrival.
We landed at Luton airport on the Tuesday lunchtime, then drove to the scrap yard in Woking. As we were getting close to Woking, we found that the RDF directions weren’t the best, i.e take the third exit from the roundabout when there were only two exits, that sort of thing. Jimmy said that he had better directions in his shoulder bag. He pulled the car over, and I went to the boot for his bag, and …… it was not there. Passport, mobile, digital camera, paperwork all gone! Cue stage left, panic. We need our passports or we can’t get home.
We eventually found the scrapheap where we were met by Naomi, and explained Jimmy’s predicament. Naomi said she would get on the case with Marie in the office. We were rushed into the green room to get our overalls on, to do our ‘mood’ through the smoke intro shots. But all we were interested in was Jimmy’s bag. As a subnote watch David’s individual shot as the smoke clears, we were prancing behind the camera like loonies, with him trying to look serious at the camera and doing everything to stop grinning.
As we were leaving to go back to the hotel mid afternoon, we met our opposition. We knew of some of the other teams, a bunch of guys from offshore, some scientists from Scotland, and a team of female royal electrical mechanical engineers. The ones we didn’t want were the marines, not because they were female and we’d cop loads of flak if we lost, but they’re army engineers, hard as nails, do this sort of stuff for a living and compared to us looked like they knew what they were about. Who steps out of the car just as we leave, but the three girls, Gina, Mandy and Claire, bugga.
We then went back to the hotel to try and ring airports, police and passport agencies. We were feeling a bit more secure as Marie and Naomi were also on the case. After a couple of beers at the bar wondering what we were going to do, I had to go off and film my intro piece as I was ill when everyone came over to Geneva. I got back to the hotel an hour or so later and after a few more beers kept trying Jimmy’s mobile phone. On the 151st attempt at ringing his phone, someone picked up. Here is how the conversation went.
Ali: Hello
X: Hello????
Ali: You’ve found our green bag then?
X: Yes I have it.
Ali: Where are you?
X: London
Ali: Did you steal it?
I know it wasn’t the politest thing to say, remember I’d been drinking for a few hours.
Anyway the long and short of it, we think one of us left it on the roof of the car and a nice Irish guy called Sandy found it on the side of the road. To top it all he only lived just round the corner from the RDF offices, so they sent a courier round to pick it up and Jimmy had it back the next day.
Anyway we then met our expert Graham and the Girl’s, Pete. We had seen from previous years diaries’ that they tried to get info out of the expert, but we said from the outset, that we were not interested in what they did or what we had to do the next day. The reason it would make it harder for them to enjoy themselves if they were constantly on the guard for question. Who cares we’d find out tomorrow anyway (not that we understood it when we did find out). We then had a meeting with the serious producer, Gina turned up with a pair “who’s your daddy” sized fake breast on. Mandy with a great set of false teeth and all of us went, “Can’t remember her being that ugly”. We knew this was going to be a laugh,
During the meeting most of got the impression that the crew was a little bit worried that we just weren’t taking it serious enough. After their speech they went round the corner into their little corner, so that left us, the girls, the experts and the newly arrived judge Richard, to have a few drinks. We all hit it off and had a great time, with constant reminders from the crew that it was an early start tomorrow, 6:20am. For us that wasn’t a problem as Geneva is an hour ahead of the UK so we’d be getting up at 7:20 our time, and for the girls it didn’t matter either. 6:20 they’d have got up, done a 15 mile tab, stripped the gun out of a tank, and put it all back together again before they’d even think of breakfast.
After copious amounts of beer, and Pete insisting he couldn’t drink another gin n tonic, before having his arm twisted about half a dozen times, we went to bed.
Build Day
We turned up, ate well, told what we had to do, Graham saved us and built it all, then we went home 18 hours later, very very tired.
We arrived at the scrapheap at about 6:45 and had to go straight to the green room to get our overalls on, and get our microphones put on. The weather forecast for the day was thoroughly miserable, rain, rain and maybe some more rain. We asked about waterproofs but were told they had to be worn under our overalls.
We then where introduced to the emporium of cooked english breakfast, the location catering crew. As you will have read in previous diaries, this food is good, also it’s free and you can eat as much as you like. Legendary stuff after a night on the pop.
We were then taken into the scrapheap to film the intro totem pole piece, this is the bit where Robert and Lisa announce what is happening in a cryptic way. We re-filmed this bit with the run back to our individual yards three times, and each time the expression on our faces got blanker. You want us to build what??? A bowling ball??? Giant skittles???
Graham then came into his own and to our rescue. The night before he’d been just one of the guys having a beer, at that moment, he grew before us into the font of all knowledge, as he told us he designed and built gyroscopic fairground rides.
Even now I can’t explain the idea and what was required clearly. I know what we built, how we built it, but if you ask me to explain it no chance, but I’ll give it a try.
The task was to go ten pin bowling with a monster ‘ball’ and that whatever powered the ‘ball’ had to be within it when as it crossed the foul line.
Graham came up with the idea of welding a car into a large hamster cage with the bottom cut off, the car would drive down the alley, and at the foul line the driver would hit the brakes and a counter weight would throw the car over, a ‘mechanism’ would click into place completing the circle and send the car rolling down the alley at the skittles. See simple eh?
We then set out what was required,
1 car
20m of box steel
enough steel for cross bracings
1 miracle.
Graham and I then started getting the tools out and discussing what was going to be done, or sorry I should re-phrase that, we started getting the tools out, pretending I knew what we were talking about. Not long after David and Jimmy brought the car in, a little Fiat 126 that would soon become the worlds greatest Noddy car. David then went back out to look for steel to make the two rings. We then set about the car, Jimmy broke the steering lock off and got the car started, we’d only been going an hour, and we already had a working car. Things were going so well back then. David then brought back loads of steel of different sizes. I then had to make a command decision and poor old David got the short straw but did it without any complaints. He had to take all 20m of box steel and cut it almost through every 4cm with a circular saw. This was to make it flexible so we could get our radius to make the rings. After 10 minutes of not being able to think with David at it with the circular saw, we sent him and the saw out into the yard.
At this point we all stripped and got rid of our waterproofs, as it was too hot working with waterproofs under the overalls, stuff the rain, and whether there were cameras around or not.
Next was to think about cutting the car down to size. I cut the roof off, and Jimmy and Graham cut the middle section out, then welded the two halves of it back together again.
We then stopped for lunch, and went through to the other side and ate with the girls. They had nothing, except a few bits of metal and an old moped. Our Noddy car was almost ready to go, David was going great guns with the rings, maybe we could beat them?
The afternoon disappeared in a blur. The car was welded back together but the gears, brake and clutch assembly started taking up too much time to put back together. The rings then started to take up time, my welding proved rubbish, Graham said it looked similar to bird s**t, so he had to start welding. This took him away from the car. It was about this time we coined an expression which shall be henceforth known as ‘The Wander’. This phenomena comes about when you have a camera sticking in your face, your getting tired, everyone else is busy, and you have suddenly finished your job. You then wander from one spot, stop, think “what am I doing?”, wander back all the time trying not to appear as though you have nothing to do or being lazy. Graham by this point had saved me and we were all following his lead, as he was the man in the know. What did three technical engineers from a nuclear research installation know about building bowling ball cars anyway?
David then finished the cutting of the rings, with help from Jem, did his ‘wander’, then stepped up to the fore. With half an hour welding experience under his belt started welding like he was born to it. The rings were coming together, was it possible it might actually work? I had marked a template arc on the bench, Graham then welded the first one, and then David just welded the next one on top of it and so on.
At one point one of us took a look next door to see how ‘they’ were doing and it was like a mad man had been let loose in there. All I can say is it looked like some medieval torture device with a moped welded into the middle. They were miles ahead of us now
At this point I have no idea what went on, all I remember is grinding, cutting, gas axing, and then all of us standing holding bits in place as Graham and Jimmy went round welding it all together. And through it all was this one little voice in the back of our heads that kept going “Teams you have three hours, two hours, one hour, times up” Bugga.
We’d done it, a car welded to a hamster cage. With a bit more work in the “one hour” tinkering time, securing the welds, and getting the roll mechanism latch to work, we’d be ready to race.
I can honestly say I have never been so tired.
Safety Day
Eat and sleep or in David’s case, try and study with arc eye.
After a late rise Jimmy and I went out for a pub lunch whilst David stayed back at the hotel studying for his degree. I then went to bed at 2 in the afternoon and got up again at 7:30 where like déjà vu we met the girls at the bar again. We started at this point getting concerned, where was Graham and the head of safety, Hadrian, was our vehicle that unsafe? As it turns out our welds needed to be done properly not just tacked, so they spent most of the day making it safe and sorting the welds, 500+.
Graham turned up at 2 in the morning, not best pleased. God did we feel guilty!
Race Day
We left the hotel at 6:30 the next morning to go to an airfield nr Banbury. There we were greeted by our contraptions from two days previous. Also after another evening of shandies with the other team, expert, judge and one or two of the crew, the catering van was there. Oh the joy, please remember we do not live in the UK, we do not have access to normal bread, bacon is a luxury that has to be brought out when relatives visit, and HP sauce, oh the sheer bliss of it all. To top it all it was promising to be a cracking day, the weather was great.
It’s amazing the amount of work you can do in a hour when you put your minds to it. (yeah right!!) The car was fully welded together, the new catch mechanism was devised, and the car had a few bits and pieces painted. It was ready to go.
The girls went first but had problems starting their instrument of torture, now suitably bedecked with the REME flag. They had to be pushed up to the start line, then they were off, the first attempt. Their torture device drove up to the foul line and continued straight on, coming to a screeching halt just before the pins. Claire couldn’t get the mechanism to make it roll operate. Their second attempt, they drove up to the line, metal screeching again, over the foul line, but she wasn’t in control and drove straight through the skittles. The third attempt after a bit of tinkering to try and get the mechanism to work ended the same as the first.
So it was up to us, to either win it or leave it in the hands of the judge.
With Jimmy at the wheel as the only one who could fit in the car, we decided to drive from where the car had been ‘tinkered’ on up to the start line. The car started and pulled away perfectly with no problems, amazing after all the work that had be done, and the fact it had a ton hamster cage on its little back. Jimmy was under orders for the first run by the head of safety, to take it easy. This thing was built by a load of bodgers and designed on the back of a cigarette packet in theory it was doomed. The first run Jimmy pulled away from the line, and hit the brakes as he approached the foul line, the car stopped, started to roll as the counterweight took over and then sat back down on it’s wheels. More speed was needed, but we knew it was almost perfectly balanced.
He took a longer run up on the second attempt and as Jimmy approached the line he slammed on the brakes and the car started to roll, the ‘mechanism’ kicked in completing the circle and the car was nose down to the ground, but it just rolled back and sat there, we knew the ‘mechanism’ worked. We called the fire brigade boys in and filled the variable counterweight with water, and gave Jimmy the order to gun it on the last run, it was all or nothing.
With an even longer run up, water streaming from the counterweight, Jimmy accelerated towards the line. Getting to around 30 ish mph, he slammed on the brakes at the line and the car flipped, ‘mechanism’ kicked in, counterweight rolled over, and it was off!!! Dead on the 1 pin ploughing through the pins to a stop and then rolled on to it’s side taking even more pins out. We’d won, 7 pins on the last run.
And that as they say is that, we were through to the next round.
Thanks to the oppo, great laugh and made the whole thing a lot more enjoyable. To the guys behind the scenes Hadrian, Jem n Zimmer we literally couldn’t have done it without you guys. Thanks to Sandy for being an honest gentleman and saving the week for us, and Naomi, Marie and Megan for everything you did to get the bag back for us.