Cracking Way To Spend A Fri Night In Perth

[the squiggle]

I had a mission this weekend that in the course of planning had me camping outside Gleneagles and ambushing drivers before they set out on the rally but it went as follows

Left work at 4pm and got to Broxden services for about the back of 5. Met a couple of friends from down south and proceeded to the Perth racecourse for the Scrutineering session. One of guys was Karl Allen, director of Power Supply, and it turns out that Karl is good friends with Nicky Grist. We bought a programme and headed into the foyer of the grandstand to see what was happening. I had brought a couple of items with me, last of the McRae Gathering stickers and a couple of items of Subaru clothing, hoping to get them signed by the old timers to auction off on the Prodrive site to raise more money for the charity. Whilst reading the programme inthe foyer we heard some American accents close by and Karl turned to me and said "theres Travis Pastrana over there". I turned round and Travis was standing about 6 foot away with some of his friends from across the pond. removed my jaw from the floor and plucked up the courage and approached him to ask him to sign a couple of items, told him who i was and what we done to raise money for the charity. He had heard of our event as was impressed with what took place last month and willingly signed all the items before heading upstairs to the drivers forum. Still stunned that i had met Travis Pastrana i repacked the items away in the box and took a drink of Coke. I turned to the left and there was Derek Ringer standing there slightly sozzled, so riding high after meeting TP i asked Derek if would mind signing a few items, no problem and again he had heard of our wee event and thought it was fantastic that the event happened.

Now after a damn good start we headed outside to watch the DVD that was being played on the huge Eddie Stobart screen and had a fag. We spotted two outbuilding to the side of the grandstand and wondered why all the TV guys and press guys were scurrying about in the dark. I found out, with the help of 2 jouralists from Pacenotes, that Nicky Grist was being interviewed by WRC TV and that we were in a good place to get the drivers signatures. We sat on the steps outside the pavillion and waited for Nicky to appear. About 10 mins later Nicky Grist approached us immediattly recognised Karl. Karl introduced me and asked Nicky if he could sign a couple of items. Nicky again was more than willing to put pen to the items and congratulated us on a job well done. By now we were inside the pavillion, with complimentry bar that was being well used during the course of the 2 hours we were in there for by most of the superstars. The Pavillion we sneaked into, past the burly guy on the door, was the centre for Press to conduct thier 1 to 1 interviews. We sat in the corner and one by one the old timers came up to sign the items, every single one of them had heard of the event even the non Subaru related guys like Hannu and Bjorn. The last sigs we obtained was that of Jimmy McRae and Ari Vatenan and we even held up Ari's appearance on the forum by asking him to sign just one more item. Ari being a gentleman and a scholer duly obliged and even stuck in "a little love heart for your wife" above his signature. After we accomplished mission superstar we proceeded upstairs to catch the end of the forum with Jimmy, DR and Ari all giving some good banter.

Now the fruits of the nights labour

All will be available to bid on via the Prodrive website soon along with some other tasty items.

After the excitment of a once in a lifetime experience we proceeded to our 6 star hotel located in the racecourse car park where we dined on cold pizza and Gav told us stories of his Prodrive days. After we had constructed my 6 star accomadation we went on to make "friends" with a fat drunk Irishman who proceeded to do his best to keep everyone in a 100 mile radius amused with his songs all night long.

Duly found out upon arrival at Marriot Perth that i had split a top radiator hose on the journey up from Glasgow and was looking at having to repair said hose prior to heading out to the stages. Thanks to the help of Gav and Scoobykev and the fact i keep a spare top hose in the car my car was fixed while my back was turned in the car park of John Weir Mercedes in Perth

Most surreal experience of the night was talking to Paul Howarth, after i walked up to him and said "sorry if this is mistaken identity but are you Steve Howarth, as in SWRT Tech director", he replied "yes i am but my name is Paul Howarth", (oh how i laughed nervously at this faux pax). Whilst talking to Steve, sorry Paul Howarth about the current WRC situation there was Travis Pastrana on the phone leaving an answer phone message to one of Karls mates and Ken Block next to me signing the items i had brought along.

Sorry if this annoys you but it was Ari Vatenan, not Ari Kloon, that said to me last Fri night that you should never name drop but Hannu and Travis strongly disagreed and said to me that i should name drop at every possible oppertunity. Bjorn Waldegard and DR pointed out that i should stop just before the point of everyone wanting to lynch me and cut off my tongue.

Greatest night of my life and i wanted to put it down in writing for posterity

Now feel free to tell me to shut the f%$£ up and please form an orderly queue to sock me in the mouth

[~ ~ Cal ~~]

Sheer and utter dedication to the end............one questions remains :- have you washed your right mitt since you shook the hands of such legends Grant ?

Sterling effort and loved how you went from VIP to Millets dome tent !

Cal

[wilky]

Superb Grant, you earned it.

Enjoy, it will stay with you forever.

Callum W

[jimser]

awesome effort mate

im sure you'll be rewarded with plentiful young virgins when your final calling

comes from up above...............................amen

[marky.t.s]

Superb Grant, you earned it.

Enjoy, it will stay with you forever.

Callum W

,well done mate.

[scouk]

Grant... The up most respect to you mate!

Well done!

Can you ever see yourself stopping these Antics? I sure hope not! 110% for effort!

[kloon]

Excellent stuff Grant, you deserve a knighthood for all the sterling work you've done sir.

Surprised you declined to mention any of this while we were all in Craigvinean though . . . . .

PS I WILL make up for the lack of "rowies" yesterday.

[JohnSt]

im sure you'll be rewarded with plentiful young virgins

Is there such a thing in Paisley Heaven ?

Sounds like you had a cracker Grant !!!

[scoobykev]

Geez Grant, you never said yesterday. Your tales of star spotting would have kept us thoroughly entertained

Fantastic job sir

[st3ph3n]

Nice one Grant. You name drop all you want mate. I've been telling my Paul Newman story for the last day or so.

[empty_heed]

sounds amazing

[the squiggle]

awesome effort mate

im sure you'll be rewarded with plentiful young virgins when your final calling

comes from up above...............................amen

If you mean virgins like this then no thanks

[jimser]

If you mean virgins like this then no thanks

my illusions of the afterlife have just been shattered

[jac]

Brilliant Grant, your dedication to the cause is awesome

[karps]

ffs Grant why didnt you tell us about this on Saturday

[gus the bus]

Utterly superb Grant. Deffo a night to remember for ever

[johnnyr6]

Excellent work good sir, you deserve a medal.

Johnny

[nkwrx]

Well done indeed Grant. A night like that couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy

[seafar99]

Can't believe we sat on that hillside and you never cracked a light!

[the squiggle]

Some more images the guys from Mediaworld.ie sent me

[craigdmcd]

Grant, you may well have have got a bundle of goodies signed by some of the greats (there will be a 22B sitting idling for you at the gates of heaven when your time comes fo the work you have done selflessly), but I don't think any of the stuff going for auction will ever be as good as the memory you have of getting the signatures - that will stay with you forever. Well done Sir, we all admire you for your hard work and dedication.

[thefastone]

Grant. You are an utter legend, for everything that you have done for the cause, You deserved this... I think that this was possibly the best reward that you could have ever have gotten for your efforts the past year. (Shame Imy wasn't there to share it with you though...)

Well done to the end!!!

Edited September 30, 2008 by thefastone

[micra_wrc]

... (Shame Imy wasn't there to share it with you though...)

har!

he didnt seem that concerned that I couldnt get through to Perth in time on the Fri

i heard all about it for the past 2 days... and he even held up the tv interviews and the media as the celebs were signing the stuff on their way 'to' the interviews

to be fair he really was prepared to camp outside the hotel he thought they would all be staying at to get their signatures on our gear so I'm really chuffed that the autograph session happened in such a civilised way!

[gambler]

Good effort

The guy who does all the work on my car was looking after Block and Pastranas cars at the weekend. Mainly blocks car. Think he had a bit of an off on practice.

He said they were both thoroughly nice guys and very down to earth. Good to see them in mk2's

[thefastone]

was Pastrana (Even my spell checker is calling him pastrami!!!) not in a mk.I? that was an awesome sight! didn't see much of ken block, but just the glimpse was enough, Nice!