In search of Petrolhead Nirvana

Today marks the start of the 2010 Petrolhead Nirvana tour season and it’s kicking off in grand style with a luxury road trip to the South of France and back over 6 glorious days, via some of the very best roads France has to offer, including the legendary dawn climb to the summit of Mont Ventoux and the drive across (and under) the Millau Bridge amongst many hundreds of miles of challenging but ultimately rewarding strips of tarmac.

The immense feeling of pride I have today, knowing that Petrolhead Nirvana continues to go from strength to strength while maintaining the core ethos that I imbued into it of  ‘It’s the Driver, not the car that counts’ is palpable. This feeling of pride is, I’m suprised to find, marginally tempered by the fact that this is the very first tour that I’m not out on the road with. I know that Pete will be an excellent tour manager, I know that the tour will be impeccably run, I know that the people on tour will have a fantastic time, I know that the hotels, food and roads are second to none.

It’s just that… well… I love driving. I love sharing my knowledge and passion when on tour, from the driver’s briefing first thing in the morning, to the various stops along the way, assisting the drivers, calling ahead to hotels to check parking, organising lunch stops etc etc, basically I love Petrolhead Nirvana. The feeling is ‘probably’ akin to a father sending his child off to the first day of school.. I say ‘probably’ as my child is currently making progress through France en-route to a great hotel within a former Abbey on the banks of the river Loire for an evening of fine dining and drivers storytelling and won’t be back for nearly a week!

Although I’m sorely missing the buzz of this trip already, I can console myself with the fact that I’m taking my wife on the exact same road trip, mile for mile, at the end of next week in the TVR for her 40th birthday. It’ll be a brilliant trip I know, but somehow not seeing a gaggle of machinery weaving it’s way through France in my rear view mirror will be a bit odd to begin with…. but I’m sure that’ll soon wear off.

On 30th December  members of Petrolhead Nirvana, Fueltopia and Pistonheads met at the Ace Cafe in London for our last drive together in 2009.  Getting into the festive spirit we loaded our cars up with toys and headed across London to the Shooting Star Hospice in Hampton.

The Shooting Star Children’s Hospice provides care, support and advice for children and young people with life-limiting conditions and their families. These care services are offered free of charge to families, 365 days a year across the western half of London and north Surrey. The care services are based around the needs of the whole family, so as well as caring for the children and young people, there are activities for siblings and support groups for parents and grandparents. This makes a real difference to families who find themselves in unimaginable circumstances helping them live life to the full by providing opportunities for fun and laughter, as well as helping them through the tougher times.  Shooting Star House provides expert care throughout the course of a child’s illness and in the final stages of their life, supporting the family at all times.

Despite the bad weather we had a good turn out of cars and received a warm welcome from the staff and children at Shooting Star who all wanted to take turns sitting in the cars, beeping the horns and hearing the engines rev. I think the smiles say it all.

Pete worked out an excellent route from the Ace avoiding the motorways as much as possible and Phoenix Green certainly lived up to the “weird and unusal” tag with a huge variety of fun, interesting, classic and, in some cases, quite frankly just odd vehicles which made everyone smile.

The Massif Bridge to Ventoux Tour – Take Two  |  Day Three

There’s nothing like this. Waking to the sound of the jade-green River Tarn rolling by, and the sweet scent of fresh bread and strong coffee. This place is fast becoming our second home – who could ask for more?

Today, we’ll be heading for Mont Ventoux in a very round-a-bout sort of way, via the famous Millau Viaduct. We’ll be taking the group through the twisty valleys before lunch at our friendly restaurant in Le Vigan (for something other than pizza).

This Friday, we’ll be off on The Massif Bridge to Ventoux Tour once again. Hence the 3 am laundry session this morning. The suitcase is out and just begging to be filled, and the tux is ready for collection from the dry cleaner today. I can’t wait to do it all over again.

Last time, we had some trouble with wi-fi connections at our hotels – but with luck, we’ll be able to post a daily report for those of you who really wanted to come but couldn’t make it. Watch this space!

Months ago, we began to help organise another ride-in-a-supercar day event for Little Havens Hospice, working closely with the indefatigable Jason Curtis with a view to raise some cash for kids. With some legwork, Bachi took the lead and gathered a motley bunch of supercars and friends, who jumped at the chance to take part. All we had asked for was a donation of time; something all these lovely kids had become short of.

So last Sunday, we woke at the crack of dawn and headed for Ford’s test track in Dunton to begin the day. Thanks a great team of volunteers from Ford, all we had to do was enjoy the fruits of our labour.

As Nancy said at the end of the day, we’re in awe of everyone that turned up and made the day – thank you all for your support and selflessness. We could not have done it without you.

The rest of our pictures are up on our Flickr Group – enjoy!

I’ve been working at Petrolhead Nirvana for a month now and I figured it was time to introduce myself.

My name’s Pete and I’m a Petrolhead.

I actually come from an IT background, but have known the team at PhN for a few years and have been involved in “the scene” for quite a while – lots of people may well know me as VerySideways

So what’s my remit, what’s my purpose in life? Well, for one thing, to make Petrolhead Nirvana the very best driving tour company in the UK (if not the world!). To that end we’re preparing for a very exciting 2010, as you can see for yourself here.

Now there’s an opportunity here – if you’d like to add your input to the calendar, and thereby influence where we all go on tour next year (and for many years after!) you can add your suggestions to this thread.

In the meantime, I look forward to questions, comments, and feedback

The last time it was seen was at Goodwood Festival of Speed. The time before that was as it flew around the Nurburgring in a scorching time (I’m talking about it lapping in under 8 minutes, not when it caught fire at the 24 hour race…) So it was with great pleasure that Bachi and I were invited by the guys at Pistonheads to view the Lexus LF-A race car on a wet summer’s day last week.

We had gone along with the outside hope that we might have had the opportunity to give the car a spin, or at least sit in it. It isn’t often you get to blast a 550 bhp, 4.8L V10 ‘supercar’ around Goodwood. Sadly, it really isn’t often, as although we got to see the car and watch it (and hear it) go around the track, we weren’t actually allowed to sit in it. Never mind – beggars can’t be choosers.

Because of the limits on how close we could get to the car, as well as on what we could be officially told about it’s impending production (or not, as the case may be), it was quite difficult to form an opinion on it. The rumour was that if the LF-A were to go into production (which, of course, they couldn’t confirm), then it would be sold at more than the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 Roadster or a Ferrari 599 GTB – certainly a different customer base than what Lexus is used to. The further rumour was production (which may or may not happen) would be limited to only a few hundred, of which only several would arrive in the UK. Exclusive indeed.

With that in mind, the group of us prepared ourselves. And there is no doubt it was a lovely car. It sounded good (although I would still rather listen to the Le Mans Corvettes – but then that was me) and when it wasn’t being stopped or slowed on the track for photo opportunities or sound restrictions, it went well. But I do think that Lexus are being ambitious with the proposed price. People will pay for exclusivity, but the brand needs to denote some measure of that exclusivity before. Lexus are known for their solid but affordable luxury saloons – not their £250,000 supercars. If this car goes into production, they have a bit of marketing to do.

Although the day wasn’t a complete disappointment…Paul and Chris from Pistoheads drove down in a 2009 S2000 and the new Ford Focus RS. Throwing us the keys, Bachi and I had a chance to rag them drive them sedately around the surrounding roads. I drove away feeling smug that my 2002 S2000 was a smoother drive than the 09 (and the lack of low down torque was still a problem) and Bachi screamed off in his super-loud 360, confident in the fact he wasn’t going to trade it in for a front wheel drive hatch that had as serious problem with torque steer.

You sometimes need to try something new to know how good you have already got it.

The Littlehavens Childrens Hospice in Essex asked for our help with a couple of their charity events, more specifically their ‘ride in a supercar’ days. The big one is on September 6th…more of that later, the other one was last sunday (July 12th)

Early on Sunday morning, Nancy and I got into Atom and the 360 respectively (it seems I’ve lost ownership of the little Ariel) and headed down through the city making some rather nice noises. As we drove a few people stopped and listened to the sound of the 360′s Capristo Stage 2. Some even waved at either me or Nancy in the Atom, so naturally we waved back, it was a beautiful sunny morning.

Sadly one such wavee wasn’t actually waving as I found out 2 minutes later. The Capristo sound was joined by a multitude of sirens as 3 cars carrying armed city police surrounded me as I waited at a set of traffic lights.

I was told to turn the engine off, give him the keys and get out of the car.
Slightly confused and wondering if car jackers had become more sophisticated I did so, asking what was going on. The response was that I had failed to stop, which confused me even more as I was already stationary when they arrived.

It appeared that one of the people waving was actually a beat bobby who had taken exception to the noise (has he no soul?) and had motioned me to stop. My waving back was apparently not an appropriate response and so he had called in the cavalry. The Cavalry seemed a little bemused themselves as we explained that we were off to a charity day and just enjoying the noise of the cars.

So for 5 minutes we sat at the lights, holding up traffic and chatting with 6 armed police about everything and nothing whilst the beat bobby caught up with us on foot. Apparently either waving at a policeman or not stopping to have a friendly chat is an arrestable offence, or so I was told.
Feeling rather hard done by, but not willing to risk explaining that all I had done was wave I kept my mouth shut….ish. Eventually, it was all sorted, I promised not to wave at policemen and he exercised discretion and didn’t send me to the gallows for my crime.

It did mean we missed out on breakfast but at least I knew nothing else could go wrong that day………or could it?

I’m sure most of you can relate to that feeling, when you get so bogged down with getting the job done until you forget what it’s all about. Thankfully, we have our regular stop-out at The Ace Café every second Monday of the month, where I can remind myself why we run Petrolhead Nirvana. Every time we’re there, I’m thankful for the friends we’ve made along the way, and all the new ones to come.

So thank you all once again for your support, you really make my day.