Cannonball 8000 London to Budapest – Anyone seen those droids?

The boys have just returned from the Defacto Cannonball 8000 Promotion having driven from London to Budapest in a week-end.  

After pointing the SatNav East at high noon, we’d left London and had a good run down the M20 towards the tunnel. We left Blighty on the train, and were amazed not to find le flic lining all the routes (like last year) and sped straight into the heart of Brussels and the magnificent Conrad Hotel and a well earned beer or two at Party No 1.

As we weaved out of Brussels slightly bleary eyed and left the paper mountain of EC bureaucracy behind, we hit the auto route and set a steady speed. We’d guessed the authorities might be waiting outside the city so we were tootling along around 80mph. A brace of Ferraris pursued by an orange Lambo with an Aston stuck up its exhaust belted past us in the outside lane. Two minutes later, bugger me, we had flashing lights with the bill-on-a-bike waving us over. Inter-plod overtook us and waved us with his right hand into the slow lane so we pulled in behind him as he kept moving. As we approached a service station he waved with his left hand back to the auto route, so we pressed the loud pedal and fizzed past the services. Oh là là, Hercule was not impressed and belted through the services back out after us. What on earth was going on? 

So there we are, stopped just after the services, sat in the 911 with the roof down wearing Darth Vader and Yoda costumes and wielding two fully charged light sabres as Poirot jumps off his bike and draws a pistol at us! Not having been threatened with a gun before, this is getting scary, particularly as this guy is dressed in black Lycra - like Max Wall with a helmet on. “ ’ands in zee air above zee heads, keys on zee dashboard, get out of zee car!”  “What?” “I teach you stop when I tell stop”.  “ ’ands on zee barrier, legs apart” – we’d heard about the Belgian police – “Empty zee pockets”.

After a body search which revealed Yoda was concealing a nasty weapon in the form of a chap stick and an interrogation about “What is zee chapped lips?”, Hercule had us follow him up and down the auto route back to the service station. 

We arrived into Plod Central to meet several fellow Cannonballers knowing that a couple of ladies in a Ferrari had already surrendered their licence to the Belgians. Presented with a ticket for 166 clicks/hour we asked what evidence there was. Apparently video cameras 2km back but they could not show us any photos. Yeah right! Realizing we’d get away with a fine, we decided not to argue and handed over 155 Euro. Meanwhile, Poirot was now stalking the car like a lion sizing up its prey. “I will search zee car, you come too”  “Mais, oui, ça va” – I had been told speaking French in Belgium pissed them off.

“What is zis?”  “It’s a Darth Vader helmet”.  “And what is zis”, “Er, a Yoda mask – they’re costumes”.  “What is ‘customs’ ”  Don’t you just know when it’s going to be a long, long day.  “You know what I look for?” “Two droids?”   I know I should not have said that.       I know that was a mistake.  Quelle relief - Poirot did not understand.

Next he’s opened the front bonnet. A shout from beyond from our comrades, “Oh, ‘ercule, the engine’s in the back in a Porsche”.  Now he’s on his knees tapping under the front bumper. “I look for the radar detector – it’s very bad here”.  “We’re not using one”.  After a further five minutes he fails to find the radar detector in the glove box and we’re allowed to leave - and not even a box of nice chocolates from the dibble.

We made it to Prague and then on to Budapest, we made it round the Hungaroring and back in Budapest, we made it through the parties - and not a single firearm again.

As they say, Cannonball 8000 - Petrol £397, Fines £102, Entertainment: Priceless.

Alec Willis, Supreme Commander, Defacto Solutions Limited