On the drive down to Britain’s biggest motor racing event (hint: it’s in France), I happened upon a motorway service station. There was no massive car park with token shrubbery, no pikey mum with 50 nasty children in tow, there wasn’t even a bloke called Nigel trying to sell me AA/RAC/Green Flag membership.

This is because I was somewhere between Calais (a place about as attractive as Corby) and Rouen. The service area was extremely quiet, not through lack of people but just by its nature. There was a little system of ponds and walkways that was populated by ducks, and a concrete tower with a little telescope that allowed you to watch the strangely absent rare birds promised by an information board.

I ventured to the shop to see what they had for sale – there wasn’t a “Ginsters” pasty in sight. Fresh Croissants and great cigar sized dry sausages were the order of the day. The French are clearly better at football and now it appears better at junk food as well.

The continuation along ‘les route des Anglais’ took us on through and onto the N138, the realisation was growing that the French are quite clearly bonkers. Playing dodge the lorry seemed to be the most popular sport for the bikers who came past us.

On nearing le circuit de la Sarthe the mega stig petrol detectors starting registering off the scale, I heard the cars starting their qualifying runs. As we approached Tertre rouge the others in the car claimed they couldn’t hear anything and I was making it up – and that the bridge we were about to go under wasn’t part of the track. I instructed them to open all the windows – they did – and on cue one of the two Corvettes blasted past overhead.

Many beers were drunk on Thursday night and on Friday I was paying the price. I did at one point however recover enough to take the rare chance to drive most of the most famous lap in motorsport. The Ford Galaxy diesel was not exactly the most exiting thing to drive, however the Gendarmerie were very quick to discourage any fun with hefty fines. Anyhow I joined the circuit at Tertre Rouge, and headed down the Mulsanne – what a piece of circuit that is – host to some of the greatest race cars of all time, the longtail 917, the 956, GT40, Blower Bentleys and of course the all conquering, Audi R8’s. 240mph down there through the night – incredible.

Annoyingly the straight is punctuated with roundabouts that you have to negotiate. Arriving at Mulsanne corner is an experience – it’s just so damn tight.

I rattled the kerb through Indianapolis but the driving fun was over by the Porsche curves and I returned to the campsite in a series of burn outs and tyre squealing moments through the roundabouts egged on by the huge crowd of assorted drunken Northern Europeans. We got a great cheer for getting it sideways.

There was much drinking and the Audis won. My beer sculpture collapsed. Again. Porsche – where are you?

The following weekend I was on a crap plane from a crap airport to France again – this time to Paris and the last ever race at the incredible Linas – Monthelry circuit.

I was on the first flight of the day that left at 5.45am. Ouch. That involved spending the night in one of the worst places I have ever had the misfortune to visit, a small airport north of London. For six long hours I was driven slowly insane by the most irritating automated announcements I’ve ever heard. “The gates in the car park take credit cards” and “We would like to remind customers that this is a non smoking airport” played on loop every fifteen minutes – through the night. I hatched a plan to make some ear defenders out of a stale sandwich from the shop, but after spending £6.40 on said stale sandwich, a coffee and some water I decided it would be best to eat it and endure the announcements. After all on what I get paid I couldn’t survive long at the airport, no, at £4 a sandwich I’d survive until about Monday, the worry was – it was Saturday night.

“We would like to remind passengers that this is a non smoking airport” that was my favourite – reminding me constantly that the airport wasn’t smoking. Remind me! – What am I going to do about it? I’m not a goldfish – I’d only been reminded 15 minutes ago. I wondered how many times I’d be ‘reminded’ until I made sure that it WAS a smoking airport (well not just smoking – I preferred fully aflame personally).

Just as I was about to go in search of some aviation fuel and a lighter – my gate was called and I escaped. Paris beckoned – and the Grand Prix de l’age d’or.

But first I had to negotiate my way from Charles de Gaulle in the North to Linas in the South. That meant one thing to me – the Prepherique. And what car did the very nice lady from Europcar arrange for me to battle my way through this Parisian automotive nightmare? A Renualt Twingo. (Insert short rude word here)

And the reputation of Parisian drivers is wholly deserved – every single car I saw had at least one battle scar on it – seriously. The Twingo nearly picked up a few of its own, but we just managed to evade the Parisian Twingo extermination squads (that would be the lorries then).

Other major roads often intersected the long roads of Paris and the tactic to use to escape the danger area at the junction seemed to simply to accelerate. Thing is, you can’t exactly persuade a Twingo to accelerate, but you can make it a bit noisier.

A major trick to learn is that road signs in France are kind of optional. If you do follow signs in France you will most likely be killed by a large truck. After all this is a country that has no Health and Safety executive. I’m pretty sure that if the French took over the running of Britain then our club president John Symes, who makes his living as the MSA risk assessment and safety chappie, (is that a fair description John?) would be out of a job.

The closure of the circuit at Linas is quite simply a crime – Brooklands banking is small by comparison, and the road course is simply amazing. At least it went in style, with a fantastic Anglo – French race meeting that had the most bizarre range of cars full race Porsche 911’s ran in the same race as a Trabant; an ex Steve McQueen Porsche 908 was raced against a Lola T70 and a Corvette. I watched all this sat on the intact pit counter. The bottleneck grid (4 cars wide at the back with concrete barriers squeezing it down to 2 cars wide at the line) saw 44 car grid standing starts that ended in predictable pile-ups. A mint Alpine A110 was heavily taken from behind by a pair of 911s, who were in turn deformed by a big Alfa.

The cars were being driven flat out and many succumbed to the pressure and a few to the rusting Armco. Great circuits like this should never be allowed to die, but if they are, then this is the way they should go.

So from France, attention turned eastward to a city that has perhaps the most tumultuous history of any in the 20^th century. I was in Berlin. For obvious reasons it’s a strange city, but what surprised me was just how soulless the place is.

Driving into the city from the airport it felt like we were driving through a Soviet interpretation of an industrial estate near Didcot.

After checking into the hotel AVUS (yes that AVUS!), I decided to explore. I jumped aboard the excellent transport system at Charlottenburg and went in search of heart of the city.

It simply hasn’t got one; the place is a ghost town. Berlin looks like Croydon and has all the life and soul of Clacton on Sea. I visited bars and pubs – sampling the fantastic (and cheap) beer and food. In my whole time there I didn’t see a single person under 30 having fun, of any sort. Berlin is worth avoiding, it is plain dull.

So I left the country.

Bromley Pageant of Motoring – the club take part in it every year – but what on earth is it? I’m not entirely sure anyone can answer that. However it is a mecca for pretty much anyone with an interest in cars in the south east of London and north Kent. So every year we send a team of cars along to promote the club and drum up new members. Annoyingly this year’s event clashed with the south’s biggest motorsport event – Goodwood’s festival of speed. So the normal interested in motorsport crowd were absent, leaving the interested passer by, family days out and the anoraks.

We cheated slightly this year and put four cars on our club stand – along with a display of photos of members in action.

The stand was host to Graham Pryme’s very tidy Impreza in sprint trim, Steve Thompson’s Alfa Romeo (as the Davrian was struggling), The Motorsport News Suzuki and this Stig’s Austro - Porsche which was the only single seater in the show. It was a fairly relaxed day in the sun chatting about cars and in Steve’s case time for a spot of tinkering.

The Austro and the Subaru spent the day vying for attention; I think the Japanese car beating the Austrian. Just.

However the Vee did get the numpty question of the day asked of it. A funny looking young chap wandered over to the car and started turning the steering wheel from lock to lock looking puzzled. This is for real.

Me: “Erm, you alright there?”

Chap: “Just surprised the steering is so heavy”

(pause)

Me: “Um it’s not moving”

Chap: “Oh so when it’s moving the power steering switches on of course?”

Me: “No power steering on this – it was built in 1968”

Chap: “Isn’t it too heavy to drive though?”

Me: “No it’s fine, really quite light”

Chap: “Even at 200mph? I mean that’s got to be tough?”

Me: “Err I doubt that this car would do much more than 140”

Chap: “But it must be tiring with steering this heavy – how can you race without power steering?”

Me: “It’s not that heavy really, besides it only runs for 20 minutes before it has to stop”

Chap: “Just 20 minutes!!?? Why’s that?”

Me: “Because it will run out of fuel, also it’s air cooled so it would get a bit hot”

Chap: “Lucky you only drive for 20 minutes with heavy steering like this”

Me: “It’s heavy because the car isn’t moving, most race cars don’t have power steering”

Chap: “But other Grand prix cars have power steering”

Me: “Well yes, but this isn’t a Grand prix car”

I then proceed to explain the differences between F1 and FVee – most of which is eagerly recounted to the chap’s nerdy mates (someone must have let the Bromley online train spotters guild out). Soon they seemed satisfied and left without actually asking what the car was and why it was there.

Well the Austro is finished pretty much and as such I headed to Brands Hatch on a test Friday. I’d entered the following day’s race. The car had previously only turned a couple of laps of Bruntingthorpe’s test track, so it was a bit unknown. Me testing is also unknown. I found the car sitting in the afternoon sun its bodywork gleaming (it was made by a company who usually make fairground rides). The car looks totally different to anything else on the grid, a piece of 1960’s motorsport lumped in with 1990’s and brand new machinery. I squeezed myself into the cramped cockpit, you can’t remove the steering wheel so getting in and out is a real struggle (no seat just a sheet of metal). I fired it up and the sheer noise of the engine surprised me. It not only looks different, it sounds much deeper than the average Vee. With the single carb sitting about 3cm behind my head it is pretty loud.

I buzzed about the paddock a bit and found a problem with the gear change or rather the fact that I couldn’t fully depress the clutch as my left foot clipped the font of the chassis. Left foot braking is not possible as the steering column is in the way, but in 1968 was left foot braking invented?

The gear change is very stiff and I can imagine my right arm would be very tired by the end of a European race (25 to 35 minute as apposed to UK races of 15 minutes).

Saturday, as I’ve already mentioned, is race day. Due to being rather late with my entry (but before the closing date) I was 4^th reserve so I was only guaranteed a practice session. It was clear from the first lap out of the pits that the car was deeply unhappy, circulating about nine seconds off my usual pace around the Indy circuit.

However due to a couple of problems suffered by other competitors I’d just made it onto the back of the grid. The lights went out and the car spluttered forward, unable to get going. I had to watch the field drive away from in front of me, and have the shame of being overtaken by the ambulance. The car ran slowly round and I just chugged about the track.

At the time of writing we are not 100% sure of the problem, maybe if I go to a twin carb setup it might help, but that’s an £800 hope. As a result of the potential cost of getting the power I need, I had to withdraw my entry into the Phoenix Park street race in Dublin. Next round is Silverstone and I need all the power I can get.

As an aside I’ve been invited to run the car in the European historic Monoposto championship, where it would be ultra competitive in both the FVee classes. I would also be up against one of its sister cars (there are only 5 or 6 still competing). Spa, Hockenhiem, Zolder, Zandvoort and Assen are all on the calendar. A classic run through Chimay is also on the cards.