Tut Towers 2007

Author: Stuart Cartwright

Sincere thanks to Verian and tut for (another) perfect weekend. On more than one occasion I decided to sell up and move to Scotland.

Cracking roads, weather, company, food and bubbles :) although I was wondering where the concrete went from the Jacuzzi after your vow last time [BsheepishG]

Finally got home to my bed in blighty at 22:30 after leaving tuttowers at 10:30, with a welcome stop and a goodbye in Braemar (and a not so welcome stop at a burgerking in Gosforth)

Superb

I'd like to add my thanks also. Great weekend! Thanks very much Tut and Verian.

Got back to London on Sunday night around 12.30pm, after leaving Tut's at 9.30am. Huge days driving but found some cracking roads on the way back too - I was amazed how quiet the roads were all weekend and how good the weather was. Perhaps its not so grim up north after all :-)

Was great to see some of the old faces and lots of new ones.

Author: Ross Miller

Thanks to the duncan household and especially tut for organising the perfect weekend!
Couldn't believe the service and efficiency of the tut towers team!!!

Nice to meet you all - many for the first time.
I have fallen in love with the honda'd type 49S

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Author: Stewart

First off, I would like to say a huge thank you to Tut, Verian and family for all of the organisation and great hospitality. There must of been days and days of preparation for the event and no doubt there will be days and days of clear up after the event!

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Author: Bob VanM

ferry back meant more beers (as if we needed them..... )
drive home was without problems, just the last mile we had the first rain of the whole week-end ( washed off the flies nicely )

thank Tut and Verien for organising and the hospitality

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SE2 comments

Friday:

Met up with Pete in Killie and then on to Old Inns for the first bit of banter of the weekend (it feels like so much more than 3 days ago...) Trundle up to KH, stopping at Drum for the petrol (and a new pair of cheapo sunnies for me) then into the paddock for what would become a long old wait...

Such a pea-souper that you literally could not see one end of the pit lane from the other... Didn't look promising at all...

So, the SE spirit and banter strikes up, with bacon rolls, coffee and a huge variety of time wasting topics of conversation, it really didn't feel like the delay that it actually was.

Before I knew it, the track was opening - Archos camera had been attached to my helmet (steady) in preference to the usual car mounting. bit of an experiment and I'm happy with the result (to be edited and posted soon)

Track started damp and my tyre pressures were all over the place, along with the nitron settings - this was the first time on track since fitting. Took me a couple of sessions to get the thing handling, but when it was right, it was bloody fantastic! Engine is a peach and the turn-in was as good as it's ever been. Only thing missing is now the CR box...

Great track etiquette as always and a really good mix of speeds and machinery meant I could slot in somewhere in the middle and see where I was making and losing time on a variety of guys and cars.

After KH was the run over to Ft Bill. After Scotty's problems with the car, he needed a lift, so he jumped in with me and we set off - myself, Bob Van M, Tut, Craig and Dave. Roads were pretty well trafficked, so we really didn't get a great run, just had to hack over as quick as we could. Bob was constantly entertaining in my mirror with that howling great Audi jet engine in the back of his car - meant he could climb into my boot every time we pulled out to overtake. Later, he explained that it's how he'd seen Scotty & Tut 'making progress' and figured it was just the Scottish way

So, got to Ft Bill and into the Alexandra hotel - lovely spot and the car park pics are pretty impressive

I ended up at an end of the table with JJ, Mr Rolfe & Ed, so it was pretty obvious which way the night was heading - I think it only took until the third topic of conversation to drift as low as 'brown wings....'

Many vodkas drunk, it was decided that we should head out into the cultural melting pot of Ft Bill and track down Scotty, Stu, Cammy, Mike Brown & Dave, who had ventured out early... We track them down to this bear-pit called Capercaillie - to witness the frankly terrifying sight of Cammy in full bore beer-monster mode

Mike, Stu & Scotty were having all sorts force-fed to them and I guess me arriving in and declaring the party officially started didn't help matters much....

Highlights of the 'club'? Mike doing the 'entrance from stage left' sideways Broadway dance for most of the night, JJ's impromptu face-plant as he got the 'running man' dance a bit wrong, the lot of us going mental as QFX was played.... Messy, very messy...

Brief stagger back to the hotel (seeing more polis in one road that would be on duty across Glasgow City centre) only to find that there are a hardcore in the bar, keeping the night porter busy... Neil, Mags, Ken, Dave, Bob, RDH.... so, of course, I had to keep them company. I think it was 4.20 before we left....

Saturday.

Genuinely pleased that, when I woke up at 8.00am, I didn't feel like a mule was trying to kick it's way out of my head (unlike messrs Brown, Cruickshank & Pollock

). Combination of staying on one drink and having lots of water in between rounds seems to have done the trick! Hook up with Dezzy, Kenny, Ross and Bertie for the first leg of the journey - don't do my usual thing and leap for the lead - I'm quite happy just to concentrate on driving and scenery spotting for the first bit of the day.

What a bloody day! Roasting, not huge amounts of traffic, stunning roads and scenery and great pace. Loved it 100%. Only slight niggle was that I was having another intermittent electrical problem. I'd had my battery break free the week before and short on the chassis, which obviously cut out everything in the car - but I was sure I'd fixed that. Tried re-packing the battery and covering everything in tape to insulate it... Still happening.

Finally, after I took the lead in Inverness, it died completely. Nothing - stack lit up like a Christmas tree and everything died.

Coasted to a halt in a lay-by and started the swearing. Re-packed and secured the battery and the thing would not give me any signs of life. Just as I was about to reach for the AA card, I checked the loom connector in the engine bay (as it had been 'fixed' before) to discover something out of place...

The ECU had fallen off it's mount and was sitting on the live terminal of the starter! Oops

Bolt it back in place and after a brief struggle (as the battery had been shorting out) she found enough juice to fire into life! Phew - close call, very lucky not to have killed my Emerald!

Of course, now I knew what the problem had been, I was full of confidence in the car and I think the run from Inverness to TT is probably the most fun I've had on a road run in ages - going for it all the way and the wee beastie felt incredible for every single mile of it!

So, finally, we get to TT. Not the first by far, but not too late. Drinking ensues....

It gets a little hazy here, but I remember erotic chairs, Jacuzzis, Amber, Toni and floating around in little more than a towel at one point... Could all be a bad dream mind you...

Sunday

...started a little worse than Saturday... NO WAY did I eat that much rice the night before... Left tut's (very slowly) at the same time as the first group, but turned the other way to got to the main routes home. Figured that, just after leaving the next village, I was being a bit silly and pulled into a layby for a kip. Hour and a half later, I was able to mount a challenge and take a nice calm trundle down the road, tail between my legs...

One of these years, I'll learn. Of course, tut, that means that you'll have to do another one, to give me that opportunity! Plus, the disgraceful behaviour of the SE ladies in not joining us in the jacuzzi will have to be rectified

A short bit of video will go up sometime, taken from an early few laps at KH. I have no photos, but piles of memories.

Great weather, great craic, great company. You can't ask for more

Petition for TT08 starts here....

The Events described below are fictitious and any resemblance to people living or dead are coincidental. Most of the conversations are made up too.

Part The First. TT 2001.

In 2001 I was met by a mysterious bare footed man in a car park somewhere in Fife. What followed was an exhilarating if ever so slightly insane 4 hour drive to the Isles of Glencoe, followed by a 4 hour drive back to Glasgow and work. A drive that means my colleague swore never to ride in a car with me again. Finally, over 6 years later, I've recovered. The counselling was expensive but the demons are vanquished.

It's time to try again.

Part the Second

A bridge over an A road somewhere in deepest darkest Ayrshire. A small be-stickered grey car is sitting, steam rising gently from it's exhaust when with a muted burble a similar black car pulls up alongside.

"Hi Shug."
"Hey Pete. You ready?"
"Yep."

After the black car executes a clumsy three point turn they are off, heading North.
Cut to a service station next to a disused Little Chef, just outside Scotland's premier new town.

Shug "Coffee's hot."

Pete "Yep."

(from stage right comes the distance brrrum of a throttle being blipped to ease a down change through a reluctant box. Suddenly one then two then five brightly coloured sportscars descend on them. As if pre-arranged.)

Pete "Now we are Seven."
Shug "What?"
Pete "You know like in the film, 'The Magnificent Seven'."
Shug "You mean the Seven Samurai?
Pete "Errm yes."
Shug "but there isn't seven of us. Mandy and Mac are round there filling up with petrol."
Pete "Oh well never mind. Oh look there's Alan."

A foggy twisty country lane in Fife. A lone people carrier is making it's way up the steep road when there is the BLAT of a sports exhaust echoing off a dry stone wall. Suddenly the Espace's mirrors are filled with a snake like line of sports cars all vying for position on the still damp road. Seconds later they are gone, then another solitary engine tone starts to get louder but the black car sits behind him for longer, seemingly unable to find a long enough straight to get past, finally he too manages and rockets off into the mist in pursuit of his erstwhile companions.

"That's funny," thinks the driver of the Renault, "I would have bet money that he was going to Knockhill with the others. But he has just shot past the entrance."

Two minutes later the car re-appears. Heading the other way.

"So do you think it will clear," asks Alan. The fog is so thick that we can't see the tower in the centre of the paddock.
"No." I reply with some certainty. "I've just spoken to the Met observer at Edinburgh airport and he is pretty certain this is with us for the whole day."
"sh*t."
"Yeah."

Four minutes later the fog has lifted and the first warm up laps are beginning.

to be continued...

It's at this point that I realise how long it is going to to take me to recount the whole weekend in the style of a really poor quality movie script but will persevere for a bit...

Part the Third - Track Day Heroes.

Last Tuesday. A tall skinny bloke, the moonlight reflecting off his attractively shiny head stands by a back door smoking a sly cigarette whilst chatting on the phone...

"...well not this weekend Dad I'm off to Knockhill for a track day."

muffled reply

"No it's not a race it's a track day. We just drive around in circles quickly.

"No you aren't allowed to time it. They get quite funny about that.

"Well it's not free, I suppose about 50 quid. Ok nearer a hundred.
"Yeah yeah plus getting the car sorted,

"errm about 350 this time, plus labour. Well now as I think about it nearer 900.

"No I don't think I should sell it. And no I don't think it is a childish thing to spend my money on."

click brrrrr

[Cut to Friday. It's mid afternoon but it could be early morning, it certainly feels like the start of a day then the fog starts to lift revealing Scotland's premier race circuit in all it's shabby glory. A long line of cars is running around the circuit, a black car at the rear as the speed starts to pick up.]

"I'm catching them, I'm actually catching them. Oh I am great at this, I could take this up professionally, he's in an Exige and I am quite clearly all over him like a rash. How long have they been waving those red flags? Oh right we are still on warm-up.

I have a theory that we should start a penalty system based on potatoes. The more the power, the more the bits you have welded or glued onto your car, the stickier your tyres the more sacks of spuds you would have to carry. That's right carry, actually physically hold in your lap.
So a 135R with LSS and 048s would maybe have a couple of kilos in a hessian sack sitting in his lap.
N3 TUT would be entirely filled with spuds with only the top of his head poking out. (Just so I could overtake him. Just once.)

The Reluctant Instructor.
"Brake in a straight line. Hold the wheel at 3:15. Don't try and go too fast, it's not a race you know, oh god there's someone else who wants to go out."
"Is that it?" I ask.
"Did I mention not going too fast?"
"Yes."

The fog lifted now and the sun is out, the dry line which once appeared slowly is now firmly established and reveals the circut and the cars, traffic is heavy but the driving standard is high, and gets quicker as the day goes on. No damages, a couple of mechancial failures and a couple of muppets unable to keep it on the black stuff but hey they are only muppets because I wasn't among them. This time.

Camera pans back to show cars collected, parked is too formal a word, in the paddock. The sun is shining brightly whilst the drivers exchange tales of heroism, some tinker with their steeds whilst a few are having new rubber fitted in readiness for the run up North.
Camera then zooms in on the wee 111S as the driver slips something into his ears, and continues until the words SHURE E2G fill the whole screen.

"These new headphones are great and quite a bargain," Pete thinks
"They cut out the traffic noise completely and offer much better sound than my far more expensive head unit." He continues, hopng to get a 60GB iPod in return for a bit of blatant product placement.

With that there is a roar of exhausts as most of the cars file off North towards Fort William and the next episode...

(This episode brought to you in association with AMP3.co.uk for all your listening needs.)

to be continued...

,.... (BLATANT PLUG FROM DEL TOO)

SCOTTISH ELISES AT TUT TOWERS 2007

PICTURES AND VIDEO