The Wrong Way Down News

Oct 07

How did we hear about S2N? One of our team members had always had a yearning to do a rally.  His initial plan was to go on a 3 week road trip from the UK and then cross some desert (like the one on Top Gear) but, what with trying to get time off work, and more challenging, convincing the wife that taking 3 weeks holiday to do a road trip without her was a good idea, there really wasn't much chance of it happening! Then, listening to Shropshire Radio during tea break one day, we heard of a team that entered S2N 2007. We pricked up our ears - sounded just the thing for us  - checked out their web page, and that, as they say, was that. We signed ourselves up to S2N with two teams and haven't looked back.

Dec 07 

Christmas. Air Horns and fluffy dice as presents from Mum. Oh, joy!! She does love me.

Feb 08

Charity efforts from last year Press  release

No cars yet, however, local businesses are showing an interest in what we are doing and we have our first sponsor.

March 08

Furrows of Shrewsbury offered to help us with the donation of two cars. They certainly are putting themselves in for the long haul, and are pulling out all the stops to deliver on their promise. It's turned into a true labour of love, with all three sites around Shropshire on the look out for suitable motors.

April

A few cars were found but failed their MOT's and would cost a bomb to sort out. So still no cars but the teams are in good spirit and all the plans for fund raising are coming together.

May

At last we have two cars. One is an M reg 1.5 GL Proton Auto. The other is also an M reg 1.6 Escort. See our Cars section for more details.

June

4 June, what a day. The two teams had a fantastic day out with 20 other work colleagues at the Rednal Karting Track Unfortunately for some of us taking part in S2N Banger Rally, our driving skills were not that good, so watch out! However, one of the participants (Phil, the Captain of the team The Wrong Way Down Too) was in the winning team. The Boss, Al, otherwise known as The STIG was disappointed with his team coming in 8th place but, he did set the fastest lap. Only 1.8 sec behind the track record or was it 1 minute 8 sec. At the end of the evening Phil said he was looking forward to the challenges ahead and the Italian drivers had better beware.  Thanks to all at Rednal Karting track for a great day.

10 July and all is going well. We have had two press releases in the local papers and our justgiving.com/thewrongwaydown fund raising page is doing very well and we thank everyone so far for their kind donations. Off line we have also been working hard and have raised £500 from a number of events. Small but important £9.50 at the Stafford families day and £134 at the West Midlands Show. At the squadrons' summer function we managed to con £350 out of all those attending with a raffle and a further auction raised £155 thanks to Tom Knapp for placing the highest bid. He kindly paid his debt onto our just giving site which means we get a further 28p per pound from our lovely caring government. The function was held at Rowton Castle who kindly donated two three course meals for two. Other donations were made by Cherrington Butchers of Shawbury Village. Face Facts Cosmetics (our first sponsor), Katie Stephens (Massage, Sports Injury Therapist and Aromatherapist). Furrows again backed us and kindly donated a full car valet. The Stanton Arms, Stanton, Nr Shawbury, donated Sunday lunch for two and our lovely friend Sue kindly gave us some cuddly toys which went down very well (what's a raffle without a cuddly toy?)

Now for our best news. Rednal karting are pulling out all the stops with a charity Kart night in aid of our chosen charity the County Air Ambulance. The event will take place on the 3rd Sept 08, 6pm till 9pm. 16 Karts, 4 people per team and two hours of racing for a special price of £25 per person with £10 pp going to our charity. This event would normally cost £50 pp. Thanks to Mike and Lisa for this event, guarenteed to be a fun night. We are offering this to our sponsors first and then if any places are left (unlikely at this price) we will open up the phone lines. Bad Boy is having some cosmetic surgery. We have started to brighten him up from his dull brown image. for more info click here.

25 July. 3s-signs have kindly offered to do some art work for us and to print some stickers. Ryan has done a fantastic job with Bad Boy and all will be revealed at a later date. Mean while Faithless is about to get a face lift from the student pilots on Sixty Sqn, watch this space for more updates.

15 Aug. Well, lots of things have happened since the last update. Nick and the Bear have finished off Bad Boys transformation and have been out and about getting sponsorship. Currys of Telford and Shrewsbury have each donated a Sony European Sat Nav to help us out with the route navigation. These will be given away as prizes at the end of the rally so watch this space for more details on the competition.  Halfords of Shrewsbury have kindly supported us by providing 2 European Drivers Packs, just what the doctor ordered and in line with the road rules of the countries that we will be passing through.  FBHeliservices and The Defence Helicopter Flying School have both donated some most welcome cash to our charity effort. We have nearly filled all of the spaces for our charity Kart Night at Rednal Kart Track on the 3 Sept and it promises to be a fantastic event.

2 Sept. All is going well with our fund raising efforts. Off line we have made over £2000 so far and plan to make another £2400 if our charity events work out. The justgiving page funds are slowly increasing which is a pleasure to see. Tescos have kindly donated two hampers to help with our fund raising, and as they say, every little helps! We are very pleased with all of the donations that we have received over the last few weeks and are still looking for support to try and get as much money as possible for our charity. Again, we stress we will not use any of the money donated or made from the donated gifts to pay for the journey. All of it will go to the Air Ambulance. So come on, make a donation!

Wednesday 3rd September was the night of our charity karting event.  Rain, rain and more rain with the occasional drizzle to brighten things up! With everything set to start at 6pm and 16 fearless/foolhardy teams due to take part, the heavens decided to open at exactly 3pm and it didn’t stop raining heavily all afternoon.

The Meteorological Man said it was due to clear around 6.30pm but some showers were expected to continue late into the evening. I had lots of anxious phone calls from the teams asking if it was still going ahead as they were on the way and in the middle of torrential rain and thunderstorms? The answer could only be ‘yes’.

The track owners and staff were very concerned about the conditions, but with people driving for up to 2 hours to get to the track, it was too late to cancel. In the end, 14 die-hard teams turned up to, what turned out to be, a fabulous night of racing.

As promised by the weather man, the rain did stop. After a full brief on safety and track rules, the race started at 6.20pm for what would be two hours of sliding, spinning, crashing  and very hairy overtaking. With the track starting to dry out, it looked as if the lap times would start to reduce. Not much luck. With 40 minutes to go before the end of the race, the skies started to darken once more and 10 minutes later the heavens opened. With drivers changing more often, they stepped out of the karts looking like drowned rats. What was more surprising than anything was that the lap times didn’t reduce, even though the track was very wet and, even more surprising, slick tyres were in use, ( Lewis Hamilton eat your heart out!).

After 2 hours of Le Mans style racing, the top 4 teams were very close, but the final winners were the team from 3s Print and Display from Telford. Over £600 was raised from the event and Mike (Rednal Kart Track owner) shocked and delighted us all by topping the sum up to £1000. We, ( The Wrong Way Down Team ), would like to thank all those that attended for their support and efforts. A marvellous night was had by all!!

16 Sept. Thank you to everyone that supported the quiz night at the Elephant and Castle Pub in Shawbury on Sunday 7th Sept. We raised £60 and made big fools of ourselves by not answering one question in the final round - the subject being...Italy! The just giving site is doing very well, as is the raising of funds off-line. The grand total so far is £5,500, only £1000 to go to our nominated target but, it doesn't have to end there. We would like to say thank you to everyone that has donated so far. To get more funds for our chosen charity, we are rattling the collection tins at the front gate to RAF Shawbury on Wednesday the 17th, followed by a coffee morning at 10:00 to be held in Sixty Sqn crewroom. This will be hosted by Starbucks with yummy cakes being provided by our popular local bakers, T.O Williams. We would like to personally thank Lucy, who works at a party shop in Shrewsbury. She kindly paid for two pairs of sunglasses for our fancy dress outfits.

17 Sept. The gate collection made £288 and thanks to T.O. Williams of Shawbury and the girls from Starbucks (Meole Brace)  we made a further £160 at the coffee morning. Thank you to everyone that donated to these events.