Shipping my RS America To Europe, Going to Le Mans and a 4 month drive around Europe Options

[DonTraver]

About 6 years ago, went on a trip to Germany, even drove the Ring in a new 997S. Great trip.
While there, I got this weird idea. How great it would be to drive my RSA in Europe and the autobahn.

Well, it’s taken about a year of research and work, but it’s going to happen this year,

I started receiving all the import/export licenses a couple of weeks ago for the RSA. I got all the forms in this week. Shipping has been arranged to ship my RSA in her own private container to the UK with approximate arrival on May 19th.

Found an insurance company that will insure me in 29 countries for about $165 a month.

Joined the Porsche Club Great Britain, got my membership card on 3/31/10. I’m going to Le Mans with them.
They put together a 5 star camping trip to Le Mans every year, they camp in the Porsche Curves at Le Mans, they even put up your tent for you, It runs about $800 for 5 days at Le Mans, Euro Tunnel Pass, tickets, fully catered camp site, private restrooms and showers. How cool is that. I’ll be traveling with the PCGB from the UK to Le Mans, should help me not get lost. I’ll get to watch testing, practice, qualifying, and the race, wow.

I’ve been a member of a 964 Porsche series group for about 7 years. Since I told the group about my plans, I’ve received invitations to all over Europe, Luxemburg, France, Germany, UK, Portugal, Spain, and the Ring. Planning at least a week at the Ring.

After Le Mans heading south, Normandy, Madrid, Lisbon, Valencia, and maybe Monaco. After that head north to Germany, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, the Ring. Etc. Want to catch a couple of Formula 1 races, Spa, Ring, etc. At least that’s the tentative schedule so far.

Found this website that lists a lot of the tracks in Europe and if they have open track days, they do. So I might get to drive Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Spa, and a bunch of others. http://www.trackdays.co.uk/tracks/

Just finished a 60k service on the RSA, new rotors, pads, brake fluid, set valves, new tires, new O2 sensor, had a ipod cable put in for tunes, and waxed and detailed her, dyno tested 250hp at rear wheels.

Had a set of PSS10 Coilovers installed, with new alignment and corner balancing last week, sweet.

Oh yeah, since I won’t be in any one country more than 4 months, I get to keep the California plates on her, cool. I wrote a lot of emails to a lot of countries to confirm that, all said fine by email, printed out all those emails, just in case.

The RSA ships in 2 weeks, when I get a confirmed delivery date, I’ll book my plane tickets.

So long story short. I’m going to Le Mans and will be spending over 4 months driving around Europe in my RSA with California plates, a dream is coming true.

Here's a picture of my RS America at the Lake Arrowhead Porsche Timeline last year.

Don

[DonTraver]

Well yesterday was just a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The rain had passed, the sun was out. It time to do some traveling. Used a Water Blade to dry off the RSA, then the road.

I first went to Upnor Castle; it was about 40 miles away. It was in 1667 that the Dutch attacked the ships and Castle; they sank 3 English Men of War. Then because they were caught in a crossfire between Upnor Castle and a Battery on the opposite bank withdrew. They had a still life with lights that described the battle. Here’s were I didn’t agree with it. The audio display said the Dutch won, but they never came ashore, landed any troops, sank 3 ships was about it. To me that means they lost, the defenders drove them off.

It was pretty interesting. There was one display that showed the powder monkeys moving the barrels of powder to the upper levels where the guns were. The way they did it was pretty cool. They tied the rope to the barrel and jumped out the window. Their weight counterweighted the barrel and took it right to the top of the batteries.
I assume them knew where to grab the rope so that they landed on the deck below gently, no broken legs.

While I was walking around, this lady and her son came up to me. She said her son really liked the RSA. I looked at him and told him he can have one, all he needs to do is work for it. The lady smiled and said, thank you for saying that, that's what his father and I have been telling him about everything. Cool, my good deed of the day.

After Upnor Castle I programmed the GPS for Rochester Castle, one of the best preserved Norman Castles. It was big and tall. At the door it had a sign saying it was over 200 steps to the top most battlements. They weren’t kidding. The steps were very worn, and steep, but they’d installed handrails. So off to the top I went. They view was spectacular. When I was walking around the battlements looking down, I spotted the RS America perfectly framed way down below by the trees, had to take a couple pictures of her. If I’d parked 10 feet either way, would have missed the photo opportunity. By the time I’d finished exploring Rochester Castle the feet were saying enough.

So it was back to the RSA and head out of town. So far the driving’s going OK, the only problem I’m having is getting used to the roundabouts. There was quite a few that had two lanes. I always tried to stay in the left lane of those, at one of them a guy who was alongside in the right lane decided he wanted one of the exits, cut right across me, I stood on the brakes, put the RSA on her nose. I expect that’ll get better as I get more used to them.

I got to Canterbury and then went for the Riverboat ride. It was pretty nice; the oarsman gave us all a nice history lesson about Canterbury and the river.

Went out for a morning drive this morning, just headed out of Canterbury. Everything was going pretty good until I went over a block of concrete sticking up out of the road. It was one of those holy crap what was that moments. Didn’t hurt anything, but they started showing up about every ¼ mile, took the rest of them slow and with only one side of the RSA. After driving through the countryside, started heading back on a different road, I wanted to avoid those things.

I stopped for gas and to vacuum out the RSA. While I vacuuming her, a guy named Kip (sp) stopped behind me. The first thing he said, “You’re the guy from California, and I’ve heard about you from the PCGB, I have a 993 RS. I saw your car as I drove by, then noticed the California Plates, I had to turn around and meet you.” I was pleasantly surprised and we had a nice talk.

I leave Canterbury tomorrow and head for Morton on Marsh for the PCGB open house on Sunday. Today will be just a relaxing day, get everything organized to fit back in the RSA tomorrow morning. I’m going to try and leave early so I can visit a few more sights on the way to Morton on Marsh. So far I’ve picked out Tonbridge Castle, Leeds Castle, and Dover Castle. That should make for a pretty full day.

A friend asked me if the Flickr website supported Slide Shows, didn’t know, but found out. So if anyone has the same question, here’s how.
Go to the site

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20206812@N07/


Click on any picture, it will open to a larger version of the picture.

Look to the right it'll say don_traver's photostream, under that it will show a picture and just to the right of that it will say how many pictures have been uploaded. Just underneath the number of pictures uploaded it will have a little TV like screen, put your arrow on it, it will say, "view as slideshow". Double click, and it's on.

The adventure continues, Don