Captains log, entry #5...Day ??, what day is it again?Wana buy a car, Jose?

With the last leg calculated to take 6ish hours, the desicion was taken to explore Barcelona in the morning, then fly down to Madrid on the motorway.Winkle was first up to drive today and took the wheel feeling as "light headed" as the rest of us."right out of the hotel, then straight" was what the hotel guy had told us. We got to the junction and Winkle said "Left, then?" It was gonna be a long day...The traffic on the way to barca centre was the heaviest we'd seen. The Audis's fan was constatly on. This meant it was blowing an iffy oily smell into the car all the time... pewww! We were stuck in the traffic when Winkle said "Where's my watch?" Incredulous looks around the car pierced the silence. The hotel were called, and they confirmed that Winkle's £1200 Tag was sitting on the bed of room 411..."You can drop us off for lunch and go back for the watch, then! was Brookesy good idea.With Winkle's ability for map reading and the Left/Right incident out of the hotel car park, we were not confident this would happen. We agreed to continue to the centre and see what we'd do. Lunch near Barcelona's "unfinished" catherdral was a high point for everyone.

The Sporadics joined us in convoy and had a last phone conversation with their team manager. "It's running fine now, Dad..."We set off from lunch back to the hotel (We'd never see Winkle or the Audi again if we split up) to pick up the time piece. "What's the time, Winkle?" was the overused joke for the day. Barreling down the motorway toward Madrid we started todays task. A very long game of Eye Spy. We had to look out for Service station names and opening hours, as well as other road side information and place names. This task took most of the tedium out of motorway cruising. It also meant that our attention away from incredible red, craggy rock formations. With lush green trees lining the mountainous terrain, it was like driving through the wild west. Yee-Hah! Teamrado were on it and no sign passed us without being photographed! Weaving across all three empty lanes, and circling the Sporadics, was the only entertainment to fill portions of the drive. Rubber gloves (to stop oily hands when fixing the engine) were filled with water and lobbed at Team 5's BMW. We also discovered that Lemon Fanta sticks to BMW winscreens quite well...

After a "fun" drive we stopped in a service sattion called ARS!W e needed an ARS service. We winked at the ARS girls, serving us. Dabbed the corner of our mouths with ARS wipes. We went for a group pee in the ARS.We said it was the first time we'd done ARS to mouth, with a wipe...He he.

Sonic took over the next stint and wanted to get rid of the Captain Slow name forever.With the other members of Teamrado asleep, typing the diary or sorting the pics of signs, he "put the hammer down". Leaning forward (in his karting position) he pushed the 22 year old estate down a winding descent. With the poor road surface hammering the now dead rear shocks into the body the other members took notice. Crusing at 95-ish (edit from Sonic; Sorry Mum) down the pass he lifted in one tightening corner! Without sharing a look Brookesy said "Don't lift!" "I know, I know!" was Sonic's reply. The Sporadics, keeping up, even commented on the angle we reached on that corner...A growing smell of oil meant we pulled into another service station (our 4 millionth visit of the weekend) to check under the Audi's decorated hood. With oil drips appearing on the ground and the sickly smell of gear box oil in our throats we paused for breathe.In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of baron red rock, Brooksey took the car apart to check oil levels.

With the level OK, but concerning, we set off again. This time we nursed the poor little motor the final 2 hours of the rally.Determined to make the finish we willed her on, Horn's blazing whenever we could!This GPS got us to within metres of our destination before we swapped over the tour paper maps. Then we REALLY got lost. We turned a corner to see the rest of the Scally-ers and the horns went crazy! We'd finished! The Audi had done it's job and we could relax, happy that we could get a beer in!The tough job was finding a parking spot!

We strolled into the hotel, past scally-ers that had arrived earlier in the day (they didn't loose their watches, Winkle!!).Dumping our bags, and final swapping of Eye Spy answers with the Sporadics we went to the bar for the wrap party...
Awards and speeches later, we'd won nothing (apart from the respect of us and other Audi lovers and Brookesy's mention in the speech as the Forum whore!) we set about getting as "relaxed" as we could!! It was time to let our hair down and figure out how to get the Audi home!Our promised ride from the Irish guys had fallen thru, but, we had offers from others to drive her back, but with us covering the costs...A tired and emotional (for tired and emotional, see drunk) team conflab led us all to the point that we'd LOVE to see the Audi resurrected on the South coast, but if we had to send her to the Audi scrapyard in the sky we could!Beers were raised and bottom lips quivered as we toasted the old girl!Never had a 22 year old brought so much fun to 4 men over a weekend!!!

Through the hazy night we saw someone eyeing the Audi and thought we should approach and try the hard sell! If we could sell her tonight, we thought, we wouldn't have any problems tomorrow.At first sight he looked like a Spanish Mick Hucknall (with brown hair!). His pink shirt gaped to show his curly chest!"Ola" we ventured."This car is a CLASSIC" he retorted with a Spanish drawl.The Avant Quattro aspect of Teamrado's chariot pumped his nads as much as it did ours...Jose turned out to be the most entertaining gent we'd met on our travels. He was a "man of leisure" that lived across the street from the hotel. And had spent most of the evening in the bar, we sumised...Jose told us that he could take the car from us, as long as he could park it somewhere (!) And any other cars we could find and drive down to him he could sell for a large fee!?Not only might we move on the Audi, but, we could start a import/export relationship!!The evening rolled on with every other passer-by saying that they would LOVE to take the Audi off our hands, but, were flying home/had a car/had a meeting in Kettering on Tuesday.We did explain that the only reason we were selling it was becaused we'd measured it and it didn't fit in our hand luggage...Being some of the later attendees, apart fromt the ukelalle-based group, we sloped off to bed for some well earned (and required) sleep.The Rally was over, the Audi had covered 1787 miles from Calais to get us here, we'd seen some fantastic scenery along the way and met some great people.This was NOT our last of these experiences... Roll on 2007!!!

For more pics of the last day, visit....
Barca by day
Barca to Madrid
Rap Party