Date: Wednesday 11th - Tuesday 17th June 2008
Location: 9 European Countries
Report Author: Chris aka Puntoboy

What an eventful trip it was for me. First of all the Punto failed it's MOT less than 6 hours before we were planning to leave! I worked through the day and night to get it ready for its retest 9am Sunday morning. It failed again! So I have 3 hours to get the car fixed and back to the MOT station for another retest! Fortunately this time it passed, luckily I got to the MOT station at 11:55, 5 minutes before they closed! Because I was too busy getting the car ready for it's MOT, I didn't have time to pack. So once the car had passed it's MOT I shot off home to get ready. 3 hours later, the car was loaded up ready to depart so off I went to pick up my co-driver.

Everything was going so smoothly when, 11 miles from Dover, the car decided to shake out 5 driveshaft bolts and snap the remaining bolt in the stub axle. Chuffing marvelous, but luckily I have two mates that live nearby. One had new bolts, one had a stub axle so we replaced the parts and got back on our way. We arrived at in Dover at 21:20 and managed to get the 21:45 ferry to Calais. Phew!

Midnight came as we arrived in Calais! We then had the long drive from Calais to Geneva!

We left for Milan, and on the way, taking a detour through the Swiss Alps, the Italian road decided to undress my car! One of the rear shock absorber bolts decided to vacate the vehicle so I was left with a very bouncy car. Fortunately, being Italy, Fiat dealers were plentiful so we stopped off in Milan and got a replacement!

From then on the event itself was pretty average at best. Modball hotels were average, events were average, the band didn't show up. The treasure hunt in Budapest was pretty lame too.

We decided not to go to Croatia as our insurance and breakdown cover wouldn't have been valid so instead we headed for the infamous Stelvio Pass. What an awesome road, breathtaking views and snow! The roads to and from Stelvio were the best roads I've ever driven on. So demanding, a real drivers road. The Punto coped really well and the Brembo's came to life with all the excessive use! That night we stayed in Innsbruck where the chap in the hotel asked if we were over for the Euro's! Yeah right! LOL.

The following day we drove to Budaest... again more awesome roads and we had a really good time... guess what?! We weren't doing the Modball route and things were going really well! When we arrived in Budapest we were greeted by a dingy hotel. Remind me never to go there again, the roads were awful, the people were mental, some of my mates got ripped off in a strip club and we could have easily been shot. Not a nice place at all.

The next day we left Budapest and headed for Prague. Surprise surprise Police were all over the route, but as we are sensible drivers we didn't get any hassle from them at all. We arrived in Prague and was greeted by the same block of flats we stayed in for Modball 2007. :-|

We were all told to meet in the large conference room for 21:00 for the end of Modball presentations. 45 minutes later, Jon managed to get the projector set up and we began...

What a complete farce, it seems you have to be good friends with Jon to be able to win anything. Not that I'm jealous, I didn't do Modball to win anything, but it was a complete joke. There were other teams that should have won something but no, they didn't. The Salty Pirates are great guys, I really have no problem with them at all, safe as houses, but winning legends of Modball for rolling their Limo and nearly killing themselves? Come on what kind of impression does that give? They fell asleep at the wheel due to the rediculously long drive from Calais to Geneva. Surprise surprise....

The event ended and we all had a few drinks and went to bed. Well some of us did...

The next morning we awoke to find Jon's company car, a Z4, covered in black shrink wrap, covered in stickers and had three flat tyres!! It looked hilarious. After taking a few pics, we headed off to Frankfurt, a hotel arranged by us as the journey from Prague to Calais was quite long. We also decided to stop at the Nurburgring on the way home. But this didn't go to plan either. Not only did my car decide to short circuit one of the main power cables and pop the 125A main fuse on the way, but the Ring was closed due to some Rock festival! Pity really, but we had a nice lunch at a cafe opposite the start/finish line and headed off to Calais.

All in all, we made the event brilliant in our eyes as we went "off peast" and did some of our own routes. Myself and Team MIB have been banned from all future Modball events due to voicing our opinion of the event. It's strange that other teams that have done the same have not been banned as well. Mind if Jon banned them all there would be hardly anyone left to take parts. As far as I know he had trouble getting 100 teams to enter this year!

Fortunately even before the bans were handed out, we decided that as a group of friends we would organise our own road trip, but us and our friends. Not to make any money but to have a good time. More details coming soon.

Thanks for reading.

Chris aka Puntoboy