Beachcomber's Tales from the day
- Thread starter beachcomber
- Start date
I've asked before ...... but's what's the concensus for auto related tales ? A bit like the previous 2 Shelby related tales really [ although NOT Shelby ]. There's 25 years of successive attendance at the Le Mans 24 Hours race for a start.
A lot of the bike tales that are left are sort of anecdotes rather than full blown tales - still a few though !
A lot of the bike tales that are left are sort of anecdotes rather than full blown tales - still a few though !
Im not worthy ..............................
Thanx for the vote of confidence guys. I'll let a few more trickle in to make sure people do want to hear about the auto related stories. 8)
Thanx for the vote of confidence guys. I'll let a few more trickle in to make sure people do want to hear about the auto related stories. 8)
4eyes said:
OK ......... I have a short list, still probably 4 weeks away though !!!
OK the next one will be car related ......................
"Wobbly Wassell, TJ's 10th Le Mans Raid and the vanishing TR7"
That IS the eldest son and heir to the Wassell Motorcycle dynasty and the TR7 was Triumph's in house joke at making a sports car.
"Wobbly Wassell, TJ's 10th Le Mans Raid and the vanishing TR7"
That IS the eldest son and heir to the Wassell Motorcycle dynasty and the TR7 was Triumph's in house joke at making a sports car.
So here it is then - not a bike in sight !! - but a "tale" never the less.
Beachcomber’s Tales from the Day
“Wobbly Wassell, TJ’s 10th LeMans Raid and the Vanishing TR7”
As usual a few backgrounder notes for this one.
I had been going to the LeMans 24 hour race since 1968 [ every year thro’ 1996 ], and what started as myself and a couple of mates escalated over the years to the point where I was organising trips [ “Raids” ] for various Hot Rod and Custom car clubs. By the time of this tale we had regular bands of 30 – 50 cars making the trip. 8)
I had also moved [ via France – another tale :
] from Essex to the Midlands, complete with Mrs.B 2nd.
Once established there, we were again in the thick of the Hot Rod and Drag Racing fraternity and had opened a Speed Shop [ "Muscle City" ]. Shortly after the shop opened we had a young guy come in with a brand new TR7 [ Triumph’s “sports” car ] and asked “What can I do with it”. I’m sure he meant customising with allloy wheels, sidepipes etc., but I just handed him a box of matches ………………………. ;D
Despite that, he went on to have the car customised and painted AND became a firm friend. He was Steve Wassell one of the 2 sons of the Wassell Motorcycle Parts empire. He was considerably younger than most of us and would always try to impress by drinking as much as possible during our Saturday afternoons at the shop. This drinking habit followed him into maturity [ ? ] and he was never very steady on his feet, thus earning him the nickname “Wobbly Wassell”.
In fact in later life he became so fed up at being thrown out of his favourite Wine Bar – that he bought it !
By this time we had elements from the old Essex crowd and my new pals from the Midlands area – with myself as the common link. Every year we had the “old brigade” from previous years plus a sprinkling of new faces.
On this particular raid Wobbly decided it was about time he broke his LeMans virginity and came along – complete with customised TR7. There was a catholic selection of cars, from true Hot Rods – V8 Ford pops, Model B and a tasty Model A Pick up – the odd Custom Van [ still popular then ] as well as a sprinkling of Muscle Cars [ Mustangs, Camaros, Cudas, Sunbeam Tiger ………. ] and even one or two daily driver cars.
Again, Steve was the youngster at the party and true to form was arse’oled before he got off the ferry ! In hindsight – so were most of the rest of the crew. In reality, we WERE piss artists, and again in hindsight I’m amazed there were no accidents or even tragedies.
There was this sort of belief that once you were on French soil – you could get away with anything. In truth, in those days the French had a VERY laissez faire attitude to drinking - 2 hour lunches with a couple of bottles of wine was the norm. As long as you could stand up – you could drive ! That changed dramatically several years later when the alchohol tolerance was virtually zero. However, at this time there was no restriction as such, and we took advantage of the situation – immature / reckless - I know. :
Every town we went through presented opportunities for impromptu Drag Races and burnouts. Wobbly had the piss royally taken out of his choice of car and suffered many good humoured jokes and leg pulling. His car had a full length sunroof, which due to the extremely hot weather he naturally had open. BIG mistake …………. Big George drove alongside [ on the footpath [ ie the inside ], while his mate poured a bottle of beer all over Steve through the sunroof ! I did mention immature didn’t I ?
We made LeMans without any real dramas and miraculously – no accidents, to set up in our usual spot in the Camping du Houx. By this time, it was recognised by the other campers that this particular corner of the campsite was unnoficially reserved for “Les Ros beefs”.
There were all manner of tents from 2 man Arctic units to family tents with 4 or more bedrooms. However, due to the drunken state most of us were in by the time we had to put the tents up – the results were ………. interesting.
Most of the tents hadn’t seen use since the previous year’s LeMans raid, and it was about this time that you remembered you had a hole in the canvas – the zip didn’t work, or there were parts that were just plain missing. Now most of us struggled with the 3 dimensional puzzle that was the frame and poles even when sober – so the scene is set for some serious mayhem.
One crew just gave up and settled into some serious drinking, and when night came along they simply crawled under the canvas – like a huge duvet ! On this occasion I had borrowed an 8 berth tent from a pal who assured me it was the dogs bollox. Yes it was – except he had forgotten to give me the internal bedroom compartments.
There were 3 couples sharing the tent, and we had nowhere for the separate toilet compartment ! Cosey.
Wobbly had a brand new 4 man tent all to himself and was very smug as it was one of the new [ then ] self erecting jobbies which was operated by a compressed air canister.
Eventually Steve passed out next to his beloved TR7, but we put him in his tent for safe-keeping. Then someone had a brilliant [ booze fueled ] idea. We moved another large frame tent complete and placed it over the TR7 – completely hiding it from view !
Everyone gradually collapsed or retired to their respective tents to ready themselves for the big day and the 4.0 pm send off for “the lads” [ start of the race ].
One of the couples sharing our tent had a pretty tempestuous relationship and when they had plenty to drink “she” became beligerant – and “he” got very chilled and could care less. So we had “her” ranting and raving at “him”, and he just looked at her with a stupid grin on his face – which made “her” rant and rave all the more. We all crashed out in our various sleeping bags, but one by one nature called and it was off outside the tent doors for a pee. Except he couldn’t find the tent opening in the dark – and after much muttering, swearing and falling over, he had finally explored all the sides of the tent walls without finding the relevant opening. So he thought “Fuckit” and just peed on the inside of the tent ! It WAS a big tent with plenty of space – and hygiene was probably not the top of the priority list for the LeMans week.
Except of ALL the places he chose to pee, it was all over “her”. At first she didn’t realise, although his noise and falling over had woken the rest of us anyway. She slowly roused to find her other half giggling and peeing all over her ! We made it worse by turning on the torches which we had and illuminating the scene. Why hadn’t we put them on so matey could find the door earlier ?? That would have spoiled the fun. She decided that it was necessary for her to have a shower [ 3.0am ] in the camp shower block. Now visualise 2000+ campers and just 6 primitive showers [ with even more primitive toilets ] – you can imagine the state of them after 3-4 days use. Anyway she made it down there with the aid of a torch, clutching her shower bag and giving everyone in sight a round of fucks.
What she did NOT know was that the organisers turned the water off at midnight, so there was only a residue of water left in the tanks – cold anyway. That didn’t bother her and in any event the weather was stinking hot, even at 3 in the morning.
What DID bother her was when she got all lathered up and found there was no more water left to rinse off ! However, nothing if not resourceful she reasoned that at least one of the other showers must also have some water left. She decided to come out of the shower, just as a group of German and French revellers walked past ……. There was this naked bird more or less hiding her modesty under a layer of lather, shouting and hollering at all and sundry. She made it to the adjacent shower, but not before at least a dozen camera flashes went off !
By 9.0 the next morning those that were not still pissed, started to make it out of the tents. Eventually Wobbly came out and rubbed his eyes and took in the surroundings ………….. it was brilliant watching the sequence of his mind trying to get round the notion that the TR7 was not were he left it – or at least not in sight.
We let him fret for half an hour or so before someone relented and opened up the tent covering his TR7 !!
As a footnote – the following year there were at least 5 or 6 picures of the shower girl pinned to the camp notice board, strangely she didn’t go that year – or EVER again !!
Beachcomber’s Tales from the Day
“Wobbly Wassell, TJ’s 10th LeMans Raid and the Vanishing TR7”
As usual a few backgrounder notes for this one.
I had been going to the LeMans 24 hour race since 1968 [ every year thro’ 1996 ], and what started as myself and a couple of mates escalated over the years to the point where I was organising trips [ “Raids” ] for various Hot Rod and Custom car clubs. By the time of this tale we had regular bands of 30 – 50 cars making the trip. 8)
I had also moved [ via France – another tale :
] from Essex to the Midlands, complete with Mrs.B 2nd.Once established there, we were again in the thick of the Hot Rod and Drag Racing fraternity and had opened a Speed Shop [ "Muscle City" ]. Shortly after the shop opened we had a young guy come in with a brand new TR7 [ Triumph’s “sports” car ] and asked “What can I do with it”. I’m sure he meant customising with allloy wheels, sidepipes etc., but I just handed him a box of matches ………………………. ;D
Despite that, he went on to have the car customised and painted AND became a firm friend. He was Steve Wassell one of the 2 sons of the Wassell Motorcycle Parts empire. He was considerably younger than most of us and would always try to impress by drinking as much as possible during our Saturday afternoons at the shop. This drinking habit followed him into maturity [ ? ] and he was never very steady on his feet, thus earning him the nickname “Wobbly Wassell”.
In fact in later life he became so fed up at being thrown out of his favourite Wine Bar – that he bought it !
By this time we had elements from the old Essex crowd and my new pals from the Midlands area – with myself as the common link. Every year we had the “old brigade” from previous years plus a sprinkling of new faces.
On this particular raid Wobbly decided it was about time he broke his LeMans virginity and came along – complete with customised TR7. There was a catholic selection of cars, from true Hot Rods – V8 Ford pops, Model B and a tasty Model A Pick up – the odd Custom Van [ still popular then ] as well as a sprinkling of Muscle Cars [ Mustangs, Camaros, Cudas, Sunbeam Tiger ………. ] and even one or two daily driver cars.
Again, Steve was the youngster at the party and true to form was arse’oled before he got off the ferry ! In hindsight – so were most of the rest of the crew. In reality, we WERE piss artists, and again in hindsight I’m amazed there were no accidents or even tragedies.
There was this sort of belief that once you were on French soil – you could get away with anything. In truth, in those days the French had a VERY laissez faire attitude to drinking - 2 hour lunches with a couple of bottles of wine was the norm. As long as you could stand up – you could drive ! That changed dramatically several years later when the alchohol tolerance was virtually zero. However, at this time there was no restriction as such, and we took advantage of the situation – immature / reckless - I know. :
Every town we went through presented opportunities for impromptu Drag Races and burnouts. Wobbly had the piss royally taken out of his choice of car and suffered many good humoured jokes and leg pulling. His car had a full length sunroof, which due to the extremely hot weather he naturally had open. BIG mistake …………. Big George drove alongside [ on the footpath [ ie the inside ], while his mate poured a bottle of beer all over Steve through the sunroof ! I did mention immature didn’t I ?
We made LeMans without any real dramas and miraculously – no accidents, to set up in our usual spot in the Camping du Houx. By this time, it was recognised by the other campers that this particular corner of the campsite was unnoficially reserved for “Les Ros beefs”.
There were all manner of tents from 2 man Arctic units to family tents with 4 or more bedrooms. However, due to the drunken state most of us were in by the time we had to put the tents up – the results were ………. interesting.
Most of the tents hadn’t seen use since the previous year’s LeMans raid, and it was about this time that you remembered you had a hole in the canvas – the zip didn’t work, or there were parts that were just plain missing. Now most of us struggled with the 3 dimensional puzzle that was the frame and poles even when sober – so the scene is set for some serious mayhem.
One crew just gave up and settled into some serious drinking, and when night came along they simply crawled under the canvas – like a huge duvet ! On this occasion I had borrowed an 8 berth tent from a pal who assured me it was the dogs bollox. Yes it was – except he had forgotten to give me the internal bedroom compartments.
There were 3 couples sharing the tent, and we had nowhere for the separate toilet compartment ! Cosey.
Wobbly had a brand new 4 man tent all to himself and was very smug as it was one of the new [ then ] self erecting jobbies which was operated by a compressed air canister.
Eventually Steve passed out next to his beloved TR7, but we put him in his tent for safe-keeping. Then someone had a brilliant [ booze fueled ] idea. We moved another large frame tent complete and placed it over the TR7 – completely hiding it from view !
Everyone gradually collapsed or retired to their respective tents to ready themselves for the big day and the 4.0 pm send off for “the lads” [ start of the race ].
One of the couples sharing our tent had a pretty tempestuous relationship and when they had plenty to drink “she” became beligerant – and “he” got very chilled and could care less. So we had “her” ranting and raving at “him”, and he just looked at her with a stupid grin on his face – which made “her” rant and rave all the more. We all crashed out in our various sleeping bags, but one by one nature called and it was off outside the tent doors for a pee. Except he couldn’t find the tent opening in the dark – and after much muttering, swearing and falling over, he had finally explored all the sides of the tent walls without finding the relevant opening. So he thought “Fuckit” and just peed on the inside of the tent ! It WAS a big tent with plenty of space – and hygiene was probably not the top of the priority list for the LeMans week.
Except of ALL the places he chose to pee, it was all over “her”. At first she didn’t realise, although his noise and falling over had woken the rest of us anyway. She slowly roused to find her other half giggling and peeing all over her ! We made it worse by turning on the torches which we had and illuminating the scene. Why hadn’t we put them on so matey could find the door earlier ?? That would have spoiled the fun. She decided that it was necessary for her to have a shower [ 3.0am ] in the camp shower block. Now visualise 2000+ campers and just 6 primitive showers [ with even more primitive toilets ] – you can imagine the state of them after 3-4 days use. Anyway she made it down there with the aid of a torch, clutching her shower bag and giving everyone in sight a round of fucks.
What she did NOT know was that the organisers turned the water off at midnight, so there was only a residue of water left in the tanks – cold anyway. That didn’t bother her and in any event the weather was stinking hot, even at 3 in the morning.
What DID bother her was when she got all lathered up and found there was no more water left to rinse off ! However, nothing if not resourceful she reasoned that at least one of the other showers must also have some water left. She decided to come out of the shower, just as a group of German and French revellers walked past ……. There was this naked bird more or less hiding her modesty under a layer of lather, shouting and hollering at all and sundry. She made it to the adjacent shower, but not before at least a dozen camera flashes went off !
By 9.0 the next morning those that were not still pissed, started to make it out of the tents. Eventually Wobbly came out and rubbed his eyes and took in the surroundings ………….. it was brilliant watching the sequence of his mind trying to get round the notion that the TR7 was not were he left it – or at least not in sight.
We let him fret for half an hour or so before someone relented and opened up the tent covering his TR7 !!
As a footnote – the following year there were at least 5 or 6 picures of the shower girl pinned to the camp notice board, strangely she didn’t go that year – or EVER again !!
Well there were no "fuckoffs" to my auto related story, so maybe another coming up next month.
Still looking for relevant pix, hope to find them soon [ ye olde 35mm stuff ! ]
I do have a few bike related Tales left, but I'll have to drag them out a bit !
Still looking for relevant pix, hope to find them soon [ ye olde 35mm stuff ! ]
I do have a few bike related Tales left, but I'll have to drag them out a bit !
bvander said:
Please get your priorities right ....I'm just recounting my past - you are living your future - get the bike done !
Thanx for the kind words though - I hope each and every one of you lives a full life and when YOU reach your own three score and ten [ well next year ! ] you will all have your very own "tales" to pass on.
Mrs. B has a week off work next week [ well deserved ] and is threatening to have a major sort out in our loft ! There are literally 1000's of old pix up there, so that will be a good opportunity to sort out some pix for related tales. Sadly they only relate to the past 30 years we've been together and the 6 years from Mrs.B 2nd. - nothing before that [ Mrs.B 1st ], damn her eyes.
We're off to Saxony for a break in April, so the next tale will either be just before, or more likely - just after.
We're off to Saxony for a break in April, so the next tale will either be just before, or more likely - just after.
Rich Ard said:
Could be Rich,
I've decided on the Tale - another auto related one - hope nobody minds.
"How to close the Paris Sports Car show down single handed".
I'll leave you all to imagine what that might be !!
