Well guys, what can I say? Gatebil is without a doubt the best show in Europe. Nothing in the U.K. comes close, whether it's track or just general car shows. The Norwegian's have developed this show since 1993 to perfect every aspect and the main event at Rudskogen track more than delivers. The cars were epic, the level of driving on track was unreal and the aftertrack parties were just pure comedy no matter where you went. Smuttyness is also very obvious :cry: These boys know how to party non-stop! I’m still pulling bits of tyre fragments out of my nose because the track surface doesn’t exist after a while, it's simply thousands of tyre layers that float up in the air...weird to explain :lol: Plus, I was there for 5 mins and managed to steal a Gatebil mopehead to find me dad who got lost :lol: They’re very trusting people
I was pretty shocked to find out that apart from me, the Japspeed crew and Irish native Darren McNamara, there wasn't anyone else from the U.K. that attended with their cars
So I thought I'd post this thread up to try and entice people who worry about the costs...because there isn't any other reason why someone would not want to go. But for a more specific reason, there’s some great Ford’s there, but they’re a dying breed unfortunately!!! Christ, there's only 10 Focus RS Mk1's in the country and only one standard examble turned up and 1 MK2 FRS. But that would be the only Ford's there without a real engine :lol:I decided to drive my car the whole way, as apposed to using a trailer. It would be a more entertaining drive, prove that Cosworth powered cars are very much as reliable as younger cars and that it would help with overall travelling costs. So I looked at all the options and discovered which was the cheapest, took it and tried to record every step so others could do the same in future.
The original ferry from Newcastle to Norway was shut down a while back now, so the only options of civi ferries are from Harwich to Esbjerg in Denmark, then a Ferry from there to perhaps Larvik in Norway. But from the U.K. we're pretty much stuffed with direct ferries. But I looked into DFDS' Freight lines and found that a ferry left 111 miles away in Immingham on the Tuesday at 5am and arrives in Gothenburg, Sweden at 8am on Thursday. 26 hour ferry that's really for truck drivers, but they take on limited civi passengers and their cars if they book well in advance. I expected a right heap, but have a look at these pics. The food was fantastic, limited, but really good all the same. Steak, chips etc.
My dad came along in his L200 Barbarian truck with loads of extra beer, car parts and tools....just in case. There were only 5 people in total as passengers on the outward journey, and those people just slept. So we had all this to ourselves
Just to point out, my dad's truck had a cooler box in it to keep the beer cold. So by Saturday, the big new Jap crap needed a jump start from the unreliable Cossie....PRICELESS!!!! :cry:The price for the ferry is cheaper than the ship from Harwich! In total, I paid £698 for both ways which included all meals and drinks (Harwich-Denmark civi ship ONE WAY is £480).
We then arrived on time in Gothenburg...
Gothenburg is 145 miles away from Rudskogen in Rakkestad, allowing plenty of time to arrive at the track for when the gates open at 12pm (we arrived at 12:30 having taken the main E6 motorway through Sweden and into Norway, but with a slight scenic detour along the 22 which runs alongside the E6 but doesn't have toll roads, but does have epic bendy roads - check the pics, a bit of rain but soon cleared).
Now, not according to plan, but I was almost killed by a moose 5 miles away from Rudskogen :cry: This story didn't really impress my Norwegian mates because it's a regular occurance, but it still shit's you up when something the size of a mini bus with antlers runs at you full force!!! :cry: It simply tried to run across the road and I had to brake and skid to the other side of the road, where luckily the moose tried to stop and instead slipped onto it's ass....I passed it literally seeing the whites of it's eyes from being so close! :lol: But managed to get this shot as it ran off...
So we arrived at the site to find that there's 2 sections to the race depot, where big race teams and general folk like me want to camp and race my car. You have countless spectator camp sites all around as well. But we managed to get probably one of the best spots around the Ford lovers on the tarmac section and not the gravel, but these pics are still from Thursday so most people had not set up just yet. When they did, there was literally no room to swing a cat around. But I'll let the pics do the talking in that respect.
So the following few days consisted of a lot of drinking, watching track action and naked girls doing all the things a humble Welsh lad like me could only imagine :lol: and also getting lost on some random vodka induced walk around the area at 5am on Saturday...don’t ask! :cry: But I did some drag racing on the Friday evening, almost had Romain Oppligger’s very nice and powerful road spec Escort Cossie too. But I imagine he wasn’t pushing that monster as much as he could have. Lovely chap to talk to as well, proper Ford man! Also ventured out for a few laps on the track on Saturday, but nothing as mad as the locals do and I'm afraid the hangover took over and I let the side down by falling asleep early :lol:
But at the end of the day, I’m out to prove my car was a great cross country tourer that stayed together with ease and could take a lot of stick. It proved to be better than I even thought and was perfect at all times. F**k the Cosworth bashing parade!
Here’s some more pics, but I’ll upload the track action pics of mine after me old man emails them to me
Romain Oppliger's Escort with all the running gear from his works car...
Rolf Klypen with the RS500 Touring Car also owns this little mad 4x4 machine...
Speaking of which...
Member on here, was a bit pissed up when we spoke to him but what a sound lad with such a cool car
Look at the lock on this! Neat bottom arm conversion...
You see the white line....that wasn’t even visible halfway through the day with so many layers of tyre :lol:
This had melted 2 pistons and the engine was rebuilt by the next day...crazy! These are the after rebuild pics!!!
These boys were nuts, Mad Mike from New Zealand and Norwegian Fredrik Aasbo...
Team Yellow were awesome!
This car was in a tent that had hundreds of tyres on sale for a fitted price, something very handy indeed. They even had budget tyres, not just expensive track ones
This truck was so cool, no refinements and went like stink!
The infamous Mini Quattro which really flew on track...
Full carbon Supra...
This MK2 was chopped in half and widened to accommodate the transmission. Amazing car, but the owner crashed it quite badly on the Sunday
I have millions of pics and I’ll upload them as time goes on. But after the show was done, me old man and I stayed one more night on the Sunday so we can be fresh and ready for the 100 mile drive to catch our return ferry from Brevik, Norway on Monday at 6pm. It was pretty much the same ship, but the downside on the return is that it takes 56 hours to get back to Immingham, as it goes back via Gothenburg first and stays there all day for whatever reasons. But there’s plenty to do onboard so not a big deal. Think of how cost effective it is
So we made the drive, stopping halfway to take the Horten-Moss ferry link that only costs £10, comes every 30 mins, takes only 30 mins to cross and you don’t need to book it in advance. The benefit of this ferry is that you don’t need to drive all the way up to Oslo and back down the other side. Saves time and fuel. 
Coming into Moss
When we arrived at Brevik, it came across as the “local place for local people only” quiet village. So having a noisy Cosworth rumble with British plates isn’t really going to make us popular :lol: But we had a few hours to kill and had some lunch and did the tourist pic
taking thing. Lovely little place and the sun was shining still
At this point we made the decision to say screw the budget :lol: Now I can still work out how much it would cost if someone did exactly the same trip, but coming all that way, there’s no way I was going to go home without seeing the famous bridges through Sweden and Denmark. So me dad and I made the decision to get on the ship in Brevik, where we immediately got in touch with DFDS to cancel the crossing to Immingham. They not only swapped the charge over to the Esbjerg-Harwich ship with no extra costs, but they allowed us a free crossing from Brevik to Gothenburg (which should have cost around the £150 mark for each car and driver). Score!
So the next morning, we made the looooooong trip from Gothenburg to Esbjerg. 375 miles in one go and was worth every second. Sorry about pic quality, kinda nervous driving over the bridges and taking pics the same time :lol:
This was my new best friend by this time...
And the ship in Esbjerg...
And the 253 mile drive home from Harwich...
So all in all a trip of a lifetime! Easily the most exciting track I’ve ever driven, certainly the best drivers I’ve seen and they’re of all ages and still have quality skill and ability. The Nurburgring is great, but dated and boring to me. This track has everything without the risk of dying as much :cry: I think I’ll be on the new Gatebil DVD speaking Welsh....the guy doing the interview thingy seemed so fascinated about it :lol:
Do it guys, it’s worth missing 2 shows in the year to just do this one massive example of how shows should be.
As for my own spends, well camping stuff is just a given, so depends how much beer you take. I wasn’t searched because I was on freight, but you probably will be limited to how much beer you take into the country on a normal civi ship. So I’d just buy beer and take money out in Sarpsborg (just before Rudskogen) because you can just use your debit or credit card everywhere else inclusing toll roads.
984 total miles (not including track time, but had spare fuel for that in the truck) – averaging 26 mpg = £235 (might be a little under or over, but there abouts). Not bad really for a 380+ Cossie motor
Massive thanks to these dodgy characters for showing me around :lol:
Neil Davies
Jan (JHS)...he doesn’t like cameras :lol:
And Guir Huin (grcossie)
No pic sorry
This sticker.....well you had to be there to know what it means :lol:
