Lil' Devil Racing

29/11/2006
Its that time of year again when the truck comes apart and we do all of the major repairs but the weather has not been that forgiving so not a lot is getting done. Ill keep everyone imformed on my progress Check back soon

14/11/2006
The Race - oh what can we say! On arrival at Silverstone on this wet very cold morning we were unloading Lil' Devil when oil pressure just dropped. We had blown the seal at the filter, on inspection we put it down to the 20/50 oil being far too cold so it was off to see our good friends at Ice Automotive who are quite handy being at Silverstone. With a new filter and three gallons of warmed up 20/50 the truck ran lovely. We were given the boys team of Les Ferdinand, Nick Moran, Gary Numan and Nigel Benn. My poor engine was certainly given a beating whilst several times hitting the rev limits. At times I was waiting for the bang. The producers threw a spanner in the works when they decided that the teams should swap trucks. But Nigel and myself weren’t about to let this happen without swapping the teams for training, as the trucks are so different. There goes the rev limiter again when will the day end?! Tamara Ecclestone was driving the truck when the prop shaft sheared the bolts. So with some downtime Pete managed to get the truck back together and also allowing for the engine to cool down. The producers were at it again when it was decided that the boys should go back to driving Lil' Devil. Now for the race Gary Numan lined up against Ingrid Tarrant in Bigfoot 17. The lights went green and they’re off - Gary making the better start only to mess up on the second set of cars allowing Ingrid to sneak past into the corner. Coming out of the corner Ingrid was clearly in front, but on hitting the final cars one of the rear wheels missed and the truck threw itself over to the left. Ingrid was thrown nose to tail in a spectacular roll landing upside down, whilst Gary cleared the cars unaware of the carnage at the side of him. Ingrid emerged without a scratch the truck being built to MTRAE safety standards was certainly a major factor. The final race was decided by a race on the floor against the clock with only one truck left Nick Moran went first getting a good time and then Ms Dynamite who went over the corner instead of round giving the win to the boys. Although Bigfoot was totaled you can be sure the team at LA Supertrux will have it up and running again in no time.

09/10/2006

MTR Promotions under the guise of Monster Mania pulled out all the stops for this one - six trucks traveling from England to Estonia. Most met outside LA Supertrux ready for the short trip up to Immingham, ready for the first ferry taking 26 hours to Sweden.

Now we were in foreign territory and within three miles of the ferry we had taken a wrong turn – it was gonna be a long day!! Back on track we made the 300km journey to Karlesham in reasonably good time and boarded the second ferry for a 14 hour journey to Lithuania. On arrival in Lithuania our troubles began with some us not having all the relevant paperwork for our vehicles. After a lot of sweet talking (yes it can be done when needed) the nice officials allowed us into the country where our very gracious host and promoter Toomas was waiting to guide us through to Estonia - a 600km journey. The trip through Lithuania was great (although the roads left a lot to be desired), but it also meant another border to cross – same scenario, different border! We traveled through to Riga in Latvia and stopped to check out our second venue and met some of the press for a short photo shoot and a pizza lunch. Continuing on we caught the sunset as we left Riga and I have to say it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. Of course another border – yup you guessed it (and it had to be me and Nigel this time!), Toomas saved the day again and we managed to make it to our hotel.

The following day saw us embarking on a promotional week, we took Lil’ Devil to the Dodge dealer for the first day along with Slingshot and the others were on display at the shopping centre. The following day we moved to the shopping centre with the rest and with six trucks we managed to attract a lot of attention – a great promotional idea.

The journey home was a lot less fraught with border control and everyone managed to get home safely. The Lil’ Devil Race Team would like to thank Toomas and his team for being such great hosts and even better promoters. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Estonia and Latvia and can’t wait to get back there next year. Thanks!