Wednesday, 2 April 2008

Charity Please!

Here we are again! It's been a while since our last update so apologies for that! A few things have happened since, and I'll try to put them down in chronological order.

On the 28th February Kev and I went along to Club Velocitá HQ and met with the owner to sip Champagne, ogle super cars such as Lamborghini's, Ferrari's and Porsche's, and oh yea, discuss our little trip round the world!

We managed to secure Club Velocitá as sponsors by offering their fledgling super car club copious amounts of press coverage and promotion to boost their membership ranks in return for a small donation of lubricants and general service items ;) Well, the guys came good and we now have enough oil to join OPEC so cheers lads!

Another development in the sponsorship sector was Halfords in Farnborough offering us £80 worth of gift vouchers. This was a great help and went towards 2 large spot lights and all new ignition components to make Valerie purr like a contented kitten!

With all this gear, apart from a tune up Valerie is pretty much good to go! All we need now is monetary donations.

All the information about the charities etc. can be found on the website(www.teamfirstgear.co.uk), but I will give a little more background.

The 2 main reasons why Kev and I decided to enter this rally was firstly to raise lots of cash for some really great Charities, and secondly to have as much fun as possible! Exploring new countries and cultures is something that Kev and I both enjoy, and having the chance to do this whilst driving across continents and raising loads of cash for Charity is something that we are really looking forward to.

The Charities that we are supporting are CAMDA (Cambridge Mongolian Disaster Appeal) and the CDPF (Childrens Development and Protection Fund). CAMDA will be receiving all the money we raise via our Just Giving Page (http://www.justgiving.com/teamfirstgear) and the CDPF will be taking delivery of Valerie the lucky buggers! They will then be able to use her in one of their projects, or alternatively she will be sold at auction and all the proceeds will go directly to the charity.

As above, Valerie is pretty much ready to go, we just need you great people to help out and donate money in one (or both!) ways:

  • Firstly, you can donate money to Just Giving and this will go on to our running tally
  • Alternatively if you visit the site and click on the PayPal "Donate" button then the money will come straight through to us for use on the trip.

Excuse the cheese, but every donation, no matter how small makes a difference ;)

Wednesday, 20 February 2008

First Entry!

Well here it is, Team First Gears first blog entry!

It's been a long time coming but we've finally managed to get the website up and running (http://www.teamfirstgear.co.uk/) meaning we can now link to the blog so people can find it!

Now we're all here I may aswell let you know what's going on with Team First Gear. We have entered into the Mongolia Charity Rally 2008 run by the Go Help organisation, and are made up of 3 essential ingredients; 2 nutters and a suitably unsuitable car! No to be honest, Valerie (Our humble and trusted 18 year old Suzuki Vitara) is on her way to becoming a most excellent chariot, a far cry from the death trap she was when Kev picked her up! Yes, we believe that Valerie will be more than capable of carrying her 2 nut-job occupants all the way to Mongolia without incident…

Anyway, since Kev relieved her old owner of Valerie she’s been through quite the transformation! Kev hastily tore apart the roof, wrenched the seats from their mounts and covered her in chipboard. Then Paul pulled her underbits apart, fitted new spring spacers to give her 2” of extra ground clearance and then as a final touch, fitted refurbished 8-Spoke off-road wheels and tyres.




Next on the cards for Valerie will be a new exhaust as the present one has more holes than St. Andrews golf course! Also needed is a new clutch that can bite a little harder than an OAP who’s lost their false teeth… Apart from that and a little tune up, Valerie is well on her way to becoming a globetrotting charlatan who laughs in the face of danger and adversity in her quest for adventure!

Moving swiftly on…

There will be an update soon, Paul and Kev will be meeting with a potential sponsor to discuss a deal on the 28th, so we’ll let you all know how it goes!

Cheers,

Team First Gear