Here the paddock layout from Viva Italia RD01 is 0ur spot.

Whoop, work is now finished, tomorrow pack the car and leave for Assen

Have a great time guys.

See you guys soon , looking forward to it, seems to be good weather on Sunday.

Nope, it's just starting


See youse all Saturday

I'm taking walkie-talkies, if anyone is around and has one try channel 7

I think our plan is to get checked in on Saturday and then head over to annoy Rene in the afternoon, he's got a tidy power washer so we can have a car wash meet and convoy to the restaurant

Have a great time and hope the weather is kind for you all. Drive Safe!

Sounds like a plan

OMG , that plan , i will take care that everything is ready , and leave the house
, see you guys tomorrow , and drive safe

Hi to all the guys going to Viva Italia ! We will get there late Saturday and so will meet up with the Dutch guys early Sunday morning near Apeldoorn and be at the track on time Sunday. Look fwd to seeing all the Brit contingent ! best rgds Charles and Ali

After a fairly horrendous day we're now in Premier Inn Harwich re-booked onto the morning ferry - see you in the restaurant at Zeijen about 8 ish, fingers crossed

Ok thxx for keeping me posted , i will keep my fingers crossed .

Just one day to go for Viva

Well here I am at Eurotunnel Folkestone waiting for my train. Had a mild panic last night, battery was dead and when charged, the CODE light was on...

I had been testing the water injection (found out flow meter not working) but must have left ignition on...

But after an overnight charge...all seems ok, Assen here we come!

We've just set sail.....hooray!

Sledgehammers and nuts don't have a look-in after yesterday, we missed our 1700 ferry at Newcastle, drove asap to Hull for the Zeebrugge departure but only got as far as York before they told us we wouldn't have a chance of being let on

Having got this far there was no way we were giving up the chase so continued to Harwich, booking for the 0900 ferry which has just left

On the way, Emilia was taking a much-appreciated spell and the injector light suddenly came on, followed by battery light as it lost power, coasting into a parking layby conveniently close She immediately thought she'd done something wrong but on popping the bonnet and checking levels etc I couldn't see anything obvious. Tried starting again and the injector light went off, all worked smoothly till now thankfully. A momentary electrical issue

Determined to see this through!

What time is the restaurant booked for René?

About 19.00 Simon , what an adventure

Great to meet up again with old and new, lovely welcome and dinner (a bit late ) at the atmospheric Cafe Hingstman, wooded surroundings, delicious food and plenty of it, attended with excellent service

To add to the mishaps, I brought the wrong part all the way from Scotland for DaveG, who unwrapped it in front of Jake who had actually wrapped it 2/3 years ago

Then the power to the widget and windows which failed as we were leaving one of the many ferry ports we'd toured was diagnosed and fixed by Joe just looking at it ....

What is next?? A sunny day tomorrow at the Cathedral!

Had a great day so far, chilled day making it from the ferry to Asssen, great meal with friends

Sorry simon i got this before you got here
see everyone tomorow

Crikey-

I'm almost reading this through my hands over my face...

Good luck, everyone...

Thxx guys for an awesome weekend , had a great time , thank you for coming over to Assen , pictures will follow as soon as possible.

Greetings René

Here are som pictures of the awesome weekend enjoy watching.






































Greetings René

What a cracking event, hats off to René and all of his team for the effort and warm welcome. I've now got a second "kid" convert Emilia had a great time and enjoyed meeting everyone.

Our return journey was smooth and uncomplicated just like the outward one (not) and there have been one or two "casualties" along the way but hey the glass has always got to be half-full!

Track time was awesome and the time I invested watching footage of last year's sessions really helped. Emilia posted a bit of video footage on FB which immediately provoked one or two comments about "drift" which I'll need to attend to

A couple of pics I liked....




and an unexpected development, but colour-coded...

Thxx Simon and Emilia it was a pleasure , glad to hear you had a great time.

Greetings René

To all of the Dutch crew.. Rene of course the star.. een zeer grote dank u

Thanks for a very successful event. Both Ali and I really enjoyed it. So much so he did go into a full spin on his first track session.
Great to meet all the UK boys at last. Joe ..for sure see you in June and Dave and Simon catch up during the year.
Regards Charles

I look forward to seeing you again in June Charles, it was an awesome weekend

Thanks Rene for organising and to all the dutch crowd for making us feel soooo welcome. A fantasic weekend with great people. Hopefully in my own coupe next year

A special thanks has to go Rene and Mirjam for making all of us feel so welcome, Never have I been to such a welcoming event and welcoming people. The stand Rene went to the effort of sorting out was great, the meal was great, the after event food and meet up at Rene's & Mirjam's was wonderful.
To any one who hasn't attended this one the vibe is.., different to any other meetup I have attended, relaxed, fun, and amazingly well organised and put together.

This year the weather was very much on our side, the track was well catoerd for, reasonably priced food and drink with out this tokon crap I have seen, The toilets were kept clean and loads about (important for people like me)

Any how, back in the UK after 1000+ miles in the coupe, not a hint of an issue, no coolant loss, oil use to speak of and actually pretty good on fuel all things equal.

I hope to meet up with every one again, it was great to see Simon and dave, Simon, The level of commitment you showed to making it there is remarkable, that was a trip from hell!

Hope to see every one again in June! I need to sleep now, getting back at 2:30am was not fun!

Nice to read the comments of youre staying in Assen ,i realy enjoyed as wel as Mirjam to let you feel welcome ,the compliments also going to Rico Donkersloot , Virgenie Mes ,Johan Swalen and Marc de Haan for helping me out also our other club members were active helping , we do it together as a group no questions ask.

See you soon , thxx for making the effort to come over , youre diehards

Cheers René and Mirjam

Thanks from me too (and my sons Tim and Ben) to René and Mirjam for being such great hosts once again. The meal on Saturday evening in a local pub/restaurant was more relaxed than last year, with very reasonably priced food. Sunday started cool but the sun shone all day long, shame we missed half of the first track session but I'm sure we'll all pay a bit more attention to the timetable next year. Compared to last year it was less crowded, with no non-italian "supercars" and no Gumball cars either, but it seemed more personal as a result. I must have spent too long talking or watching the parade laps and not looking at other cars because by the time I went around, many had starting leaving early (from 3pm onwards) which was disappointing. The Ferrari/Lambo parade was a bit odd: lots of cars hanging around on the grid for an age, then once they started the lap, nearly all of them came in straight away and very few actually carried on driving around. Also the general parade lap had very few cars (unlike last year, when it was rather too crowded) and it was virtually a cut price track normal track session. So some lessons to be learnt based on the scale of the event.

But the final track session made up for that, what a hoot! My top mounts have gone, leading to some clunking initially on the track, and making for some entertaining handling on the way home! I'll get the video up eventually, but here are some pics:

Line-up at the meeting point


Club area


Other cars


Track session 1


Parade lap


Ferrari/Lambo thing


Finally, our hosts Rene, Mirjam and Rico (the tall guy at the back)

Link to session 3 video clicky