Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

From an e-mail:

Hello everyone,

Well, John and I are back in Austria. Yes, we are OK and there is major flooding around eastern Europe, but where we are at it’s alright.

Dresden is actually where the Sachsenring is at, outside of it about 40 miles. It’s crazy ’cause we were there about 3 weeks ago.

Prague is flooded pretty bad. We have a mechanic who lives there, and we’re wondering how he’s doing. Next week we are going to Brno which is about 2 hours east of Prague. I think the flooding will put a damper on the race and the spectators.

Salzburg appearently was flooded a bit, too, but like I said, we are in the outskirts of it, so we are alright.

Anyway, our trip over was OK. We arrived into Clermont about 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday. At first, our bags didn’t show for a half hour. We were starting to get pissed off, but eventually they showed. We grabbed our car and headed off to Austria.

We were on the road around 9:00 p.m., and we drove thru Switzerland. It was a funny trip ’cause we only had a map of France. So we knew to head to Zurich to get over to Innsbruck. From Innsbruck, we knew the way. We missed a motorway on the border of France and Switz. So we almost started heading to Italy, but we turned around and drove back thru Switz. We then stopped at a gas station and got a map of Switz. It showed enough of Austria in it to get an idea of where we were going. By this time it was around midnight.

When we got to Zurich, there was a bit of construction going on so we didn’t know which way to go. There were two signs saying the same thing going different directions so we took a guess and fortunately it was the right one. For the longest time, we were the only car on the road. Driving in the middle of the night, lacking sleep, in a foreign country, speaking no language (but English), not quite sure which way to take. Yeah, we are pretty nuts now that we think about it.

Anyways, we found the road to take to Innsbruck. We drove thru Leichtenstein which is a small very, tax-free country. We drove thru that in about 15-20 minutes. Then we saw the sign that says Innsbruck, which was about 150 kms +-. We crossed over to Austria and then drove thru a tunnel that was 14km long. It was sooo long, it seemed long anyway. It was so long that it was starting to get annoying. But how often do you get to go into a long tunnel in the early morning in a beautiful picturesque country? We are very fortunate to be able to do this. As tired and exhausted as we were, it’s always going to be something to remember.

We were about 10 km outside of Salzburg when there was a car accident on the motorway. So we were stopped for about an hour, and then finally it got rolling and we were on our way to Strasswalchen. That’s where the gasthof is. Finally 12 hours later, we arrive in Austria and slept all day. We got up for our meal and then back to bed that night. We are the only ones here along with Phil the truck driver and Donna the PR spokesperson. This weekend we may head up to Eagle’s Nest, which is where Hitler hid during his last days or hours. Until then, hope all is well back home, and it was great to be home for the short time. We had alot of fun.

Des and John