24th June - Up to my eyes in muck and bullets, but thanks to an uncharacteristically efficient Bootsy, we now have all the little nasties fixed on the car. Apart from the non-functioning windows. And that annoying graunch on the steerings. Still, we're insured and road legal, and in c.2 weeks time we'll be off into the wide blue yonder. Via Dover.

23rd May - Just back from the 'ring and Spa, still knackered, here's a little something I prepared earlier for a magazine that probably won't print it...   May’s sunshine had 12 petrolheads decide to get their fix of fun with a long weekend on the Continent. We had a eclectic mix of cars including a BMW M3, Mitsubishi Evo, Tiger kitcar, a tuned Audi S4, a MR2 Turbo, an Eastbourne plated Mondeo taxi, a Boxster S and a BMW 320d M Sport Estate. All fun in their own way and used as daily drivers but each a very different drive. We met at Bruges, enjoyed a few too many ‘Kwak’ Beers, incurred a hangover then suffered the awesome sound of LM2 racers testing at Spa after dispatching most of Belgium in a blur. The Audi satnav was comically confused at times, with statements like “prepare to continue turning slightly left” lacking in accuracy somewhat. Then on to the Nürburgring to get in a few ‘Touristfahrt’ laps. However, it seems that everyone in Western Europe has the same idea, and the roads were jammed for some distance. The guys in the Tiger arrived sunburnt, covered in a veneer of oil, knackered, but smiling. A quick blat in it around the Eifel mountains gave the impression of flying a vintage aircraft. Drum brakes at the rear and a Sierra engine at the front made for a vintage experience but Andy and Calgon piloted it round the ‘ring in surprisingly brisk fashion. The Evo and M3 both put in very quick laps, picking up so many flies and mosquitoes in the hot weather they were at risk of catching malaria. Driven by Charles breathing like Darth Vader, the S4 did a 9’23” through traffic, the Milltek exhaust sounding tremendous. I did my Michael Flatley impression river-dancing in the passenger seat stamping on imaginary brake pedals into Wehrseifen. The Mondeo taxi turned real ‘ring-taxi put in a decent lap, and the 320d was quick too, although both had too narrow a torque band to keep up with the others, despite being chipped to around 200 bhp. There were the usual stoppages to scrape up Bikers and sweep up random bits of car from the track. The Ringhaus was a great place to stay and when the owner caught us shrink wrapping the Tiger at 2am after a few Weiβenbiers, he made us wrap his chef’s bike too, who says Germans don’t have a sense of humour ? We then drove back to Spa for a trackday, alongside many UK plated R33 and R34 Nissan Skylines driven by hard-looking blokes in tracksuits and no need for helmets. Spa was great, the MR2 turbo drifting through the pack, quickly turning its tyres the consistency of blu-tack, and overheating. ‘Au rouge’ really should be renamed ‘au shiiiiiiit’ at anything over a ton. The Boxster managed to pick up a 6” screwdriver bit in a rear tyre, although the local Renault garage sorted it for a very reasonable €20 after we described the problem by pointing and hissing. Again, the Tiger was for the brave/mentally ill, and its oil spewing was traced to a poor gasket after the Driver had been sprayed with something resembling napalm and could no longer take the pain. An easy fix in the end although the driver resembled Simon Weston. The Audi’s power and considerable weight combined to munch its redstuff pads to nothing, and after a trip into the run-off area, had to be trailered to the garage for new pads. Still, with an average 7.5 mpg fuel consumption over the 2 days, it was cheaper to have it towed than driven. More beer and dancing like Bez in Bruges and a nap on the ferry before we got home, with plans to do the same again soon, but with spares next time just in case...

2nd of May. - SniffPetrol kindly add their weight to our campaign. The Gti is now MOT'd, although the gearbox is like a bowl of porridge (not too hot, not too cold, and not just right either Goldilocks), a wheelbearing is shot, the electric windows are still lifeless and the choke only works once the engine is warm (?). We could fix it, but then again, we could have another beer now the sunshine is here. Thanks all for the ongoing support, including another great donation from Pukka Pies ! I'm off on a reccie to Spa and the 'ring in a couple of weeks, get some practice in, happy days....

10th April - BIALI Motorsport (Bodge it and leg it) are kindly sponsoring us on the basis that we sabotage another (nameless) contestants car at every opportunity. Steve2 from Tyresmoke has also kindly donated, thanks chap ! Total now standing at £763 for Barnardos, which coincidentally, is the total sum of money spent on maintenance on our Gti since it was made 19 years ago....

8th April, donations from Jimmy3valver and a whopper from our kind friends at Pukka Pies, thanks folks.

4th April 2008. PS Imaging will be tracking us on the Scumball and should get some great pictures (shameless plug here http://www.psimaging.co.uk/ ), Jimmy P and Sean H from Tyresmoke made great donations too, a pic of Boss Hogg is due to go on the Gti ! Lots in the pipeline, thanks all for your support !

27th March 2008. Charlton Birkett have confirmed their support for us again this year, and PilotDan has made a very generous donation. Practical Performance Car Mag look like they're going to feature us which is great news too. Now, the car, £250 on welding means the car is just about roadworthy and MOT'd which is good, although I'm sure the chassis wasn't that rusty...

17th March 2008, well, we're making progress now, the online donation thingy is set up, the first donation made (thanks Mattchaps !) and we're looking good. Apart from the car that needs c.£300 of work for its MOT. Bugger. Bootsy informs me that the heater is stuck on max hot, and the windows are stuck up, and we're driving to Germany in July. Nice. Happy days !

 08th February 2008 - Late night negiociations finally result in the new team name, wheels and drivers for 2008. TCR will now be 'Wolfsburg Wolfbaggers' to reflect the Germanic roots of our wheels, a 1990 VW Golt Gti 16v, 13 owners and with the paintwork suffering from some kind of automotive leprosy. The driver will be Bootsy, veteran Scumballer, plumber, faffer, and all round good egg. Out charity will almost certainly be 'Barnardos Carefree', helping young carers to enjoy their childhood, more info on the charity section of this site soon. So, in return for a modest donation to our nominated charity, you can have your name or company logo adorning our car ! Here's to a cracking 2008 in aid of a very worthy charity. Oh, how important is oil, we don't appear to have any in our engine. Again.

29th January 2008 - Good morning, my name is Duisberg, half-man, half-biscuit and three quarters badger. Our 'free' car is turning out to be too much trouble to move, despite the kind help of Tim. I suspect it will be scrapped and the proceeds donated to a suitable charity. Or maybe just pushed in the nearest canal in the dead of night. However, a new co-driver for Team Chernobyl (as Salami is having a sabbatical) means new wheels too. More to follow...

3rd January 2008 - Still no chip-fuelled car, due to lack of pick-up truck and/or legalities required to shift the damn thing, which I now understand is being used as a chicken coop. Nice. Well, at least I still have my co-pilot Salami. Except I don't, as he has shocked his gay fans by managing to impregnate a woman, and the resulting sproglet is due smack bang in the middle of Scumball season. Recent Karting practise has revealed my inability to complete a lap without crashing, although I did manage about 15 laps before I wrote the kart off. Salami's head was steaming is was so cold, and that was before we even reached the pub. Well, with a busy business, Scumballing takes a back seat for a few weeks, but I'll be writing to our main sponsors soon to see if we and the Children of Chernobyl can count on their support. Bis bald (as they say in Duisburg). Duisberg.

20th of November - Dark, damp and miserable. Still, enough about Mrs Duisberg, whats happening with Team Chernobyl Racing ? Well, thanks to Tim in Northampton, we have secured our (free) wheels for 2008. A 320000 mile (yes, all those '0's are correct) Vauxhall Cavalier. Diesel. That runs on cooking oil. Apart from an MOT fail sheet longer than Salami's knob, the car is perfect and we'll collect it from the very kind gentleman who donated it very shortly. The plan is to treat it like Ulrika - overlook the dozens of owners and the saggy bodywork, strip it bare and thrash it senseless. All in the name of charity. I suspect Salami will squeeze a few more horses out of the mighty 1.7 litre diesel engine, and with a prevailing wind, we'll beat our 'ring record of 11 minutes 03 seconds set in 2006. Happy days. Can you smell chips ? I'm paranoid now....

19th of October - Scumball seems like a millions years ago, despite the constant reminders on TV in the form of Scumball 2006 being shown on endless repeats. No, we didn't take an MX5 this year, Yes, that was last year, no, we still don't know when this years film will be on TV. Thanks for the ongoing contributions, we still get donations, and I cannot thank people enough for their help. I have made a 15 minute film, but thanks to YouTube limits, have no-where to post it. If anyone wants a copy, email me, and I'll post you a DVD. I think we have found our car for 2008.. think big, fat and old (the car, not me), 6 cylinders, RWD and too many horses.... more to follow.

22 August 2007 - Just back from Scumball, lots of great photos and incriminating video evidence, will post a full report and pics soon ! Oh - we won "most raised for charity" award too ! HUGE thanks to all those who have supported Salami and I, especially the long suffering Mrs Duisberg, all the generous sponsors and the mentalists who make Scumball such a great event ! Fastest lap time this year ? 12 minutes due to complete lack of brakes ! Bloody exciting lap though !!!

15 August 2007 - The day before Scumball 2007, and the final entry before we depart. Salami is so excited he has done a sex-wee. We have shunned traditional racing overalls, and gone for a more religious approach to racing ... yes, we going dressed a monks. The final vinyls will be done today (including P & P properties and Chelfing Automotive). Massive thanks to Hotdog for the cracking donation to FOCC. If God is reading this, can you please arrange for a Leicester City win, to repay his generosity ? The car is finally fixed, although the racing pads fitted are utterly bloody useless on the public highway. The weather forecast is not too bad, so we might even manage to get round without stuffing the car. If anyone would like to see us off, come to Donington Park on Friday morning c.0830, all welcome. I'll post pics of our escapade, plus some video clips for anyone interested, immediately after Scumball (ie late next week). So, signing off, Duisberg and Salami, Aufwiedersehen.

06 August 2007 - A week to go to Scumball, and we're all set. The car simply needs the brakes adjusting, instruments re-wiring, central locking fixing, and we're good to go. Oh, and for some strange reason it only does about 15 mpg. Sod it. It'll do. Thanks to Pete and Paula of P&P Properties for their kind donation to Chernobyl Children, their name will be proudly emblazoned on the car, and they get a mention in the 'groupies and playaz' section too. During the event I'll post a link to a photogallery so folks can keep track of our progress on Scumball and/or laugh at our miserable attempts to do a sub 10 minute lap of the'ring. Cheers ! Duisberg.

22 July 2007 - Great news ! A big promo help and donation from the decent fellow who is Sniff Petrol, the internets funniest Automotive website (after http://www.chelfing.com/ of course). Getting the support of Mr Sniff is a real plus for our charity work, and I hope his many readers cough up a single measly quid each to help the Kids of Chernobyl. Thanks sniff. Nothing else to report other than the BMW is OK (at last), and we look forward to out-crashing Lewis Hamilton at the 'ring in less than a months time from now ! Thanking you kindly. Duisberg. PS - Och eye the noo mo-fo !

July 14th. Have just about run out of steam on the charity fundraising front. Kids from Chernobyl finally went back home, we all had a good time whilst they were here, and want to thank everyone who has donated to FOCC so far. Some of these kids go back to a thoroughly crappy life, and we like to think that their time here makes a difference, so thank you. On another front, team Chernobyl Racing has secured a car for 2008's Scumball, courtesy of Chelfing Automotive. Chelfing is (according to their C.E.O. Bisek Giddur) Asias most exciting new car brand, and they have kindly donated a Razzle GLS for us to use on the next Scumball. Nice. More at http://www.chelfing.com/. So, 4 weeks to go to Scumball, please keep the kind emails and messages coming in ! Thansk. Duisberg.


July 9th 2007. Much rain. I can confirm that the MX5's roof is still not watertight. On the plus side, with all this rain you can't see the waterleaks from the cooling system anymore. Well, 5 weeks to Scumball, and we're nearly ready. Apart from a BMW with a still knackered engine now festering in the yard of the nice chaps of Tuning Services of Leicester. A colossal thanks to Adam Wakelin at the Leicester Mercury for a great write-up on Team Chernobyl Racing, and also the artical on Dasha, the Russian Girl who stayed at Schloss Duisberg during this summer. We're also in the Melton Times this month and the Syston Times too. There is also a slightly wonky report in Performance BMW, check the 'press links' for badly photocopied clippings and blurred photos of our exploits in the media. Visitor numbers to this site boomed as a result, with an extra 2 people accidentally clicking onto this site at 2am, probably while drunk and looking for salami-orientated adult-only filth. I have added the press stuff on the press stuff links, and some youtube stuff too. Please look at the charity stuff on this site, its what Team Chernobyl Racing is all about (apart form the beer, racing, and showing off on telly). Tschuss, Duisberg.

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