Traveling Home from Mantorp

Pack up and go home! It's going to be a long day!

Monday 31st July 2006

I didn’t have to be up in the morning and it’s a jolly good job I didn't have to. I awoke at around 10am and discovered to my horror that somebody had been hitting my head with a jack-hammer. Of course, the culprit was nowhere to be seen, but it could be nothing else, my head was so infernally sore! After showering and packing my stuff, I checked out and left my bags in the hotel foyer. With sunglasses being the order of the day, I thought I would have a walk around the town and maybe later have a bite to eat.

I sauntered up the hill but my feet were still smarting after the racing weekend so I took my time. I hesitated by O’Leary’s Irish Bar and then thought better of it and moved along. There was plenty to see in the town and I was fascinated by the Historical pictograms that depicted the huge battles that took place for the town in the fifteenth century. I was looking around for some sort of eatery to take my fancy and nothing seemed to appeal until I spotted a buffet-pasta-type place across the street. The only person I spoke to in Sweden on this trip who did not understand English or would not have a go at motioning something, was an ex-pat (I Guess) Vietnamese person behind the counter at this establishment. She was purely interested in getting me out of the way so as to serve the next person and even though that irritated me, I heard him say “Chicken Curry” and he got a plateful of green gunge on pasta for 30 SEK. “Chicken Curry” I said and she tutted as she slopped it ungraciously on a plate. Avoiding the temptation to slop it all over her head, I paid for it and shuffled off to a table. I had a feeling that this repast may not be quite up to all of my expectations and I was right, but hey - what can you get in Sweden for £2.35? Exactly. Not much. It filled a hole nevertheless and I continued cruising around generally taking in the sights. Later, I had a tasty Ice cream that (I shouldn't have) made up for the earlier curry disappointment. I had plenty of time to take care of the next stage in travel arrangements; I had discovered a regular bus that travels between the Bus station (just across the road from the hotel) right to Stockholm Skavsta Airport. However, the bus station was huge and it was not clear at exactly which stand the bus I wanted, stopped. I decided to have a saunter down to see where the bus scheduled an hour before the one I wanted stopped, etc. It was a good job I did because the stop was nowhere where I thought it would be. An hour later, I trudged to this far flung stop with my bags and took a breather before the bus arrived. Once we were underway, I wasn't really expecting anything much of the journey, but I knew we would be calling into a town called Nörköping around half an hour from the Airport. When we did head into this town, I was most pleasantly surprised. There is a main boulevard which is completely lined with beautifully manicured trees; The boulevard went on all the way through the town and out of the other side. It was gorgeous. We stopped to pick up one or two stragglers in a pleasant enough area where there were one or two other buses peppered around and as we left to get back on the main road, I caught notice of the name of the Boulevard: Gotsgaten. Sounds like God's Garden to me, but I didn't care: the name seemed so appropriate for such an unexpectedly lovely place.

I disembarked at the Airport and walked inside to find somewhere comfortable - I had got four hours to wait and nothing was going to make it go any easier. There wasn't anything available in the Airport shop (that I could find) in English, so I grabbed Bilsport 16 magazine and Wheels magazine. They are both Swedish and I enjoyed reading them and looking at all of Stefan Bowman's pictures and articles, including the front cover of Wheels and a huge article on Fast Freddy Fagerström. A couple of hours later, after a tasty roll bought at the cafe, I was at last able to check in my bag. I headed through the other side and bumped into race Director Darren Prentice, Jon Cross (at Mantorp for the first time), Steve Horn (timing equipment) and others. I had a quick chat and heard that they had all got bitten to death by the insects after the Saturday night downpour at Mantorp. I then remembered that I had seen Steve with an enormous insect bite the last time I was here in 2004. He winced as he remembered how painful it was. I said cheerio and moved to the bar where I thought I would have a quick drink. Only now at the end of the weekend was I beginning to realise how expensive the drink is in Sweden. Especially at the Airport. Better just have the one, then.

After having a look around duty free, I stepped out to where all the public seating was and bumped into John Walker and his wife. I have known John for several years, through a forum, and they live just down the road in Nottingham from where I am in Derby. They weren't looking forward to the long drive home from Stanstead, either, but hopefully it wouldn't be made any longer by any flight delays such as what I had on Thursday night. It was John's wife's first visit to the drag races and she had thoroughly enjoyed herself. It seems that she may well become a regular at Santa Pod. Here's hoping that she does; the more the merrier!

We boarded and, in fact, got away more than ten minutes earlier than anticipated. The flight was smooth and comfortable and I made the acquaintance of a fellow seat-mate who happened to be a cheery lass from Australia who has been working in England for nearly a year. It was interesting to hear where she had been traveling and she was just beginning to be looking forward to getting back home. The flight was over in no time and after collecting my bags we took the monorail over to the main terminal where I said goodbye to my traveling pal and I took the bus to the car parks. When I shuffled up to the car, it was nearly midnight and I was really feeling tired. The journey back to Derby was uneventful and thankfully passed smoothly and quickly. I got back home at around twenty past one in the morning, to discover to my great delight, that Mrs. Topnitro had purchased a couple of extra drinks for me and that she had even stopped up to wait for me - even though she was starting work at 7am in the morning. What a girl! I had the day off on Tuesday so I was okay to get stuck into those drinks she'd kindly bought for me. What a weekend!

I'd like to say thank you to a number of people who made this weekend just perfect. Thanks to Jimmy Day, Barry Grimes and Rob Smallworth for being able to give me a perfectly-timed lift just when I needed it, even though I had been a buffoon and had forgotten my driving licence in the first place. Thanks to L-O Jonsson and Fredrik Ström for their press courtesies and to all the organising staff at Mantorp Park for organising a superb event. Thanks to Glenn and Ashley for graciously assisting with lifts, overcoming my idiotic lack of driving licence. Thanks to Gary Page and Terry Giles for overly generous amounts of wisdom, humour & downright mickey-taking that I tend to deserve. Finally, a huge thank you to all the eurodragster team: Tog, Sharkman and Simon for providing all the facts, figures and juicy gossip for the whole weekend.

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