North Coast 500

Lazydonkey · Post by **Lazydonkey** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:58 pm

Latest evo eCOtY sees them going round the north coast 500

Wont spoil the result but, for me at least, it's a proper goose bump moment when you read them talking about how amazing the roads are.

What a brilliant idea the west coast 500 is though. A lass who works with me in London who isn't a car enthusiast at all (a3 cab) was asking me all about it the other day. Cayenne driving boss was asking all about it the other day too. I see it all over the csr forums too with the English boys getting all existed about it.

Great idea. Well done that person.

Hoping to make highland hoon this year and experience the roads in the evora.

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Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 6:18 pm

Where about can you see this article? Sound like a good read. Couldnt see anything on Evo's website.

Lazydonkey · Post by **Lazydonkey** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:32 pm

I'm a subscriber so I think my copy arrives ahead of the rest. I expect a cut down version will appear on site. First part is on the app now I think

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Cawdors1 · Post by **Cawdors1** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 9:12 pm

I live near Inverness and the local MX-5 owners club, my wifes a member. Ran teh North Coast 500 a few weeks back. Yup the roads up here are stunning. It takes two days to do with time to see the scenery tho....but well worth it. Jon

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 8:38 am

I'm not sure the entire North Coast 500, thing is such a good idea. Before that, one of the reasons our great driving roads were great because is because they are quiet. A well kept secret. Now the roads are only going to get busier, with amateur car enthusiasts holding us lot up. Especially on the single track stuff.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:02 am

Yea we did it two years ago and one of the best driving weekends i have had, but the beauty of it was having the road to ourselves. Now motorhomes and tour busses will ruin it.

mxvx · Post by **mxvx** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:44 am

They have picked the best roads. Yes, honest, those are the best....stick to those please

H8OAG · Post by **H8OAG** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 12:43 pm

We did a tour of Skye followed by the NC500...Starting at Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland.
One of the company is friendly with the Chairman of the Scottish Initiative and phoned him to relay our enjoyment of his route.
He assisted organising the ECOTY and was rewarded with a passenger seat around the route in the Aventador

Our recipe?

Three couples
Three Cars
Three nights in three very different hotels
The girls wanted boutique hotels and fine dining!

The roads were deserted and immense in every way.
If I was to be pedantic , the Bealach is needing resurfaced and certainly not a road to "hoon on" in its current crumbling state.
Favourite part has got to be Lochinver to Durness where limits of speed and talent can be enjoyed due to the open forgiving flow of the road.
We used walkie talkies between vehicles to support the "convoy overtaking etiquette"
Enjoyed it so much........I broke the driver's seat subframe in a flypast airborne moment !
Dealership replaced it under warranty but noted the speed readings from connected drive....said I was lucky the airbags didn't deploy

I also found a new gadget on "sport plus mode."....as well as switching off all driver aids....the GPS monitors the contours of the roads and holds the gears for maximum engine braking.

I would thoroughly recommend the trip and we are doing it again in the spring in reverse to get a different perspective.

Thanks to Donkey for supplying the Highland Hoon route for Skye

mwmackenzie · Post by **mwmackenzie** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 1:42 pm

this is on my to do list this year as i have a few extra days holiday left to take

Looking forward to reading about it in EVO. I bet it'll be busy up there next summer!

Lazydonkey · Post by **Lazydonkey** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 1:48 pm

Dominic wrote:I'm not sure the entire North Coast 500, thing is such a good idea. Before that, one of the reasons our great driving roads were great because is because they are quiet. A well kept secret. Now the roads are only going to get busier, with amateur car enthusiasts holding us lot up. Especially on the single track stuff.

They have a long long long way to go until they get even vaguely busy! I think we can rest easy

Anything that brings a bit more tourism and money into these areas us fine by me

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Lazydonkey · Post by **Lazydonkey** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 1:52 pm

H8OAG wrote:Thanks to Donkey for supplying the Highland Hoon route for Skye

Glad you enjoyed it! Sadly I can't take any if the credit for the route....I just followed it!

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JohnStewart · Post by **JohnStewart** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 8:27 pm

Great marketing idea and will hopefully be beneficial to many struggling local businesses along the route.

For those with long enough memories, the SIDC ran very popular Tour d'Ecosse events on many of those roads from 1998 to 2002. We started in Glencoe and took various routes in small(ish) groups of varying distances depending on the aspirations of each group. It was held around the end of October/beginning of November outside school holiday season to ensure reasonable room rates, lack of snow and ice and of course near empty roads

Of course this meant there were fewer hours of daylight to enjoy the roads and scenery, but this didn't stop some drivers covering over 500 miles in one day on mostly single track roads.

Tut took part in quite a few of them and completed what was known as "Monster Route 7" , and must have done over 700 miles in a day, despite the group having the occasional conversation (just words of advice exchanged

) with Northern Constabulary.

Many of the lessons learned on these events about group driving were later used many SE runs including Tut Towers events to great effect

One the very first event, we drove as one big group, but this caused problems with drivers of differing experience levels getting split up, so for following years we split into smaller groups and started to use mobile phones (still legal in those days) to keep in touch, had printed route maps, overtaking etiquette and much less chaos at petrol stations

Got some great memories from those events and would love to do some of the routes again, but would avoid the NE/JOG area as the roads and scenery aren't too inspiring.

tut · Post by **tut** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 8:55 pm

The Monster Route was 2000 John, my 60th birthday and this is the cake that the team made for me that Jools and I saw when we got back to the Hotel.

He then made an unforgettable speech covering the weekend that had everyone in stitches. Oh to be that young again.

tut

Dark · Post by **Dark** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:18 pm

tut wrote:The Monster Route was 2000 John, my 60th birthday and this is the cake that the team made for me that Jools and I saw when we got back to the Hotel.

He then made an unforgettable speech covering the weekend that had everyone in stitches. Oh to be that young again.tut

First time I ever met you, I was crying........

hiscot · Post by **hiscot** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 7:18 am

Only problem with it is now the A9 has avg speed cams , you can guess where the unmarked cars have moved to !

Scottish Elises

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