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2015 Gumball 3000 Rally Live Journal - Day Four - Germany Hates Us, Holland Loves Us

The Copenhagen stop was the shortest up until we reached day four of our adventure in the 2015 Gumball 3000 Rally. From here on, we would go though the final part of the Gumball's Euro-flavored leg. Well, Europe is known for its twisty roads and we have to admit our path was not exactly straight.
Police office and the yellow 69 Camaro 107 photos
Photo: Another Brother
The AnastasiaDate / AsianDate Team we were traveling with tried to make things as easy as possible for us but sometimes things just don't work out.  We left Copenhagen at 9:00 AM sharp even though we were supposed to get on the road earlier.

According to Maximillian Cooper, the man who is behind the new-age Gumball concept, the plan was simple: drive to a small town at the most southern point of the Scandinavian peninsula in Denmark, get on a ferry, unload in Germany and then travel across the country until we reach The Netherlands with a Police escort. Need I actually say that things didn't go according to plan?

The German authorities were not exactly fans of the Gumball

Traveling to the ferry seemed like a simple idea in its conceptual form. The thing is, nobody actually thought this through. Instead of hiring a single ferry to take people from one side to the other at the same time, we had to buy tickets like everyone else and wait in line. That led to a couple of cars losing missing the deadline (that was 10:20 AM) and spending 40 minutes extra in Denmark. Of course, in turn, this led to other backdrops on the schedule.

After we finally got on board and went off in Germany we were surprised to see that, instead of the escort we were promised we received some... less impressive cars. Max promised us on the first day that we would be escorted across Germany by Mercedes-Benz's F1 Safety Cars. All we got were a couple of CLA Shooting Brakes that were definitely not up to the task at hand. On top of that, they didn't actually escort us anywhere.

You see, the thing is, last year, Gumball was supposed to go through Germany but, unfortunately, the authorities didn't agree with the concept. This year they said yes but they had some terms Gumball had to agree to. For example, all the commercials on the cars had to be blocked or taken off some way while traveling in the country. We tried to mask them as good as possible, as you can see in the photo gallery below.  Then, they also wanted us to keep the speed to a certain minimum level, to be cruising instead of going all out on their precious Autobahns.

Lastly, they set up a checkpoint down the road to take a look at everyone's documents and there were no less than eight Police vans waiting for us. What that achieved was to block an entire highway just for the fun of it. That led to massive traffic jams across highways and, of course, another delay in the program. Max was boiling at this point.  

All that traffic didn't help our red Camaro

After a couple of miles in Germany, our red Camaro simply had to call it quits. One of the head gaskets failed, and the results were nothing short of catastrophic. We lost 90 percent of the oil pressure and eventually had to stop completely and tow the car back to Amsterdam. The Rally is officially over for the red Camaro.   Then another bad news came. Max told us that a secret checkpoint for this day would be revealed during our trip, and that proved to be the Brabus factory.

Unfortunately, due to the traffic jams and after losing so much time, the entire rally had to drop this visit just so that it would make it on time to Amsterdam. At 9:00 they'd close the doors to the airplane. Even so, not every car made it inside the Amsterdam Arena, those that came later on during the day didn't get the chance to showcase their ride in front of the audience.

40,000 people were waiting to party with the Gumball

We were amongst the teams who did reach the audience though and to see 40,000 people cheering for the Rally is something we'll never forget. Our yellow Camaro was happy too, as it was sent directly to the plane. The Amsterdam Arena was packed though and the people who got together and paid a ticket, were all here to see one man: Afrojack, the famous Dutch DJ who is also racing in the rally. He was incredible, and the crowd went absolutely insane when he took over.

After doing his thing for about two hours, he moved to our party at the Conservatorium Hotel. Let me just say that again - the crowd loved him...  The next day the crew and media representatives had plane tickets to cross the Atlantic, into the US. This meant they couldn't stay up too much, but let me tell you those few hours made a whole lot of a difference.

We're heading back to base now, so our 2015 Gumball Rally live coverage stops here. Nevertheless, we still have some pretty sweet stuff to show you, so stay tuned.

Fortunately for everyone, there will be a replacement Camaro waiting back in California so if you want to keep tracking the Team Anastasia Date / Asian Date you still can. Just follow the sound of that exhaust burble.

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