Tony Hawk reports: days 3 & 4
Tony Hawk reports his experciences of the 2006 Gumball rally, day 3 and 4.
We got stuck in the worst city traffic I have witnessed while trying to leave Budapest. Sitting so long in gridlock that Rooftop had time to hop out of the car and film a full street line along the city block. We finally got on the fwy (with me driving) and made up for lost time. I was doing 140mph for so long that the engine cut out to prevent itself from blowing up.
It was obvious we were in the Eastern Bloc as soon as we crossed the Serbian border. It was also obvious that someone had paid off the local authorities to let us barge through. As we neared the city of center of Belgrade (our next checkpoint), someone crashed trying to take a turn too fast. The victim? A Rolls Royce Phantom, $500,000 worth of automobile gone in an instant - totaled. Every passenger walked away without a scratch.
Our CoPilot guided us to to the airport instead of the downtown checkpoint, which turned out to be pure luck because mayhem broke out there when the cars arrived. The newspaper mistakenly wrote that many celebrities would be there, including Nicolas Cage and Pam Anderson. Bam was the only recognizable celeb that showed up, so they surrounded his car. We are talking about THOUSANDS of people clamoring his Lambourghini to get a picture/autograph/glimpse. The cops were no help according to him and Lhotse got caught behind him in her all-girl Range Rover.
We decided to do some skating near the airport and wait for the horsepower parade to arrive. We finally made it to the loading zone, unpacked our overstuffed Jeep, and checked in for our flight. The cars were loaded onto 3 Russian Antonov cargo airplanes. They are the biggest flying machines I have ever seen and it is a wonder that there is enough gasoline in this world to keep them in the air. Our passenger flight was a chartered jet from Icelandic Air and we quickly realized that this was not going to be a luxury trip. It was more like a 14 hour Southwest flight (no seat assignments) with a bunch of drunken Euros. One of them was so wasted that he started picking a fight - unprovoked - with Mike V. Thankfully, Mike just put his headphones on and ignored him. Otherwise, we would have had to endure another 6 hours with one broken-faced Euro and a bunch of his unruly friends. He got his payback not long after that in the form of puking outside the bathroom while the flight attendants held him up, covering his clothes in vomit and his face in embarrasment. The flight finally ended in Phuket and we went straight to the serenity of Amanpuri Hotel - the exact place L and I honeymooned in March. We finally relaxed, ate amazing Thai food, rode some [very small] surf, and even got some skating footage around the hotel property. We drive to Bangkok tomorrow, straight through the rain forest while keeping on the other side of the road. stay tuned… More speed and sleepless summaries to come.
Tony