What a p*****k 11

OK, I said "Tomorrow", but I didn't expect Google Video to take 4 days to "verify" my video... so here it is:

Here's me following Harry's route. There's a bit of excess at the end that I didn't bother editing off, plus I've no idea what the rattling is. I couldn't hear it in the car - must be something about how the camera was mounted - jammed in between the pbuttenger headrest and seat.

I start off just before the roundabout that Harry gets overtaken on. You can see that it's certainly not a bendy windy road after that for the most part of it until a fair bit past the motorway bridge I go under. No great corners for Harry to gain ground on at all. I certainly didn't have to dip below 60mph on any of it until I come up against the car transporter. I'm stuck at 50mph behind that for a moment until I can overtake down a clear straight. From there on it's a little more bendy but it's still a fairly comfortable 60mph (although what Google Earth doesn't show is how bouncy the surface is), and I only have to slow for 'Horse Corner' and the left bend prior to it. You'll hear the satnav suggest I turn right (although I don't). That's down Copley Lane where both Harry and the other bloke turned (other bloke stopping shortly afterwards). The right hand bend beforehand is 'Horse Corner' - the one which Harry says had two horses on it ridden side by side and which Harry described as 90deg right angle. Looking at it from above it's actually more like 45deg, but to be fair to Harry, it *does* look sharper on the ground.

Four conclusions from this outing:

1. There's no way that it's anything like as bendy as Harry made out that it was for him to make up ground on the corners. However, I agree that the road isn't *quite* as straight and smooth as it appears from Google Earth. It's also quite thin at times. Regardless, it *is* largely quite straight and if the guy in front had to slow for the bends before Horse Corner, then he's a nonce. There's no advanced "Driver Skill" required in maintaining 60mph around those bends. It tells a tale about how bendy these roads are supposed to be when a car transporter maintains 50mph down them (you see it again later in the video to get a measure of how it kept up after I overtook it).

However, driver skill *would* come into play for those bends if Harry wasn't being entirely truthful about the speeds reached and that perhaps 70mph and 80mph was reached.

2. There's no way that if the guy in front made a blind overtake around the two horses, that Harry could make a sensible overtake a few seconds later. It would take a good 10 seconds at least for the horses to get around the bend for Harry to be able to see up that road properly. I tried it a few times (that I wasn't recording), I'm convinced of this. I suspect Harry was held up by the horses and that is why the other guy took the first opportunity to dash down the next right hand turn to try and lose Harry - expecting Harry to be going straight on (as I did). It initially looks like it's not much of a road at all (which is why I went past, I thought it was the drive into a farm). I'm not surprised if they looked shocked or concerned if Harry followed them down that road.

3. There's no left kink after horse corner, as Harry claimed. This is clearly evident in the video as it is in Google Earth.

4. The two (I buttume) girls riding side-by-side on horses are *idiots* pure and simple. I'm absolutely shocked that they would be side by side on that bend, it seems to put everyone concerned in more danger than necessary. I can only imagine they were thinking that if they doubled up, it would force people to wait behind them until they got around the corner and perhaps they reverted back to single file afterwards.