This has been a pretty wild few weeks of road trips.
Ireland to Goodwood, Ireland to Germany, Germany to Belgium and now Germany to Austria. For all the mileage I’ve clocked up within this time frame, I don’t think any of the others can rival the spectacular views as you arrive into Austria.
Not for the first time, I’m late to Wörthersee (this time courtesy of a family wedding) and have had to take a considerable shortcut to get here. Flying from Dublin to Münich and taking a rental the rest of the way south to Velden-am-Wörthersee isn’t even the quickest way to get here, but it at least gives the closest vibe to taking the long way around.
Seeing as I’m in a sort of honest mood, I was a little worried that I might have missed the boat arriving after the much-hyped XS Car Night. It’s always a challenge trying to figure out the correct dates to arrive to a show which isn’t a show, and then to leave before the actual show happens, but I think that I might have gotten lucky this week.
Not that it started that way, with the first of our shoot locations considerably locked down. I’m interested to see have the locals softened their stance on this annual event, and even what the local police think about it.
While my time at Wörthersee is limited to a few days, I will be aiming to make the most of things. We already have one feature shoot in the bag, despite location issues, with another scheduled for Wednesday morning. I’ve only had time for one walk up and down the Velden ‘strip’ and I’ve really liked what I’ve seen so far.
I just hope that I can find some of the cars I’ve seen tonight again to shoot in more detail (that E34 Touring in particular is sublime), but the beauty of Wörthersee is that you never know what you’re going to see next. Half the fun here is the complete unknown.
Above, you’ll find our first full day in a pretty comprehensive chronological order. Despite the shortcut, it still took over 13 hours just to get here, and I’ve been shooting non-stop since.
My single hotel bed sure looks really tempting right now, but all that sound of anti-lag and exhaust over-runs echoing across the lake certainly has its appeal, too…
Paddy McGrath
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paddy@speedhunters.com