...and my lack of attendance thereof. Was rather looking forward to this as I haven't attended one of Rich's film shows for quite a while. On my way around the M25 just before 7.30 this morning and at 70mph, in the middle of my lane, I was confronted with someone's spare wheel lying there. A 4x4 managed to get over it in front of me, I had plenty of time to quickly look right and left to see if I could move out of its' way but alas I had traffic on both sides of me. I had to go straight over the top of it. Immediately there was an almighty 'bang' and the car filled with smoke, windscreen was smashed too (from the inside!). I'm thankful for my motor racing experience as I didn't do anything drastic, before I reached the offending item I was off the throttle but didn't touch the brakes until afterwards and certainly didn't swerve to avoid it, I would have caused a huge pile-up. I managed to pull over to the hard shoulder, expecting to see pieces of my engine behind me on the road. As I called for police assistance I looked under the car and couldn't see anything dripping down. Miraculously the loose spare wheel had been dragged by my car onto the hard shoulder as I pulled off. I then waited for assistance from our 'emergency services'. And waited. And waited. An hour and a half later I called 999 again to be told that a)they couldn't find me on the system and that b)it may have been dealt with by the Met Police instead of the Surrey Police who I had gone through to. I should re-dial 999 and ask for the Met, which I did, after persuading the guy who answered to do that I was told by the Met that I wasn't on the system. He then searched around on their computer and lo and behold, I WAS on the system. He said that Highways England were dealing with it and that they were on their way. I waited for over another hour. Getting on to the three hour mark I had had enough and decided to try and start the car to see what would happen. No unexpected loud noises from the engine so I let it run for a few minutes, it warmed up and I put it into gear and it moved OK, no liquids running from it. In the end I decided to move it from the motorway myself, which I did. The car drove absolutely fine, so I drove it all the way home! Absolutely no thanks to our emergency services, see pics for the damage. So, am now looking up at who to complain to, bigtime.
So.....I'm hoping that those that attended the film show had a better day of it than I did!
Edited by Gary C, 27 April 2019 - 16:13.