Lok Man in Germany

24 hour motor racing events are not at all well-known in Australia. There is the recently inaugurated Bathurst 24 hours event, but the Bathurst 1000 is much more famous and has a longer history. That starts at 10 a.m. and lasts for about a little over 6 hours, and by that time I would have usually left the TV set already. The Spa-Francorchamps race circuit is located about an hour away from the German town of Aachen, which is within walking distance of the Belgian and Dutch borders. I stayed with my colleague who conveniently owns a flat in Aachen. Driving to Spa was more or less a trip into a lush, dense forest - the race track itself is very scenic and a walk around the circuit feels like going for a hike. There are some impressive elevation changes, with the famous Eau Rouge corner rising 76 m from the lowest point of the track, over a track length of 300 m. The track then continues upwards for another 60 m to the highest point, the Les Combes corner. For me, it was very exciting to...

I promise to stop writing about touch rugby after this article, but since at the moment, work aside, it takes up a few days of my time a week, it deserves another mention. On July 21st and 22nd, in the suburbs of Paris not far from the Orly airport, directly next to a highway and under some grand power lines, an international touch footy tournament was held. Teams came from all over Europe, including some from across the channel, to compete. In some ways, this tournament is a space filler in the odd years of the bi-annual European Championships. As part of this tournament, there is also the all-important Greenstone Hook cup, which the Germans and the French compete for. The weekend started badly. Storms in Europe on Friday night meant that I arrived in Paris at 2:30 a.m.. Luckily, I met another team member on the flight, and instead of staying near the football field, he was staying with a friend in the city. That was convenient, because a taxi to my hotel that evening would have cost ...