An idle email to the offices of Kerrang! Radio in Birmingham early in the rally planning was greeted with an unexpectedly enthusiastic response. Their idea was for morning show roving reporter “The Monk” to join us on the trip, giving on-the-road and on-the-lash progress reports. In the end, a calendar clash meant he escaped, but Ugly Phil and his breakfast show team came good with a free service and, while they were at it, some mods to keep us entertained on the journey. We’d do the rally reports, and they’d simply tart up Jenna a bit. Everyone’s a winner.

So, on the morning of 22nd September 2009, Kerrang! HQ was to be our starting point for the rally. Joining the Monk at 6:30am we engaged in some early morning fun and frolics around town, hitting the airwaves with the dulcet tones of Jenna “She’s Blowing a Bit” Dallas and a stereo full of Velvet Revolver. Kerrang! had kindly installed a bootful of ICE while in posession of the car and our ears were really going to pay the price. We received our Kerrang! goodie-bag of 700 Trojans, lighters, pens, key rings and badges, and were joined by Raquel, the pneumatic blonde who took her position in the back seat. DJs and staff signed the car and we were on the road by 9:00am­­­­.

Over the next nine days of hard driving, hard drinking and virtually no sleep, we travelled 3600 miles and somehow, though exactly how is something of a mystery, kept track of where we'd been. It went a little something like this...