Adventures and ventures in travel part III

Ellis at the Galleria in 01 resplendent in her Ferrari t-shirt 

The holiday to Nice in 2001 was fab, really enjoyed it.  And even the drive to Maranello on France & Italy’s swooping motorways was a real adventure.  I’d saw the home of Ferrari something I’d wanted to do since Nigel drove for them in 1989/90.  I knew beforehand about Ferrari, of course I did, who doesn’t right? But I’d not researched much about the F1 team until it was announced my hero was on the way to the team, so I bought a book about Enzo and learned about the race on Sunday sell on Monday ex-Alfa mechanic who set up this remarkable empire of Italian sexiness.  The whole town of Maranello in Italy is all about Ferrari, as you’d expect and the Galleria / Museum houses some of the most spectacular F1 and road cars. 

As mentioned previously, because I was a superstar salesman at the time, I did not feel the need to book a hotel. I recall my then wife being quite stressed about it but I was like “nae bathir”.  The drive back from Italy to Monaco was around 4 hours and as each hour passed, so my excitement for what was awaiting me increased.  I was going to MONACO! Not just going, I was going to stay in a hotel IN MONACO. Even as we approached the little principality, and the road signs read “Monaco 70km” I was like “oooohhhh”.  You approach Monaco from up high, the highway literally being a high-way to Monaco and then some tunnels, and all of a sudden the actual city-sign for Monaco was there.  I was there.  Me.  In Monaco; and there on merit.  I cannot remember how I found it, but I ended up on the track and before I did anything else, I was driving that track! Sure enough I enter at what is Anthony Nouges, the final corner and along the ‘straight’ in Monaco which isn’t a straight.  And I am off…in my diesel 5 series….I am not a nervous person, not at all.  Driving test…no problemo, wedding day…. No problemo, the million or so interviews I’d been on…no poblemo.  The only time I can vividly recall being nervous was November 18th 1996 when Ellis couldnae wait to join the McLeod fold and that day in 2001 when I was on the track.  It is entirely illogical to a non-F1 fan but to me I was driving the Monte Carlo race track, something so iconic to and something quite honestly that should have been completely out-with my reaches.  I turned right at Ste Devote and climbed the steep hill to Massanet, traffic was as it always is in Monaco, shit but I didn’t care, I was on the Monaco F1 circuit. .  Then around to Casino Sq and to my eternal annoyance, the little  straight in front of the Hotel de Paris is closed for those rich knobs who stay there and their fancy cars.  So, I round the corner at Café de Paris and down the steep hill to Mirabeau.  Then, then there it is.  Perhaps the most famous corner in all F1, The Lowes Hairpin. 

Around I go and then take the next right and WHAM – the tunnel! I am in the Monaco tunnel……but hang on, this is totally different to the telly, whilst I know the telly flattens out the undulation, this tunnel is weird.  And then as my wee legs shook like a half-set jelly at the prospect my annoyance turned to frustration as I realised I’d taken the wrong effing tunnel.  Little known fact if you’ve not been to Monaco, there’s a tunnel before THE tunnel but in my wide-eyed-almost-peeing-my-pants-with-excitement, I’d bolloxed it up.  I recall swearing a lot and my wife looking at me all confused as to why I was so frustrated, she didn’t get F1…so the whole thing was lost on her.  Ellis sat in the back just looking out the window at this new place wondering why her old man had lost his shit….funny looking back.  I then entered realms unknown as I tried again to make my way around the circuit and found myself back at the start-finish-not-straight and repeated lap 2…but this time I made the right tunnel.  This was honestly Nirvana for me, I could have died at the end of that lap a happy man, probably my

Mirabeau Hotel which is no longer a hotel

ultimate ambition at the time fulfilled, and still to this day I cannot fully relay the joy and excitement I felt driving around in Monaco traffic.  Once lap 3 started it was time for a hotel and for reasons I forget I chose Mirabeau.  The negotiation was really short with the check-in agent.  She gave me the price  for 3 nights. Using all the skills I had been trained in, like a Ninja sales warrior I went into battle with her, telling her how lucky she was that I was choosing their hotel over any other, that I was staying for a whole 3 nights and a load of other dynamic reasons she should give me a better rate.  So, I paid the price she wanted and checked in….she honestly could not have cared less about my negotiation, it was “please sir, this is the rate, feel free to take it or you are welcome to not let the door wallop you in the arse on the way out”.  I am paraphrasing, but in essence that was that.  Another voodoo-esq sign of things to come, me Kenny McLeod negotiating with hotels in Monaco…. I did become a little more successful at it.

The following day I would walk the track with the wife n bairn stopping every 20 – 30 feet to take photos of one corner or landmark or corner! I loved it….I still do.  I make a point every year of walking a lap, as I have gotten older and wider, unlike the F1 cars my lap times are a lot worse now than they were in 2001.  I’d also go to find David Coulthard’s hotel in Monaco, The Columbus.  DC was with McLaren at the time and riding a crest, the car was competitive and he’d frequently be in the hunt with Schumacher and Hakkinen.  I love his hotel, very chic and has a terrific feel to it.  I remarked earlier about places

GPA & DJP & DC & KMc at the Columbus 

which have a ‘feel’.  Places I’ve been which have it; London, New York, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro and Monaco.  And DC’s hotel IN Monaco is quite a unique feel for me, I am a fan of his, I am in what is my favourite ever place and to top it all, the hotel is really cool! Columbus in Monaco would feature a lot later in my journey but for now I am marveling at being in Monaco.  With an extremely heavy heart we left to come home, and you know what my abiding memory was? How in the name of F do the cars race around these streets?  They are so narrow, in particular the little straight from Casino to Mirabeau, and I can hardly fathom that the place I’ve just seen in the flesh is the same one these fastest cars in the world compete around.

The original Monac03 Adventurers 

Upon returning I would regale my cyber-pals on the Formula1.com website about my visit to Maranello and Monaco.  They got it.  No one else in my social circle got it but these people on T’internet, they got it and fully understood my joy and fervour.  The chat around the thread was all about the track, the hotels, DC’s gaff, Maranello almost became a bit-part to the story such was the reaction to one of the group of my going to Monaco. And then, kinda out of nowhere I posted this life-changing post.  “So, guys I hope you all enjoyed my tales from Monaco, I’ve decided that in 2003 I am going to the Grand Prix, I have to see these cars in the flesh. I have chosen 2003 to give me and anyone who wants to join me ample time to save, let me know if you fancy joining me and I’ll crack on with booking it all.”  I didn’t expect as many people to respond as did, but in no particular order the original Monac03 crew consisted of; A couple from Canada, a couple from Florida, a dude from Memphis, a dude from England, a chap from Sydney, a guy from Paraguay and an ex-policeman from his own arse. (17 years later I still judge him as the worst customer I’ve ever had!)  The tour I booked, I have to say I was rather proud of!  Hire cars, karting in Nice, Maranello visit, hospitality at Monaco, Monza visit, transport from Nice to Monaco the whole thing start to finish was 10 days.  Much to my annoyance, one of the group had to withdraw from the booking, I know him as a great pal now and have come to realise that this is a regular occurrence for him. (If you are reading this you Paraguayan douchebag, you know who you are!) (Peru at Xmas my arse!)  So in January I called the company I had booked the

Mr Unreliable

hospitality with and asked them if they would refund one of the tickets….we’d bought 10 of them at around £1000 each but they dug their heels in and wouldn’t take it back.  I was really peeved with them, but they did me one of the biggest favours anyone has ever done, they were in business until recently but went pop with the demise of Thomas Cook.

I’d need more time to explain to you how much fun we all had in Nice, Monaco, Maranello and Monza in 2003 but suffice it to say I made some great pals many of whom I see regularly to this day, and but for the arse-cop I consider the original Monaco crew great pals.  We’d come back to Nice and dump the hire cars now opting for public transport (the train) to / from Monaco. I suggested getting the train to Monaco to a) walk the

The man who changed my life 

track before it was closed to become that iconic circuit and b) to find our balcony.  We had been sent tickets from the useless vendor but no directions or instructions.  Nothing.  So we went to Monaco all but my Floridian pals who had their bag nicked at the train station.  They had to go to  Marseilles to get new passports and as organiser I kinda felt responsible to go with them, but they managed just fine themselves and told me to just go with the original plan of heading to Monaco. Thank Christ they did, for it was this very day I’d meet the most influential man in my life since my dear old Hogmanay loving father – a charming and charismatic Parisian chap by the name of Joel Lepage.

Whilst in Monaco we found the building that we were to watch from by scrutinising the thumbnail photograph I’d printed off from the website.  Turns out we were in Panorama building which sits right on Ste Devote corner (turn 1).  We were a group of 6, so me being chief organiser says, “I’ll go up and have a nosey at the balcony see what the view is like, if they let me I’ll ask if you lot can join me”.  So, up to floor 7 I would go and as I exited the elevator I made what would be the biggest mistake of my life.  I turned right….no idea why.  To let you understand when the elevator doors open you can go only left or right, facing you is the corridor wall, I have no idea to this day why I turned right and not left, but this would be the rightest right that I am writing about!  I buzzed the door and a small, reasonably elderly lady half-cracked the door.  I did my “Bonjour, parlez vous Anglais” thing (thereby ending my extensive French vocabulary)  and she shuffled off gesturing with her hand a “wait” motion.  Then this English speaking, mid-50’s, perma-tanned, casual but well dressed fella came to the door. “Can I help you”?  “Ah, yes, I am sorry to trouble you as I know you will be working but we are here at the weekend with Airtrack for the Grand Prix, I was hoping to have a look at the terrace if that is ok with you”?  He could not have been more accommodating, shake of the hand welcomed me into his offices (he was / is a commodity trader, loads of computer screens showing all sorts of stuff I’d never understand in a month of Sunday’s) and then open the door to the outside terrace.  And I was stood there, breezy but sunny on this huge long / wide terrace looking into the Monaco harbour and directly about Ste Devote.  It was, not to put too fine a point on it, spectacular.  You know that word “breathtaking”.  Well – that.  And this chap, Joel, well he’s talking to me like we’re old friends asking me about F1

The Panorama Balcony (with GPA guests on it)

and was this my 1st time in Monaco etc; I ask him if my friends can come up and he enthusiastically agrees.  I can scarcely believe my luck, I’ve chosen not only a spectacular view but the guy is a proper gent too, what are the odds of that?  Anyway, the rest of the Monac03 gang join me on the balcony and sure enough, like me, they are blown away with it.  Joel goes and gets us all coffee and water and we’re shooting the breeze on his breezy terrace as he explains to me that he is really pissed off with Airtrack.  Oh……..my furtive imagination spots a wee shard of light…..I explain that I too am pissed off with Airtrack.  And you know, I have had personal experience of nothing uniting like a common enemy, and here’s Joel and me in essence, bitching like a couple of old fishwives about these wankers we were dealing with.  Joel tells me that he will NEVER deal with them again and takes me to show me a torn up carpet where the catering company had dragged a fridge in.  Turns out, he had a caterer he wanted to use and Airtrack agreed, then un-agreed with 4 weeks to go to GP instead bringing in a caterer of their own.  The caterer Joel used was a family friend, she’d catered his 3 weddings, his kids christenings, his grand-kids christenings, New Year parties etc and one thing I know now, and I know it from bitter personal experience, you never ever recover from insulting a French person’s honour.  He was very insulted….so…..I enquired quite off the cuff (remember the brass neck thing) about how much he charged.  He tells me and I divide the number by 60 (the amount of people this particular terrace caters for) and immediately think of the fortune I could make just renting this terrace on its own.  We leave the balcony later in the day and walk the track, and I would not stop slavering on about how I could see a great opportunity to do this as a wee sideline.  “Like, even if all I do is pay for me to get a free trip to Monaco every year, that would be awesome”.

So, how was this the biggest mistake I’ve ever made?  On Saturday we go to the Panorama Building

Panorama building in Monaco 

and I promptly head to 7D, the Airtrack staff are now in situ and look at my pass to tell me I am in the wrong apartment, in fact I should be opposite  in 7C.  “Arfur Fooksakes”, cannae believe how unlucky I am, but the others come to tell me the view is just as good next door whilst I argue with the staff.  I go through to 7C and sure enough, it is fine but I am a little peeved at not being able to further my chat with the charming Joel.  Not to worry, around lunchtime I am tapped on the shoulder and here is a puzzled looking Monsieur Lepage.  “Why are you in here?” he enquires to whit I explain I’d made a wrong turn out the elevator.  “Ahh, I see”, he grabs a coffee and we begin chatting again about F1, Monaco and bitching once more about the ineptness of the company we were both dealing with, him as a vendor and me as a customer and I uttered these immortal words; “Joel, can I ask, if I was to come back and see you once this madness is all over, would you rent your balcony to me”?  Now, nae due-diligence, no further questioning of me, no asking about my travel experience, no hesitation at all, he says; “Kenny, I like you, you’re a good guy, you pay me the deposit before Christmas (this is MAY!) and you can have my balcony – BUT you have to use Madame Baptiste to cater, if you agree, lets meet again later in the year and we make it happen”.  Then, a somewhat surreal exchange as I ask him for a business card, I am expecting a very thick, gold-leafed and elaborate card – nope, he scribbles his number down on a napkin.  We chatted a little longer but to be honest I was dying for him to leave so I could tell (show off) the others that using my sheer skill and wherewithal I had scored my own balcony in MONACO !  He popped off back to his office explaining to me that he’d not see me Sunday as he had friends over to his apartment for the race. (Little did I know his apartment was in the same building and had an even bigger terrace!)  I am now bouncing all over the place like Tigger on a cocktail of Red Bull, double espresso's and a O/D of Kamagra & Viagra, elated at being in Monaco, amazed that the F1 qualifying is about to begin and that me, Kenneth McLeod, has somehow or another blagged his way into Monaco and made a new pal – in Monaco.  Me? Me! HA! You know, even now I scarcely believe it.

Great pals from the Monac03 group (me with my DC cap on)

The rest of the trip to Monaco was a hoot, one of those “had to be there” experiences.  Even without the great fortune of making the wrong/right right turn this trip would still have been one of the best of my life, amazing people, amazing place and laugh from start to finish.  It would also mark the cementing of my friendship with Dave, we’d met before but this trip we really made the best of pals.  The amount of obstacles that should have prevented me from initially meeting Monsieur Lepage are incalculable, but meet him I did and as promised, I returned to see him in July.  We agreed a payment schedule and I gave him every penny of personal savings I had to deposit.  I expected an elaborate contract, but Joel did deals on a handshake, proper old school.  Whilst there I visited hotels in Nice, hotels in Monaco and researched the whole package aspect inside out.  I wanted to be the polar opposite of Airtrack, we’d pick you up at airport, we’d put you in a hotel I had personally vetted (the hotel our group had in Nice was awful, but made it more fun!), we’d run you into Monaco by luxury air-conditioned coaches, not the crammed trains, we’d physically direct you to the balcony (it is hugely complicated to find your way around Monaco during F1) we’d cater the balcony well, and we’d take you BACK to the airport.  Sounds really simple but honestly, in 2003/04 nobody did it this way.  No one.  I’d agreed rates and allocations with hotels (which turned out to be really difficult as all hotels in Monaco / Nice are sold out during the F1 – well, they were back then) I’d secured a balcony (one) and now all I needed was a website.  Oh….and a company.  So, January 15th 2004, at Companies House I registered Grand Prix Adventures.  Behind the scenes I had a marketing company build me a website, create a logo and I was all set to go.

The original GPA logo from 2004.

Copacabana 2020

I experienced the fireworks on Copacabana beach in Rio last night, saying goodbye to one decade and welcoming in another.  Amid the bangs, whistles and drinking frenzy I took a short pause to reflect on being where I was not long after I'd sent a wee Happy New Year message to the bairn, and it is absolutely not lost on me one iota just how incredible my travel journey has been.  Of course, a lot of the nostalgia I was feeling was part-alcohol-fueled but mainly driven by many of the memories this blog has brought to me, my intention whilst writing was not to be self-indulgent, nor to try and make it a "look at me" blog, I just wrote how I find myself where I am today, at 50-years-of-age, in Rio de Janeiro, looking out over Copacabana with a Bohemia beer to my left.  And it is surreal.  And for those who know this term as it is bandied around rather a lot, this is Dictionary.com's 2nd definition of the word; "having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic:"  Indeed, that for me sums this whole blog up perfectly, since meeting that incredible Parisian in 2003, since getting the job at PAC in 1999 with the laptop, which was only possible by meeting Jimmy Cairnie, which only worked out because I wanted to be a rep from working in shops, which only really happened because that greasy-hippy from Monifieth wanted to hacksaw my head off which all bizarrely happened because I loved that flying thing, the speed - that came about because some dimwitted-lunatic from Montpelier in Whitfield thought skiing was a good idea,and how in the name of F was I able to ski from the off?  How does that even happen?  Then the really random stuff; why don't I like football?  Why did I find cars zooming around and around a track so fascinating, then many years later, finding (stumbling) my way into that chat room on F1.com then meeting the cyber-friends (all of whom I still consider great friends), Richie Herkes being the MD of PAC at the time and more-or-less inviting me to Nice, and most important of all - taking the wrong-right-turn in 2003, since all of these bizarre happenstances occurred, my life has become surreal.  

Mr Destiny

There is a movie I watched many many years ago, an 80's movie which is actually a load of tosh really, however, there is a scene in it which to this day I cannot shake out of my head.  I talked of it recently with "the one who got away"....(we've all got one, that for sure is another blog....actually would form a part of the DJP blog) (and yes, she knows who she is) and during a drunken text exchange to her, I asked her to seek out this movie.  It is called "Mr Destiny" starring James Belushi and Michael Cane.  The premise is that James Belushi fumbles an important catch during his High School American football match, and he has a mediocre life.  He meets Michael Cane (Mr Destiny) one night and Mr Destiny changes that one moment in his life which then leads to an entirely different outcome.  Similar to the whole Sliding Doors thing, but I've always had that scene in my head, the Mr Destiny scene about how one small, almost insignificant thing happening in your life can take you on an entirely different journey.  He does it by pointing out little stars which take him on one path, he changes one of the stars and sure enough, the direction changes.  Almost all of the above circumstances outlined above had to happen to get me to where I am now and to have many of the friends I have now.

I am incredibly grateful for the chances I've had, a lot of it down to hard work, but some of it to luck as well.  Anyone in business who tells you that luck doesn't play any part of their success isn't telling you the truth, is a fact.  Do not misunderstand, by no stretch of anyone's imagination is running a business easy, of course many people think it is, after all, how difficult can it be to book a bloody flight and a hotel?  Indeed....like any business the best ones really do look very simple but most of them perform that worn-old-cliched swan day-in-day out of padding furiously below the surface whilst maintaining a calm elegance up top.  Not that many would describe me as elegant of course, but I like to keep a fairly upbeat and positive outlook on my life and my business even though below the surface there might be a massive storm that I am struggling to weather.

I arrived home the other day from a most incredible time in Rio, my great pal picked me up from the airport and as we approached Dundee I asked him if he'd mind a quick stop off before I got home, he didn't mind at all and I was transported back to simpler times and wondered aloud about the difference in my journeys - one in the back of the Viva for 17 hours or one in the front of a plane for 17 hours - the net result was the same.

A whole one, all to myself!

Happy 2020 everyone and thanks for reading x