V Club Renault 5 GT Turbo Meeting

This meeting was the one I came into contact with some people into the project of creating the Madrid Renault 5 GT Turbo Club. They were a some friends that met in a pub and, from time to time, organized some meetings, to spend a day watching and talking about our babes, sometimes take some laps into a track, sometimes do some karting, and things like that.

I was in what I know now it was the fifth meeting, on July the 13th, 1997. Near Madrid, there is a track, whose name is Jarama, where we were supposed to meet.

At 10:30 I arrived there, only overtaking a GT Turbo up the way. At the diversion there was another black one, waiting on the side of the road. I didn't think they were going to be into the track, because it's not usually open to people, and I stopped to talk to the man. Neither of us knew where to find the meeting, but then a red GT Turbo that sounded really cool stopped close to us and told us to follow him.

We entered the track -not the actual track, the side of the track, as you can see at the photos-, and we were around ten-twelve cars there, all GT Turbos. In one more hour, we were thirty. There was a yellow MaxiTurbo, the classical turbo beast, with central engine and rear traction, there. The owner, once he parked the car, started to dismantle the aluminium covers all over the engine, that were really hot, to let us see the engine. It's a nice machine, you can bet. And much easier to make it spin than ours, as he managed to show later!

It was the right place to see, for example, how 15 inch wheels lifted a car, what different kind of bumper holes you can make, how removable and glassfiber hoods and bumpers looked, all kind of air vents, turbos blowing really hard (up to 1.6 bar!), a lot of racing seats, protective bars and pressure gauges at the inside, how do different colors combine into a body, and, if you asked, what kind of modifications you could afford...

There were people from the rest of Spain, not only Madrid, and a nice atmosphere, so if you were wondering what anyone had under the hood, you just had to ask. More or less, all of us are proud of our cars, and feel like explaining every little mod you made! Talk about how to pass the mechanical test, how to be stopped by the police, how to crash, the legendary generalized funny agreement of 'turbo enters suddenly, you lose control and kill yourself in such cars'...

Later, some went home, but most of us stayed. There were a town, 25 km away, in which there were a kart track, so we left Jarama track. The circuit was rented to someone, so we had to leave without trying some laps... :-( Only a few people knew how to go the the kart track, so we decided to go all together, not to get lost. One man said 'Errrr... I'm having some overheating problems, will you go fast?' One of the people from the club answered: 'Oh, no, don't worry, my engine is into its first miles and I can't run fast, too'

It was a nice shot to see the road full of GT Turbos, at 90 km/h, on the right lane. But, unavoidably, we started to lose contact, and some of us took a diversion and some of us didn't. Well, I suppose I got into the crazies' group, because ours was not the shortest way to the karting by far, but it was the funnier! Climbing mountains, going up and down, sharp turns, narrow roads... the kind of roads the GT Turbo was made for. But, unlike in everyday's traffic, this time you couldn't trust that your car was going to enter a turn you didn't know just by looking at the car in front of you! Even the guy with overheating problems enjoyed the trip.

Finally we arrived to the karting track. One of us had ended with the fan not working -because of the relay, I think-, and started to fix it. Those who wanted made some laps there, we ate and drank something, took a rest, and that was all, folks! See you next time!