Mid Sussex racers get ready to drive their ‘banger’ to Benidorm to raise funds for Dementia UK

Paul Kaynes from Haywards Heath and Chris Woods from Cuckfield are part of MACAW Motorsport (Mates and Cars All Weekend) and are participating in Benidorm Bangers on May 7.

The four-man team is raising funds for Dementia UK with their JustGiving page describing their challenge as: “Four Idiots.One Banger. Destination: Benidorm.” Visit www.justgiving.com/page/macaw4dementia.

Chris said: “Our main goal is to raise as much money as we can for a charity that’s dear to our hearts and has affected all our families.”

But he said: “There’s very much an underlying smirk when we talk about it though because we don’t want to be beaten in anything. We want to make sure we win everything and probably won’t sleep until we've done it.”

The team’s challenge is to get a cheap ‘banger’ car to make the journey (with around 80 other bangers) to Benidorm. The pre-determined route will go via Reims, north Paris, and northern Spain. On Friday, May 10, the racers will be in Valencia for a fancy dress event, before taking their decorated vehicles to Benidorm.

Chris said: “I bought an MOT failure and did the work on it, welded it up, got it roadworthy and painted. Then we’ve basically been selling space on the car for people’s businesses. It’s the first stage of raising the money.”

He said the second stage is the JustGiving page.

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Chris said it was simple to get sponsorship because raising for Dementia UK ‘struck a chord with so many people’. Paul said the aim was to make the ‘banger’ look like a ‘banger’ too, the kind of vehicle you would see in stock car racing. He said: “People have been brilliant and have really come forward so that’s why the car is covered.”

Benidorm Bangers describes itself as ‘a fun Navigational Challenge’ over four to five days with various challenges along the route.

Chris said: “Each day there’s challenges on the way down, but we won’t know what they are until that morning. They’re set by the organisers. Some teams will race off in the morning, they’ll get off the ferry and they’ll go straight down to Valencia and wait. But then they’ll be forfeited because they won’t have done all the tasks.”

He said teams get points for each task and those with the highest total will be announced the winners. He said one challenge in the past involved trying to get a photo closest to the starting line at Le Mans.

Paul said: “A lot of our friends and family are coming down to Beidorm for the Saturday night (May 11) because that's the prize giving.”

Chris added: “It would be so funny if we win. We;re all so competitive because we all grew up racing together.”

Chris and Paul, who have both been racing since their teens and have decades of experience, said all their team members race together at 750 Motor Club. They said everyone in their team has known someone with dementia and Chris said it is sad to see people losing memories and not recognising loved ones anymore. “It's a horrible illness,” he said, adding that he wants to try his hardest to raise money for treatments and support.