2021 Event Reports

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Baston Car Show

No report for this but here are a few photos instead. Someone summed up the show as "We Came, It rained, We went home" read into that what you will.

BMW E30 M3
Picture: Giles Cooper

Small American Truck
Picture: Giles Cooper

Rally Prepared MK2 Escort
Picture: Giles Cooper

Paul Ashby's Mazda MX5
Picture: Giles Cooper

Mike Ramsdale's Locost
Picture: Giles Cooper

Adrian Spriggs Tiger Super 6
Picture: Giles Cooper

Alan Anderson's TIger GTA
Picture: Giles Cooper

Mike Finch's Tiger Super 6
Picture: Giles Cooper

Angus Grooby's Marlin
Picture: Giles Cooper

Jim Danks' VW Camper Van
Picture: Giles Cooper

July Pub Meeting

On July 20th 2021 for the first time since January 2020 we managed to hold a pub meeting at the Ferryboat in Holywell. These haven't been featured on the website for a long time but as it was the first in 18 months we need to prove we still have a club and can actually get to events and do things.

So here are some pictures from the evening

Alan Anderson's Tiger GTA
Picture: Giles Cooper

Richard Gaze's Tiger Avon
Picture: Giles Cooper

Mike Ramsdale's Locost
Picture: Giles Cooper

Steve Tuck's Tiger Cat
Picture: Giles Cooper

Giles Cooper's Tiger Cat
Picture: Giles Cooper

Steve Newman's Tiger R6
Picture: Giles Cooper

Alan Griffin's Tiger Avon
Picture: Giles Cooper

Jim Danks' Tiger ZR6
Picture: Giles Cooper

Tulip Map and Maxey Car Show

After the longest planning process for a run ever, I started planning the route in January 2020 and it was ready for March the same year when the event was scheduled to run. Unfortunately the pandemic put paid to running it last year, and with it taking longer to lift the restrictions we were unable to conceive running it until August.

I then found out that the Maxey car show was running and decided to use that as the end point for the run - figuring that as it was a car show it was more interesting than a garden centre car park where we had ended the last few navigation runs.

This obviously entailed having to rewrite quite a large chunk of the route as it was a few miles different to the original point I had planned. The other thing was that I didn’t advertise the Maxey car show in the club magazine even though I had booked a space for a display.

With all the planning in place all I needed was for people to turn up and do the event. In the end the turnout was, well disappointing. We had four cars do the route, Chris Davison (not a club member) in his MX5, Tony and Liz Haggie in the Morgan, Neil Whitehead and Griff in Neil's Cub and Paul Ashby and Sally using their Honda Civic Type-R.

It couldn’t be helped but was a bit lower than I had hoped for. Still they all did the route and eventually found the end point.

I think that ending the run at a local car show which did have a good and varied collection of vehicles on display, was a better idea than the car park approach and this seemed to be enjoyed by other people.

Maybe this is an idea for future versions of the navigation runs - a known start and end point and a navigation challenge in the middle?

Incidentally at the show we met up with club members Dave Thomas and Dave McKenna who had just gone to the show as a day out.

Chris Davison's Mazda MX-5
Picture: Giles Cooper

Neil Whitehead's Tiger Cub
Picture: Giles Cooper

Paul Ashby's Honda Civic Type-R
Picture: Giles Cooper

Tony Haggie's Morgan
Picture: Giles Cooper

Ford Based Hot Rod
Picture: Giles Cooper

1908 Damlier
Picture: Giles Cooper

Fordson Major Tractor
Picture: Giles Cooper

Very Subtle Paintjob
Picture: Giles Cooper

Marlin Speedster
Picture: Giles Cooper

Angus Grooby's Marlin
Picture: Giles Cooper

Most of the club cars in one shot
Picture: Giles Cooper

Whitwell & Reepham Station Classic Car Meet by Dom Eaves

After popping over for a short while to their Aug meet, myself and Andy Dunn decided to go to the September meet, and see if anyone else was interested so I put a post on the Facebook page to see if anyone else was interested.

On the Night we had Michael Ramsdale, Carl Lumley and Martin Pidd plus Andy and myself now this was nothing to do with with the Facebook page but 3 other Westfields appeared, two of these we had seen at the previous meeting.

There was a good turn out of American cars , Hot Rods and classics. This was the last meeting for the year, we will look at going again next year, especially as there was a good set up for food and refreshments.

Group Shot of Cars
Picture: Dom Eaves

Ford Mustang
Picture: Dom Eaves

Chevrolet EL Camino and something else
Picture: Dom Eaves

Martin Pidd's Westfield and Ford Hot Rod
Picture: Dom Eaves

Ford Hot Rod
Picture: Dom Eaves

Westfield
Picture: Dom Eaves

Mike Ramsdale's Locost and Carl Lumley's Tiger R6
Picture: Dom Eaves

Rutland Ramble by Giles Cooper

Unfortunately any report of the Rutland Ramble for 2021 is going to feature the weather somewhat heavily. For the week before the run I had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast as the position of the rain for Saturday kept moving. For a couple of days in the middle of the week it looked like we might have avoided the rain (at least until it was time to leave for home) but the weather gods were against us.

The day started off dry and relatively bright and after a quick 25 minute blast I arrived at the start point. Jim Danks had already arrived and over the next 30 minutes virtually everyone who had agreed to come arrived - there were only 2 cars missing - one due to over indulgence the night before, and the other a non-club member who’s other half had agreed to do the run but he somehow ended up at work that morning.

The only slight downside was that it stated on the event details the start location opened at 9AM, but it didn’t open until 9:30 - about 9:20 I think the staff took pity (or saw the opportunity for a few sales) and let us in early.

We repaid them by swiftly downing loads of tea and coffee. Suitably refreshed we had a good chat before setting off on the first half of the run. At this point the day although overcast was still dry and reasonably warm for the time of year.

The first half of the run took us north from Morcott around Rutland Water and onto Oakham - a loop around Cottesmore and Ashwell brought us back to Oakham and then back through Oakham and down for a stop at Uppingham Garden Centre. It was a good route with some twisty roads and good views.

It was a really nice route but about 5 miles from Uppingham it started to rain - not that much until after we parked at the garden centre but enough to deploy all the rain covers onto the cars.

As we sat eating cake in the tea-room the rain started getting heavier - so naturally more cake was consumed putting off the inevitable return to wet cars.

As a side note the clubs resident compulsive plant buyer went and acquired another plant - I think had we known about what the weather was going to do they would have bought some pond plants.

So we get to the afternoon section of the run, obviously everyone who had them put their rain suits on. By this time the rain had gone from light to heavy and was heading for storm conditions. Now Tigers are not renowned for wet weather driving and certainly the roads were getting slippery so in the afternoon the speeds were a lot lower and although we went through some nice villages I can’t really say much as the visibility dropped with the rain to about 30 yards in front of the car - so the speeds dropped appropriately. I think we averaged 40 mph on the second half, I did see 45 on the last stretch to the pub lunch stop but that was about it.

When we arrived at the pub it was almost dark despite it being the middle of the afternoon - fortunately the pub was warm and dry.

We had a good lunch and then a long natter in the pub - and then had to get home.

Rain suit back on I pulled onto the A47 hoping for a relatively easy drive back, however in places the road had flooded to a considerable depth, and I hit one of these puddles at about 40mph, the resulting bow wave launched over the front of the car and came down on me - somehow finding a gap between the helmet and the rainsuit and dropped a load of water down my back.

After that when I saw puddles I slowed up and backed off.

It was a good day and Neil has suggested that next year we run the same route as nobody had any idea what the second half really looked like.

The worst bit was the Sunday was dry bright and sunny. However on Sunday morning I went and pulled the carpets out of the Tiger. As they came out they left a trail of water in the garage out to the washing line where they were hung up to drip - it took about an hours for them to stop dripping and then another few hours to dry out completely.

Now the question remains was this the wettest one day trip we have done in the cars - well the benchmark is still the Derbyshire run from 2016 - and I think that still has the edge - simply because we had a lot further to go, and we had to abort the run due to the weather - this one does come a close second though.