Passing through Croydon a guy in a wide-arched modified Mini decided to take on that standard-looking Neon with a dubious undertaking manoeuver-and lost. With half of Boris's old carb on, the mid-range grunt even prompted Nick to blurt out "where did that come from!?" A few minutes further on, that very same street-racer Mini pulled a dangerous swerving move down a service road, trying to beat a few people. When he cut back into the pack of Minis he almost hit two of them, leading to a full scale argument in the middle of the road!
On the shorts sprints around Gatwick the Neon was flying, and that friend with his 1275 auto' clubby had suddenly gone all quiet. I did warn him.
Arriving at Brighton Nick took over, but the Marshalls were not letting Minis onto Maderia drive. Those who had been let in were pushed right down the far (Marina) end, the marshalls refusing to let them go towards the Pier. Dozens of minis refused to park so far away, and a tense stand-off developed - the queue up on to the main road got so bad the Police began shooing Mini's away; faced with so much chaos the organisers had to back down. There had been a near riot at one stage, all because the local council had not cleared the Drive of last night's illegally-parked cars.
Considering how much the LSMOC has to pay to hire the venue, this is out of order, although with 2100 Mini's, the run is now too big. Some mini's even had to park on Dukes Mound, which is the access ramp to Maderia Drive. After all that, the show turned out OK, weather sunny but not too hot. Sadly at 1.3 miles long I didn't get to see all the Mini's; I heard a rumour that somebody had suggested hiring Brighton beach next year. Park on the shingle? come off it!
Hopefully in 2008 I can take my restored Clubman and enter it into the show & shine, which at the very least will guarantee a better parking spot!
R.R 2007
