Mini in the Park, Santa Pod Raceway – Sunday 14th August 2016
Where to start. Myself, Rachel and David were the only members to attend this event. The weather was ok, dry and perfect for camping overnight.
The entertainment for the Saturday evening was good although after several beers to celebrate just being at this event we can’t remember what it was, a tribute band of some description was the best guess. There was also some fun fair rides to go on, which David and Alex decided to do after a few drinks on the way back from the bar, I tried to take a photo but my fingers wouldn’t work the camera!!!
When I say ‘celebrate just being there’ that probably needs explaining, the problem was that we felt like frauds, I was unable to take my mini as had been in hospital a few days before and restricted from driving, never mind we can take Rachel’s Mini thought I, no such luck, her car was being bodged by a garage in Wootton Bassett so we ended up arriving in a loan focus, oh joy.
The show on the Sunday was the normal traders and club stands. A slow wander around and bought a few things, well mainly Rachel did, she had luckily looked on the websites before the show but thought she would wait until the show to see if she could get a discount but oh no, the price on the stand was actually more for one of the things she bought so it was challenge time and an even bigger discount for the mistake!!! Then we headed to the stands to watch the mini’s going up Santa Pod’s drag strip. As normal some of the more highly tuned Mini’s were doing the ¼ mile in around ten seconds. David did take his car up the strip after doing some performance mods to his engine, wow did he take it serious, car unloaded and all his bits put in our tent and even worked it out to have minimal fuel in his car, he didn’t say no to a couple of bacon butties though. Three runs up the strip and bettering his time every run, the best being 17 seconds although I think we all agreed that his best run was when he beat a new BMW Bini over ¼ mile. Well done Dave a moral victory for all real mini owners.
The weekend finished with a steady run home and lots of mini fun to talk about. We’re all looking forward to doing it again in 2017 and hope that this time we’re in minis and the weather is good. Oh yeah and we’ll try and remember what band are playing but I’m not making any promises.
Steve