Hey All,
Welcome to my FITP 2008 Weekend write up. I will take you through a trip of the weekend that I had… I hope you enjoy
Friday:On the Friday evening I noticed that Bex’s back tyre was flat. I had a check around the tyre and there was a HUGE nail about 2cm in from the edge of the tyre. I decided to pump it up and see if it had gone down in the morning and if not then drive it to the garage about 6 miles away to get it repaired.
Whilst looking through the boards and checking everything out my sister came across an E-mail that said that Gregg’s was doing their baguettes on special offer for only £1 each with a special coupon. So… we set about registering everyone and printing them off to get the baguettes for the Sunday morning.
Later that evening Lisa arrived about 21:30 and then shortly followed by ChrisCumbria who got here about 22:15. We decided that it wasn’t late enough to go to bed so got out the DVD ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and Bex chucked a Pizza in that we all tucked into whilst watching the movie.
After the movie, everyone went to bed for some well earned sleep zzzzZZZZ
Saturday:In the morning I got up nice and early… around 11… early for me, I’m a student
I then started my trip to the garage with 26miles left showing on the trip computer, nice of her to leave me some petrol
I arrived at the garage and they had the wheel off in a matter of 2 minutes. After putting a checker on the tyre it was clearly visible that the nail was too close to the sidewall to be repaired. I asked for a 16” continental but they didn’t have any in stock and offered me a Plopo-crap tyre. Which… I decided wasn’t really a brand I’d ever heard of and maybe they made them with banana skins instead, so expectedly I refused the tyre.
Baring in mind this was now about 12pm on a Saturday when not many garages are open. I got on the phone to my 118 118 direct internet search engine, which is my mom and sister and after about an hour of sitting in the car waiting for them to get a garage near by that I could get a tyre they finally decided that the cheapest place was in fact Coventry, which was about 15 miles past my house so I returned home.
On arriving back home, I viewed the trip computer and it said I had 23 miles left… hmmm… shocking that
according to the computer it seems I’d only done 3 miles on a 10 mile round trip… I think that possibly Bex is a little heavy with the right foot!!!
Soon after this Bex, Chris, Lisa and Jack and myself driving Bex’s car all went to Coventry to a garage called Britannia Tyres. We arrived there and was greeted by a man with a note board which took details down and put us on the board in the queue.
10mins went by… 20mins… 30mins… An hour… and finally after an hour and a half they had changed the tyre… On the upside the tyre cost £53 there where it would have cost nearly £80 at the other garages… was it worth it? You decide.
After this we then decided to pay a visit to Gregg’s to collect our baguettes ready for the Sunday at FITP. If anyone knows Coventry then you will know that getting into the main car park is a nightmare at times so I parked over the road from the shopping centre and Bex and Lisa jumped out. After trying my best to evade the parking wardens for 15mins they returned to the car with all the food and explained they had to have an argument with the Manager as she didn’t want to allow 8 baguettes to go through for 2 people but as was explained… “Do you think I’m going to eat 8 bloody baguettes? If you want me to get the others out the car then I’ll do it” to which the response was… “No, I’ll honour it this time but don’t come back with this offer” and the closing sentence was “Do you think I’m going to? The offer expires tomorrow!!!”
On the way back Mandy-Jayne had contacted us letting us know she was on the train on her way from the other side of Birmingham. Soon after we got back I went out and picked her up and brought her back to the house. Shortly after this, Kevin (ST_ONE) arrived with a gift of T-shirts that he had been working hard on that were made for himself, Me and Chris to test out. I didn’t much like the long sleeves so I asked my mom to do the girly thing and chop the arms off and sow them up so that the shirt is made a short sleeve. She managed this successfully as the pictures show of me wearing it during the day.
The time was now getting on 6pm and the girls had decided they were going to Garla Bingo. Us lads didn’t much want to go to Bingo on time and decided to get the pressure washer out in the rain and give our cars a once over to try and remove as much dirt as possible since it was not practical to wash them properly. After this Kevin shot home and me and Chris got ready to go off to Bingo and meet the girls.
Shortly after Kevin phoned and said that him and Julie was coming along so we met them there. Upon arrival we had security come over to Kevin and ask why he was here... His reply was “For Bingo and why do you ask?”… they replied with the fact that alloys had gone missing during that week and they were on look out… Kevin soon replied with “I’ll give you a fag if you watch the cars” and the response was… “We don’t smoke sir”… oh well… we tried!!!
After reaching the doors to the grand room that was the Bingo Hall we were all a little scared to walk in… the numbers were being twenty three, called as fifty seven, we went in and eleven it was like thirty nine going into a battle ground.
We eventually dodged the numbers and grannies and found the girls… who by this time had already made a mockery of the whole idea…
… and by now were looking like aliens
The girls gave us some books and after some laughable playing we struck lucky with Lisa’s book that Chris was completing and we won the very last game of the night which was near 10pm at this time and won
£50
People knew we were having a laugh and never expected to win and when Chris said he was only looking for number 56 and it was called out Kevin shouted “HOUSE, HOUSE, HOUSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” and scared the life out of me and I’m sure sent a few pacemakers into overdrive.
When we won, everyone else got up and started to leave… I’ve never seen old grannies shoot out of anywhere as quick as bingo. They shot out of that room into the Ring and Rides like a bullet!!!
We then decided that since we won we should go to a pub and celebrate. It was decided that we should go to "The Bell" in Coleshill as it is a nice pub and the cars would be safe there.
With the winnings a round of drinks was purchased and we stayed there until pretty late!!!
After all this excitement it was time to go home…
Me and Chris were hungry and decided to go to
for a 12” Pizza to share
Then… it was finally time for beddy byes once again for 3 hours sleep zzzzzZZZZZ
Sunday:It was time to wake up at 5am in the morning and get sorted and ready to leave just before 6am. The meeting location is literally only around the corner from me so only took a minute to get there. I love getting up and seeing the sun starting to rise and the windows of the cars with condensation… it gives me a feeling of an adventure that’s going to happen… maybe some of you get the same feeling?
Just after 6, me and Chris went around to Bex (Pixar)’s house and convoyed with Bex with Mandy Jayne in her car and Lisa to the meeting location which was the Coleshill Leisure Centre car where Dave soon came in and closely followed by Kev and Kurt with Becky and a friend
Shortly after Kev and Kurt arriving we set off down the M6 motorway on our way to FITP and as you can see, an orange Focus
with a small convoy came cruising by.
As we went past Corley Services the STOC were re-joining the motorway and it made for a very nice sceptical of the FFST merged in with the STOC. It was a shame that they shot off in a high speed convoy as it would have been nice to have both joined together and gone as a complete pack until our next meeting locations.
A bit of bad judgement from me made us miss the services and 2nd meeting location. It was around a sharp corner on the main A road and with everyone packed so tight in convoy it would have been foolish of me to put my brakes on and turn in as it could well have caused an accident so the sensible decision was to carry on and pull over at the next parking stop and phone the members that were meeting at the next location.
After everyone was together we then pulled off at the next services as Kurt was after cash the entire way and also wanted to check his oil as he as sure it was a little low. It was a good excuse to nip to the loo also
We then got back on the road and headed to our final meeting location- Ellington where the rest of the guys were meeting.
Here’s a few pictures I took of the cars in the convoy heading there
Patricks Car
RobST165's Car
Lisa's Car
Kurts Car
Bex's (Pixar) Car
Dave's (Anthony1665) Car
Chris's Car
Kev's (ST_One) Car
Since I don’t have a picture of us meeting in Ellington I’ve stolen Kevs
We soon hit the road again with the 17 car convoy
Enter the queue for Huntington Race Course
A few pictures of the FFST Convoy all grouped up
Here’s Patrick trying to fit Bex’s Parrot and having to take the Radio out. It was soon realised that aftermarket connectors would be needed. After a later check, this worked out to be £20 for the connector
Dave asleep after an early start
Apart from the wind blowing the gazebo a little and making it look a little twisted the stand looked really nice and at long last, our flags were pointing the right way
I really like this picture that Kevin took also and I think it really shows what we are all about… it’s not just cars, it’s making good friends having really having a nice time.
Although not everyone is included in this picture as some went before this was taken it shows quite a few old and new faces. We should definitely get more group shorts in the future
As is custom after a show, we went to the pub after and had a nice meal
Here you go Mandy, another yellow car for you to go with all the Yellow cars you made Micky and Kevin take pictures of at FITP and the Yellow Coach I took a picture of in Portsmouth for you!!!
Bye Bye Patrick and Chris… they were exciting about heading down the M6 Toll road and through the pay gate
I had a brilliant weekend and I really enjoyed meeting everyone, both old and new. I bet you are fed up of reading now so I won’t write too much.
I must thank everyone for taking the time and effort to come along and support the site and hopefully enjoy themselves at the same time. Without people coming along these things would never happen and the good times that we have would be lost.
Thanks to ChrisCumbria for all his work in helping me massively with sorting the arrangements and tickets whilst I was finishing my University coursework and Dissertation. There’s no way I could have done it by myself.
I would also like to thank Kevin for his hard work on sorting the site shirts and getting some examples ran off to wear at the show, it really did make things feel professional and it gave people a chance to view the shirts before they are made available to order.
Thanks again all and I really hope to see you all and new people at future meets during the summer
Site Supporter
grew in size & became a Mk3 Mondeo 
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