Forgive me as this is my first write-up for the forum! I haven’t seen one uploaded for a while so thought I’d give it a shot. I also took a few photos, but they’re from my iPhone so the quality may not be the greatest.
The Fast Show 2013
After really enjoying last year’s Fast Show, and even considering it to be one of the best car shows of 2012, I was really looking forward to the start of the car show season for 2013. There was a great turnout for the stand, including two of our dedicated overseas members, Stevie and Duff. Sadly Duff was ultimately unable to make it due to technical issues, but Stevie braved the bad European weather to get here. Unluckily he then encountered nothing but typical British downpour for the majority of his stay. Despite the bad weather, it was still brilliant to see everyone, both old and new faces.
My weekend started on Friday as I attempted to clean Baz and waited for Lee to arrive from Hull. We then drove over to Northampton to spend the evening at Gary and Vicky’s, where Stevie was staying for the weekend. I received my regular bag of goodies - stroop-wafels, Dutch beer (for the brother) and of course, Edam, in addition to my new favourite Aussie confectionery – Tim Tams! We had a good catch up and watched Comic Relief.
The plan for Saturday daytime was to meet up for food/drinks at our favourite haunt, the Hungry Horse. However, the morning proved to be near-disastrous. On the drive home from Northampton on Friday night Lee’s wheels on the
felt extremely unsteady. We took it to a local garage and it emerged that the front passenger tyre was bulging in several places. The
required a rebalancing of three wheels and a new tyre. Lee initially refused to have a budget tyre fitted and we spent the majority of Saturday morning telephoning around to locate an Avon ZZ3 tyre, but with no such luck. In the end Lee had no option, but to have a budget tyre fitted, much to his disgust! Otherwise it meant not taking his beloved Scarlett on the stand! Once we had finished preparing the cars for the show, which proved to be absolutely pointless, we met Danny (COOPER) and his girlfriend Kirstie at their hotel and then convoyed to Northampton to the Queen Eleanor pub. Gary, Vicky and Stevie had been patiently waiting since early afternoon, something which I don’t think they’ll let me forget in a hurry!
We ended up spending a few hours at the pub, resulting in Gary, Vicky and Stevie ended up eating twice. Stevie had good reason to be very proud of his Leon though after receiving excellent results for a run at JAM-Sport earlier in the day.
I arranged for everyone to meet at my house for 6.30am to convoy the short distance to the meet point. There was a good selection of cars for the stand and everyone’s cars looked great. Dan and Katie had already driven to the Pod to check out the stand and ensure there were no unwelcome visitors on our stand, or that the clubs had pinched any of our stand space, like last year! Driving up along the entrance road to the strip, the fields acting as the public car-park were beyond boggy and muddy. I couldn’t believe they were allowing stands to be on the grass! My favourite sight that of a group of Saxos completely caked in the mud – their owners had obviously been having fun overnight
We arrived at the stand and then parked up. Lee’s car was chosen to display one of the club banners.
It promptly began to drizzle so we headed over to the live action arena to watch the drifting, but they weren’t really booting the cars. We managed to steer Lee clear of the grabbing machines in the amusement arcade, but if Duncan and Jack had been present this may have been a different story!
Unfortunately for Rob and all fans of his grid girl thread, there was not a promo girl in sight! Danny took matters into his own hands and tried his luck as Miss Fast Show 2013.
We took a wander around the stands and below are a selection of my favourite cars
My favourite car club names were TEAM YOLO (You Only Live Once) and Classy Ballers
The Vauxhall club demonstrated colour-co-ordinating that Scotty would be proud of!
The rain was persistent throughout the day which resulted in the newly-tarmaced strip being out of action. The event organisers were trying to dry it out, but all their efforts were in vain.
At lunchtime, the majority of us were starting to feel fed up and hungry so we decided to attempt to leave the Pod. However it took almost two hours to leave due to the excessive rain and an apparent traffic accident at the venue entrance. On the drive out, I spied a car that had been collected by a rescue truck. However, the rescue truck was now stuck and was about to be towed by a tractor!
Also spotted a dirty
!
Once we had successfully left, we convoyed to Buddies, an American-themed diner. Known for usually being at the back of our convoys, Stevie showed us what his Leon was truly capable of and came blasting past us all several times. Even Gary’s MR200 kit on Poppy didn’t stand a chance... Jack also joined us for dinner. It was then time to depart and go our separate ways. Thank you to everyone involved and making it an enjoyable weekend. The bonus is that Santa Pod management are offering free entry to other selected events throughout the year as a consolation. I propose the JapShow Finale
Roll on RSOC Central Day and FITP!
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