Kimbolton – SKCC ‘pop’ along to see what’s what.
Kimbolton ‘Match Report’.
With grey skies we assembled one by one at Thurrock, coffees were gathered and ciggies lit – a calm start to the day, until Richard turned up. Seems he’d been fettling/tinkering/improving yesterday and as a result there was a degree of oil in the engine bay from a blown seal. ( i thought that was illegal – blowing seals ?)
With no fuss or drama ( that’s Richard for you) he grabbed a tool or two and sorted it….( we hoped)……
Leaving Thurrock we managed to get split up and Neil, Tony and I cruised on for a fair few miles before stopping for a cheeky ciggie and waiting for Phil. I have to say that from that moment on we encountered yet more tasty roads, i know we all get something different from our ownership – but for me putting the car through its paces on twisty tarmac kind of rates high! The roads today really didn’t disappoint, there was one particular section that seemed to go for miles that was just littered with bends of all descriptions from hairpins to gentle curves…..awesome.
A look at the time and remaining distance showed we’d be cutting it fine to make the rendez vous at the Black Cat – so some pruning of the itn was needed to make the final section a bit quicker. Rocking up there we found our other SKCC colleagues: Paul, Linda,Bob/Silvia Fry , Dave (dinger) and Chris Laycock. Plus about 7-8 other cars from the Rhocar chaps who were from further up the road. We’d hoped that they’d join us for a trot to the Show, make a Grand Entrance and all that, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be – so us SKCC’ers set of for a cheeky 35 miler amongst the lanes. Bloody brilliant.
Tony B set the pace as we criss crossed narrow lanes with excellent sight lines, i imagine its fair to say that we were at 9/10ths mode…….there was certainly a few smiles when we finally knocked those miles off and arrived at the Show.
We parked them up and had a quick wander, in search of food, and when we toddled back who was there – oh yes Richard had made it! Well done mate……and the second well done goes to Bryan ( nogoingback) who’d had a few issues and hadn’t been able to start the run on time – so he’d toddled up on his own – fair play! There was a great selection of cars, odl Fords, modern Tivs, you name it it was there…..the sun shone and all was well with the world, we even had a much earned pint. I say all was well…….it was until Paul pointed out that Neil had a flat, he’d run over a blade of some description – so the emergency crew ( richard) was pressed into action…..a jack, a spare wheel and tools were produced – sods law prevailed though and the offset was all wrong. So a made dash to a local (ish) Kwik Fit saw the tyre repaired and hopefully as i type this Neil will be somewhere near home.
The delay due to the puncture cost us a lttle time and we’d have left and missed teh 1st shower of rain if all had been well……but hey, we’re hardy chaps. So the softies donned helmets whilst hardened members merely changed the dark glasses to clear – and off we set. Interesting doesn’t describe the amount of water just around the corner from the show, and Phil was having issues holding his Busa powered beat ( on 888’s)….but we managed to skirt most of the rain and hit the bypass/motorway and set the sat navs for home the fastest way mode…….One more short but hard shower was waiting for us on the M11 but we made good progress and with a final stop the south side of the water for a ciggie it was time to shake hands and bid each other farewell.
What a corker…..mostly sunny, terrific banter, awesome roads and a decent amount of blatting…….puuuuuuuurfect.