We drove down on Saturday morning to stay overnight in Southampton ready for the Spring Rally at Beaulieu on the Sunday.
The weather forecast was bad. The sky looked bad. The wind was bad (spicy Bean-Burger on Saturday night).
The organisers had arranged for us to all park in an "events field"
with direct access to the museum grounds. There were about 300 assorted MX-5's
and Roadsters there in spite of the forecast. In fact, for the early part of the
day, the rain actually held off. Long enough for several people to turn
up with their tops down, although it was a brave or foolhardy person who went
sightseeing with the roof left down in the parking area.
There were some pretty neat cars there, some rather unusual ones and some
down right ugly ones (in my opinion). I think the one shown here was a special edition named
after the "Le Mans" 24 hour race (Mail
me if you have more information, or click
here for information from David Jones at S.W.
Midlands region {thanks David}).
Bob
and Ros had also driven down on Saturday and stayed the night in Southampton.
Sadly, they left the window on the car open a tad overnight and thanks to the
driving wind, the driver's seat was soaked. Luckily there were enough dry
periods on the Sunday to let the air get at it and dry it out. When we passed
their car around lunch time with its windows up, it looked very steamy in
there!!
Anyway, they seemed to enjoy the bus ride, even though it was a bit windswept on the top deck.
Mark Spashett and his wife were also there, but they'd driven down on the day (and not in an MX-5!!) because they'd visited the Sports Car show at the NEC on the Saturday.
Unlike the main national rally (e.g. Tatton Park last September), there weren't any activities for members other than a raffle which was well sponsored by the trade stands present, and a best car competition.
Problem was, this gave us more time to wander around the trade stands and spend money:-( But the "show special" prices made it a lot less painful, and it was stuff we would have bought at some stage anyway, apart from the natty MX-5 club jacket that Michelle ordered. Amongst the companies there were, Moss, Eunosverse, MX5parts.co.uk, MX-5 city and several others, plus the club regalia stand.
As ever, the museum itself was a joy, and Michelle and I spent the best part of the day wandering around in there.
All in all, a pleasant day, but the weather came in with a vengeance at about 2pm so we decided not to look around the house and grounds and made our way through the New Forest and on to Salisbury, then Bath and the M4 home.
A big vote of thanks must go to the organisers again. It really can't be easy to marshal so many people and resources, and as far as we could tell, it went off without a hitch. If any of you read this; thanks.
"Hi Ho Silver"
Last updated May 26, 2002