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PAST EVENTS PAGE 83

JAPANESE AUTO EXTRAVAGANZA - BILLING AQUADROME - NORTHAMPTONSHIRE - SATURDAY and SUNDAY 27th and 28th JULY 2002

WOW! Many thanks to member Ian Fitzhenry who took this picture, if you contact Richard I will email you the BIG 13inch version - nearly 1mb! - so you can zoom in.

We had been plugging away and building up this event since early 2002 with the aim of our biggest club turn out to date. A few calculations suggested that a goal of 50 cars would not be impractical.

As the event drew closer I realised that it would be close, but a turn out of 50 cars looked likely depending on the weather.

As usual Alan Jones, Stuart Kynoch and Richard Morgan attended on the Thursday to help mark out the pitch and ensure everything went smoothly.

With the recent expansion of the North East region I had been promised a good turn out from our local members. Five cars departed in convoy and headed for the A1 where we were to meet up with a member, Ryan, from the North West at Woodall Services on the M1.

We managed to all stay together for the 223 mile trip down and arrived at Billing around 3pm where we were greeted by most of the committee. Tents up, beers chilled and barbies lit, we were all set for a cracking weekend.

By late Friday afternoon the whole of our club camping bank was full to capacity with the surrounding areas bursting with other car clubs which included the MR2 Drivers Club, IMOC and the new Roadster Owners Club. There was a really good party atmosphere that night with everyone looking forward to the weekend ahead.

As Saturday arrived it was clear we again had the weather on our side. We drove over to the club pitch early, put up two club gazebos and hung up the new club banner. Members began to arrive early and by lunch the pitch was almost full with 49 MK1 MR2's neatly parked in a grid formation. It was great to see so many members mingling amongst the cars and getting along like best friends.

There were hundreds of cars on display from other clubs and in total 52 Japanese car clubs attended with an impressive display of machinery from Fensport. Richard brought the club shop along and some members brought spares along taking to opportunity to sell them via the club shop, in fact I managed to pick up a nice pair of t-bar glass panels at a good price.

We almost hit the 50 car objective that day but were confident it would be achieved the following day.

That night we all gathered around campfires, brought out the moonshine and chatted and laughed deep into the night, some of us even made it into the morning!!

The following morning was a scorcher. Whilst munching into a bacon and egg sandwich to try and cure my headache I was quickly reminded that I was supposed to be running this show, with members already having arrived I quickly headed over to the pitch. By 10am we already had 28 cars on the pitch, but who would be the 50th member to arrive? Around 1pm we had 49 cars and it seemed to take ages for the 50th to arrive, but it did. A nice Sherwood Toning early MK1 who received a free club hat, what generosity we have in the club eh!!

By the end of a fantastic day we totalled 55 cars - which is a fantastic achievement, the biggest turn out of any club’s cars at the show and our biggest turn out in the clubs history. The weekend was fantastic and I hope everyone who made the trip thought it was well worth it and will return next year. You, the members made it happen and I am very proud that we achieved our goal, many thanks.

We made 3 special awards to 3 special cars, the results were:

Best Car - Thomas Kingsnorth, Best Ladies - Joanne Thom, Best Modified - Toni Gladding

See you next year, who will be the 100th member to arrive?

Michael Sheavills