VMR Summer Rally 2009

[Ian Grace]

It is usual for planning of the Summer Rally to commence prior to the running of the previous year's event, and 2009 will be no exception because next year's rally is expected to be a bumper one.

The 2009 VMR Summer Rally will be based in the Cotswolds and will take place over the weekend of 1st/2nd August. This coincides with the VSCC's Prescott weekend, which we will visit on the Sunday. The VSCC's Jubilee week commences on Monday 3rd, so those VMR/VSCC members who wish to take part in both events will transfer the short distance to Malvern on Monday morning to sign on at the Three Counties Showground.

The format of the weekend will be as follows:

Friday evening - welcome gathering at the Mount Inn, Stanton
Saturday - Navigation Rally and parallel Scenic Tour - starting at Sudeley Castle. Pub lunch, afternoon cream teas and results, formal social gathering in the evening - details TBA, but may involve a steam train journey.
Sunday - gather early and convoy into Prescott to park together in the Orchard for our Vintage Picnic and to spectate the climb
Sunday evening - farewell pub run

Of course, some of our members and friends will be competing at Prescott, and so will be practising on Saturday, but on the other hand, there will be a huge vintage presence in the area that weekend and so some may prefer to join us on our nav rally/tour as an alternative to spending two days spectating at Prescott. Non VSCC members will be welcome at Prescott on Sunday.

Provisional details of the VSCC Jubilee week may be found at http://www.vscc.co.uk/vsccweb/Anniversary/default.jsp

The first entry is Ray McCrary who is planning to bring his 1929 tourer over from Nashville, Tennessee for the week. I am also hoping to borrow one of Brian's cars. Other overseas members - particularly our European and Antipodean members - may also like to consider joining us and taking part in the subsequent week-long Jubilee event.

There will be a special VMR award for the best Vintage Minor performance in the Light Car Rally on August 7th.

As might be expected, accommodation will be very tight in the Prescott area for the weekend and the Malvern area for the following week, hence this early announcement. I recommend anyone who plans to attend either event to book their accommodation ASAP.

[Toby]

Ian, will check distances and places-in laws live in Malvern so may have free accomodation! we hope to be living further away from the 2009 rally by then, how about a return to Dorset!

[Ian Grace]

Dorset will definitely be on the list for future rallies - just not two in a row. Bath and the Cotswolds have always drawn the greatest number of Register entries because of their combination of easy access for the most members, the great countryside, plenty of white roads, few red roads, and density of places of interest - not to mention some superb pubs and beers!

It is looking like my Semi-sports may well still be in England for the 2009 rally, too. Ray is shipping his tourer and we are sharing a converted barn near Upton-on-Severn - already booked. Does that constitute the start of a 2009 rollcall?

[Ian Grace]

I just came across an extremely powerful rally route-planning website:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk

It displays Google road map and OS map side by side - awesome tool for plotting and saving routes. Anything you plot on one gets plotted on the other and each can be zoomed in and out independently. It also calculates the exact route distance. I'll undoubtedly be using this for 2009.

[Ian Grace]

Couple of quick planning items for VMR 2009 I'd like to poll everyone about.

First - Saturday night. We have the opportunity to book the GWR steam train for a dinner trip in the evening. To make this viable we would ned to fill the train. Tickets would be about GBP 35 a head and there are about 100 places. We would have to book the whole train and then be responsible for filling it. I passed on this twice in the past - once because our Prescott weekend coincided with the highly successful Proms concert at Sudeley Castle, and the other time because I didn't think we could fill the train. However, this time we will be holding the evening the same evening as VSCC Prescott, and, if everyone doesn't want to go to the BBQ at Prescott, then we might be able to fill the train with fellow VSCC and other club members. Also, our nav rally and tour will take place on that Saturday - with VSCC and other clubs invited, so we could end the rally at the station and link the two activities quite nicely. See http://www.elegantexcursions.net/ for more details.

Second, we have been invited by the VSCC to host an early Morris/MG night during the following VSCC 75th Anniversary week. The best night would be Tuesday night - i.e. the Tuesday after our VMR weekend. We could simply put on a pub run of some sort or perhaps try someting slightly more ambitious or even mildly competitive. The Early MG Society is already on board with us and are planning a good showing during the week - they have already booked 14 rooms in the Abbey Hotel in Malvern, and they are promoting the evening in their next Magazine. This will also be a great opportunity to promote/launch the Early Morris Society. Any suggestions? More info on the VSCC week at http://www.vscc.co.uk/vsccweb/Anniversary/default.jsp

[Toby]

I'll put my hand up for 2 train places, you may struggle to get people to commit. Not sure about the tuesday, whether we'd still be around, mind you at the moment I'm wondering if I'll have time to get either minor on the road by then!

[Ian Grace]

Thanks Toby, but I just heard from the Early MG Society that they already have dinner plans for Saturday night, so that takes a big block of potential train passengers away, so I will probably go for something else on Saturday night. The Plough at Ford has been suggested and they could do a sit-down dinner for about 40 or more if the garden is used, or simply an informal pub night, although we have informal pub nights Friday and Sunday as well. We concluded one of our nav rallies there in the past - lovely pub, good beer, food, etc. Am open to other suggestions. There is the BBQ at Prescott, of course, but it would not make economic sense to pay to get in to Prescott on Saturday just to go to the BBQ, and I'd prefer to have our own do anyway, as we will be at Prescott on Sunday - and I still have to figure out how to get non-VSCC members into the Orchard on Sunday - possibly put a VSCC member in each car and enter as a convoy so we can park together. Otherwise, non-members will have to park a couple of fields away in the public parking.

Re the following Tuesday night - this could be the inaugural gathering of the Early Morris Society - most of the EMS infrastructure is now in place - website, forum, newsletters, chassis register, membership list, etc., but it needs something like an inaugural gathering with a bit of publicity to push the boat out. The early MG clan would support this evening as well, and there will be plenty of Bullnose/Flatonse owners in Malvern for the week, as well as Bev Hicks' Morris Specials group. Could be a good night. If there was interest from the SV wing of the VMR, I could make this Monday night instead of Tuesday, as there is not much on Monday or Tuesday nights by the looks of it right now. Then there is the final Saturday bash at the Three Counties showgroud - with autojumble, one-make stands, etc., which we could take advantage of, and which will be open to everyone. So plans are still a bit fluid all round right now, but all in all, I'm looking forward to a great weekend and following week with plenty for everyone.

In the meantime, I would encourage everyone to think about accommodation - with the VSCC in town for both the Prescott weekend and the following week in Malvern, capacity is already going fast. Halbe, might we see a Dutch raid this year?

[Toby]

Monday sounds good...

[Ian Grace]

The VSCC has now posted the following on their Anniversary website for Saturday 8th August:

http://www.vscc.co.uk/uploaded/ContentI ... terest.pdf

"Saturday Spectacular. Saturday 8 August will be the ‘open day’ at Malvern, dubbed the ‘Saturday Spectacular’. Members and their friends are all encouraged to come along. One make Car Clubs are encouraged to come along and display on this day, so why not check with the Secretary of your one make car club and ask them to publicise the day to their members who may not be VSCC members?"

We could participate. Any interest? If so, I'll return a form on behalf of the Register to register our interest! It would be good PR to present a collection of our cars to the VSCC and tto he general public who will be attending - particularly if we could include one or two s*dev*lve cars!

[Simon]

And a cammy engined Jensen !!!!!

[Ian Grace]

Indeed Simon! Do you have any plans to move the valves to a more correct location. I think when we spoke some time ago you were mulling a plan to restore the car back to its original specification. I floated this idea with the previous owner who went white at the suggestion - probably because he had spent so much money with Tom Dark to make the OHC engine make the car go faster. He told me that he had asked Tom how much the engine work would cost, and Tom replied, "How fast do you want it to go?"!

When I first met Mike Gibson back in the seventies, he was restoring a McEvoy and he had fitted an OHC engine - probably just to get it running. But he had the original Model 70 (finned manifold, etc.) engine under the bench and eventually (and possibly not in his sadly foreshortened lifetime) the SV engine was reinstated and fitted.

I know you don't have a Model 70 engine, and I know that we will probably never know whether your car is/was a Jensen or a McEvoy, but either way, a SV unit would be more appropriate. But then you also have the radiator, wheels, brakes, etc. from the OHC van to think about!

[Ian Grace]

I just started a new thread on the VSCC forum yesterday regarding VSCC 75, as I couldn't see one - asking who else is coming. There was a hail of responses - so many that VSCC Admin have opened a new Events sub-forum to cover the event. Worth checking in if you are intending to come along next August after the VMR Summer Rally. The combination of the two events should be great fun!

[Ian Grace]

The early Morris/MG meet will be Tuesday, not Monday Toby. The VSCC advise that Monday evening is going to be busy - with a beer festival!

Also, we have been invited to join the Morris Specials Group pub meet on Friday evening (the 7th) at Much Marcle. Sounds like a beery week is in store!

[Ian Grace]

Bit of an update on planning. We have had to scrub the steam dinner trip on the GWR Saturday night because of over-riding events on the line on Sunday morning (sounds like good old Bitish Rail!). BUT, Plan B is to take a steam round trip from Toddington to Cheltenham and back on Sunday morning, with a guided tour of the engine sheds and restoration workshops before departure. This would get us back into Toddington at 11-51 - in time to drive the short distance to Prescott for the lunch break and to watch the afternoon climbs. We will have to park our cars in Mr. Newman's field down the lane (a bumper crowd is expected this year, for obvious reasons, so parking arrangements may be slightly different), but this gets around the problem we had in getting non-VSCC VMR members' cars into the Orchard. We can still gather and base ourselves on the hill to watch the climbs in the afternoon, which would be away from our cars anyway, and since we will all bea rriving in convoy from Toddington, we wil be able to park together. The VSCC has also very kindly offered us their members' ticket rates for us if we book in advance, and there will be a slot for this on the entry form.

(As for Prescott this year, the VSCC is planning to make this a three day event as an opener to VSCC 75. The format for Saturday/Sunday will be the familiar one with Friday being a separate event for those unfortunate souls who don’t get an entry for the ‘main’ event – assuming that is what they want to do. If not the day will be used as a training day.)

So Saturday night is now a buffet dinner at the Gardeners Arms, Alderton, whose landlady has made us very welcome. This is the inn where our Sunday evening farewell meet was to have been (and the venue for some most memorable post-Precott eveings in the past). The Sunday Farewell will move to the Royal Oak at Gretton, which is only a starting handle throw from Prescott. (Has anyone been there lately? I just want to check that it is as good as it used to be four or five years ago - pubs have an unfortunate habit of changing hands and going downhill without warning.)

The other benefit of this change is that the Sunday morning GWR round trip and dinner at Alderton combined will be much cheaper for everyone than the dinner train would have been, and we also do not have to commit to charter the entire train on Sunday morning as we would have had to do on Saturday night.

I could tell you a lot more about Saturday and the nav rally, but I'd have to disqualify you from entering if I did! Suffice it to say that a fascinating and unique lunch stop is being planned - very much out of the ordinary, and should afford some superb photo opportunities with our cars.

As for the Tuesday evening Morris/MG gathering, some diligent local pub research is being carried out and I hope to have a Full Report in my hands shortly!

Once all this is firmed up in the next few days, I will update the rally web page, and I should also be able to publish the entry form shortly.

[Ian Grace]

A quick reminder to everyone who might like to enter their (eligible) Minor or M Type in VSCC 75. Entry forms for the week's events should be available in the New Year (and I'll send out an e-mail alert as soon as they are - since all events are likely to be highly over-subscribed), but you will need a buff form/number for the car you wish to enter. You can check your car's details and buff number (which you will have to include on your entry forms) on the VSCC website. Log in to the VSCC website using your username and password, then click 'My Account' at the left of the page and then select 'Your Cars'. You will be able to enter events online and your entries can also be checked under 'Your Entries'.

If your car does not have a buff form then I recommend you apply to Steve Allen (steve.allen@vscc.co.uk) without delay.

Ray, I have asked Bob to transfer OF 4554 to your account. The buff number is 20207.