Rover P6 Club

RP6C National Rally 2008.

VAC Vintage and Classic day at Turweston

SPONSORED BY ADRIAN FLUX INSURANCE 

Now own up, ‘Who brought umbrellas and forgot to pack the sun cream?’ Well after all the rain on the run up to the event, it’s hardly surprising if you all said ‘we did!’ But true to form, it was a gloriously hot and sunny day, which meant I had to alter the settings on my camera, to ‘sunny’, a setting that had nearly seized this year due to lack of use. Anyway loads of you braved the elements ( the blue sky and sun) to be at the event at Turweston. This year we were not allowed onto the grass because it was water logged and the aerodrome owners had decided to plough and seed it just a week before our event, which was held in conjunction with the Vintage Aircraft Club. Therefore we had been designated to park at the end of the runway and end of the runway it was, as many aircraft seamed to hover over head as they approached to land. This parking slot also gave us the opportunity to use the onsite rally school’s layout for the driving test challenge. After several successive excursions around the track by Chris, it was however decided that perhaps this was a bit too adventurous for most, although after seeing some of the entries in the precision parking, perhaps everyone should have been let loose on the full rally training course!.

As per usual with our club events, it wasn’t long into the mornings festivities, when we had our first bonnet up in the air and heads gathered for on site repairs to take place. This time it was VVC who was scrutinised after the smell of antifreeze was apparently coming from the front end, yes the radiator had blown in the top right hand corner, something we don’t seem to have had much luck with in the last couple of years with our membership. Next to put the bonnet up was Duncan with his 1966 2000 which was suffering a misfire, but this was easily cured by the addition of some news points and a condenser.

Anyway, while all this is going on the Alternator Shot Put Challenge was well under way and the Precision Driving Competition was kicking up the dust, yes dust, I know a very strange concept in this year of water everywhere, especially as the grass was water-logged. I must say it always amazes me though, to see these superbly presented machines, file quietly on to the National Rally field, driven by refined sedate ladies and gentlemen,  which suddenly turn into ‘monster truck drivers from hell’, at the mention of a driving competition.

Where do these alter-ego beings live the rest of the year? And also, think what its doing to your fine machines! No there’s no hope for any of you, but all of your P6’s performed superbly, with wheels spinning, dust flying, all while  sliding sideways into the cone formed garages. I won’t mention who ran over the tyre barrier and got one trapped under the car and had to drive up a bank to get it freed! (But I got told off later!). As for those of you who did do it all properly, well done. Our thanks to Chris and Pam for organising this superb challenge yet again.

 The

 Alternator Shot Put Challenge on the other hand was divided into three categories, Ladies, Gentlemen and Juniors and our thanks to Richard & Kit for organising it, although look what you did to my new alternator, its now completely scrap! And what’s more, I can’t believe just how far it had been thrown, well done one and all.We had a brief interlude in proceedings during the afternoon while an air display swooped and turned over head involving a Spitfire and a Hurricane, and then a little later we had the mighty delta wing of the Vulcan doing a fly by, albeit unexpected. We followed this with the prize giving ceremony and the results are listed in the table below:-All the trophies and plaques this year, have been sponsored by Adrian Flux Insurance and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their sponsorship and to ask you before renewing your insurance, to follow the link on our website to Adrian Flux and to please ask for a quote.After the award ceremony, came the raffle and this had raised over £90 for club.  And finally it was time to give out the plaques, except I somehow forgot to do this, to start with, so some of you left without them. Many apologies for this error, however if you did miss out please give me a call and I will rectify my mistake and send you your missing plaque.

Time to pack down and reload the club trailer and once again hit the road homeward bound, but this was only short lived. Because when we got towards the end of the lane, we found James H and Dixon’s cars on the side of the road. Apparently James’s V8 had suffered with a sticky thermostat and Dixon had stopped to render assistance, only to find that after freeing the thermostat, his own car wouldn’t move. This is the point where we also pulled in and stopped, sent James & Claire on their way back to Surrey and we assisted Dixon. It turned out to be the clutch slave cylinder which had failed. Fortunately I had a new one in the boot of the General, but then so did Dixon. Now what is the probability of any item failing (other than a fan belt or points) and you having the choice of two replacements to hand, while on the side of the road? Anyway , we did have so we set about replacing the defective item and then bled the clutch and we were all mobile again. Under normal circumstances you would have thought that with the various failings during the course of this adventure, that we couldn’t suffer anything else, but true to form, just when you think you are home and dry, Lee passed me on the motorway and I knew straight way from the excessive noise that the exhaust had let go on his Series 1 2000, the one he uses everyday. So a quick stop off at Warwick services to check it out and decide there was nothing we could do on the side of the road and we were off again. 

 I can’t to see what 2009 brings!!!

Editor