National Rally 2007.

Sponsored by ELY SERVICE.

The cover picture says it all really because this years National Rally was all about movement. For the first time in a good many years we have had a driving competition to see how well you know your P6s. 

 The idea was to drive your P6 into a ‘garage’ reverse out into another, then drive into another and reverse out again, all against the clock. Then there was a slalom course around the cones and finally a width test and a precision parking test. All very exciting especially once the clock was ticking.

I always thought that everyone drove their P6’s sedately and with care, ‘oh yes!’, put a driving course and a clock into the mix and watch the cobwebs get flushed out of the suspensions! However I must admit it was a great adventure and loads of fun for everyone, but just how many of you have knocked the back out of your garages at home, practicing? That would make an interesting survey, wouldn’t it!. The Driving Competition was a hard fought event which ended in a close victory for Nick Dunning in HUC.

The front cover also shows us another visitor to the event at Turweston, nr Silverstone, the Avro Lancaster which although not a P6 probably stole the show. The Lancaster made its appearance during the prize giving ceremony just as the furthest traveled was being announced and after ten minutes of doing figure of eights around the aerodrome and low flying over the club display, it disappeared into the distant blue skies over Northamptonshire. It did leave us with one lasting memory though and that was six of us holding onto the gazebo to stop it from being blown away, although James was concerned that he was going to be carried off with the gazebo if it took off. Strangely enough, The Avro Lancaster does have links in the history of Rover because part of the wartime effort in the 1940’s included the assembly of Merlin engines in the Rover factory and parts of the planes body were manufactured in Longbridge, the final resting place of Rover.The day wouldn’t have been complete though if we didn’t have to work on a car or two and this event was nothing more than predictable because one V8 decided to develop a water leak and James Rumney broke his rear suspension.

Unfortunately James took a wrong turning about 2 miles from Turweston and ended up going over an unexpected hump back bridge, a bit too fast and the bottom arm  snapped in-between the De-Dion elbow and the Spring. What a mess! Poor James ended up being recovered by the AA and taken back home only to return in his other car.

However even with this increased mileage caused by a double run, James still didn’t achieve the ‘Furthest Traveled’ to the event. Instead this honor went to Elfyn Hughes from Anglesey but in the spirit of the event Elfyn declined the Trophy because he wasn’t in his P6 this year as it undergoing major restoration works and it was awarded to Chris Dabinett instead as he was the next furthest traveled in attendance.

This year we had a new trophy, the ’Ladies Choice for their Favorite  P6 at the event’ and this trophy was voted for by the ladies only. It has been dedicated as the ‘Lesley Dunning Memorial Trophy’ and was presented to the club by Nick Dunning, in memory of his beloved wife Lesley, after she passed away last year. Lesley loved purple and had a loathing of brown but this didn’t stop her riding in JYX, Nick’s Mexico Brown 2000 Auto. Anyway, the ladies did their voting and although there were several P6’s tying for 2nd place, the outright winner of the Trophy for 2007 was ‘The General’ YXC 745K. The trophy was accepted very emotionally by Angie our Chairman, from Nick who did the presentation.

The Best Newcomer Trophy was presented to Barry and his partner Terri. The trophy was originally presented to the club by Pat and Norman, with the guideline that the committee should present it each year to the person or persons  who had made the most significant contribution in the club’s interest in their first year of membership. The committee had viewed that Barry and Terri had done exactly that, but we must add, there had been stiff competition this year with several new members making significant contributions.The Juniors Trophy was a very close run competition with Rhys D. being triumphant. The Trophies for the Members Favorite Cars  and other categories went as follows:-

MEMBERS CHOICE FAVORITE P6 WINNER

MEMBERS CHOICE FAVORITE P6 2nd place

MEMBERS CHOICE FAVORITE P6 3rd place

BEST EVERYDAY P6

BEST NONE P6

LESLEY DUNNING TROPHY

FURTHEST TRAVELLED TO THE NATIONAL RALLY

  MEMBERS CHOICE FAVORITE P6 2nd placeMEMBERS CHOICE FAVORITE P6 3rd placeBEST EVERYDAY P6 BEXT NONE P6You will find other pictures of all the cars here.And finally a big thank you goes to our event sponsor Jim Brown of Ely Service for sponsoring the plaques and trophies and for bringing his beautiful American spec, zircon blue 2000 to Turweston, but I am still not sure about the zircon blue spare wheel cover. Personally I think Jim forgot to take it off when he resprayed the boot lid, but he is seen hear denying it when I asked him, just that question!. ‘It was pre-meditated!’ Jim says.

Don’t forget to put next years National Rally date in your diary!

Pictures from past events here

So please mark the date on your calendar and we hope to see you there.