<![CDATA[Mini Car Club of Auckland - Events Blog]]>Wed, 20 Jan 2021 18:24:02 +1300Weebly<![CDATA["No car wash" run to Hunua - Sunday 14 June 2020]]>Sun, 14 Jun 2020 21:55:56 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/no-car-wash-run-to-hunua-sunday-14-june-2020​Sunday the 14th June 2020 dawned overcast and nippy but no rain, wind or tornadoes so the first run since lockdown looks hopeful.

The weather stayed in our favour so after lunch a quick burst down to BP Papakura and only one Mini there, Club Captain Adam who had organised the run.

Thankfully a few moments later those that assembled at Greenlane arrived followed by more and before long about 22 Minis were lined up to follow the leader to Hunua.  At the debrief we were told that  Watercare had closed the gates to the dams but we will venture to the falls instead. 

A short trip down the motorway, off at the Drury off ramp and then a right hand turn into the unknown Mini made roads with many twists and turns. As I had no idea where I was, like many others I stuck to the car in front like glue. As Murphy has not turned a wheel since Brits and Euro I hoped Jason following behind in the immaculate  White Japanese prepared John Cooper S didn't get showered with any carbon exiting the exhaust. One minute high on the hilltops we could see a glimpse of the Firth of Thames in the distance, and some how after more twists and turns going past the Ardmore School, and a short time later we turned right heading to the falls.

Arriving at the falls the car park was near capacity. Luck was on our side and due to the size of the Minis we managed to angle park the majority side by side. Everyone wandered around, catching up with members again, enjoying the tranquil setting and taking photos of the adjacent falls. A very pleasant outing to get the post lockdown activities underway. As the afternoon sun started to go down members left in dribs and drabs and the conclusion of another outing drew to a close.

Big thanks to the organisers and all those who attended and also must mentioned Richard, he got two non-club Mini owners along, which hopefully turns into two new members.

Sarron Bennett

Editor: Thanks to Club Captain Adam for organising such a great run. Also to Richard Undie for taking charge of the Greenlane meetup. 
]]><![CDATA[Economy Run - Sunday 15th March 2020]]>Sun, 15 Mar 2020 03:07:52 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/economy-run-sunday-15th-march-2020​We haven't had an Economy Run for a while, which is a shame: today's run was a lot of fun! 

A fair turnout of 6 Minis met at BP Takanini at a very reasonable 9am. After filling the fuel tanks and refusing to share our fuel-saving secrets, we gently departed one at a time. 

The Muries' route was cleverly planned to avoid traffic lights, and even managed to avoid a fair amount of traffic. 

Some of the twisty, scenic roads around Clevedon and Hunua were sheer torture to drive so lightly, though on a couple of long downhill stretches we managed to get up to the speed limit in neutral (or "6th gear" as Kevin called it, not so subtly bragging that his Mini has 5 gears). 

The questions along the way were very easy, and were mainly to reassure us that we'd gone the right way. Even still, I managed to go the wrong way a couple of times; conserving speed through a roundabout doesn't do any good if you're going too fast to count the exits.

After a couple of hours and 113km of pleasant, relaxing driving we all made it back to the Friend of the Farmer Cafe in Takanini, where we shared our stories and fuel-saving tips:

Alan Murie had the clever idea to fold down the Moke's windscreen to reduce wind resistance. As a result navigator Michelle received a (small) bird to the face at speed. Ouch!

Adam and Jessica's orange Mini was loaded down with 4 people, so they decided to aim for the "most fuel used" award. Their wildlife encounter was a wasp inside the car, while negotiating a very challenging piece of road at speed. 

Richard and Anthony were driving Steve's yellow track day car, which seemed to save fuel when going downhill only to blast it all out the exhaust pipe when the throttle came back on. Time to do something about those valve stem seals, Steve! 

Kevin's injected Sport 5 just seemed to cruise along with no drama, though it rolled faster downhill than my car. Something to do with the extra weight of that 5th gear I think. 

We didn't see Simon's Mini 1000 until well after we'd finished, it turns out he'd been taking it very seriously indeed, even going so far as shutting the engine off while going downhill. Those of us with vacuum assisted brakes considered this an unfair advantage, especially since he won the economy run by a huge margin. 

Results: 
Carburetted Mini:
1st - Simon Lawrence, 4.82 litres
2nd - Richard Undie, 6.14 litres
3rd - Grant Bowyer, 6.45 litres
4th - Alan Murie, 8.93 litres
5th - Adam Jenkin, 11.84 litres

Injected Mini:
1st - Kevin Taylor, 6.31 litres

No new MINIs entered. Maybe next year? Speaking of next year: 

Thanks again to Alan and Shelagh Murie for planning and organising such a great run. It sounds like we're all looking forward to doing it again next year, if you're still keen! 
]]><![CDATA[Christmas Lights Run - 13 December 2019]]>Sat, 14 Dec 2019 02:32:12 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/christmas-lights-run-13-december-2019‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’ the opportunity to get all those Minis out, cover them in lights, decorations and spread some Christmas cheer. We started of at Greenlane with a turnout of over 20 cars, there was discussion of whether president Steve and his temperamental Cooper would show, but it arrived fashionably late driven by Santa Steve exclaiming “HoHoHo, Merry Christmas”

With the convoy all together we head out to our first stop out east. Here we cruised down a street with houses covered in lights and a large crowd of children smiling, laughing and waving as a mass of Minis rumbled down the street.

From there we wiggled our way out of the suburbs to a short open road cruise out to Beachlands. We all parked up on another beautiful street full of lights and got out to enjoy the cars and the lights together. There was lots of conversation with locals who were grinning from ear to ear. What a beautiful sight to see. In conversation with two children, one being the daughter of the club president and the other the son of our club captain, the decision was unanimous that the orange mini was the best..... :D (Sorry Steve and Zac)

 From here it was back to the suburbs to spot a couple houses scattered around the place while we enjoyed the loud pedals down some back streets. We ended up at Uldale Place, which was East Auckland’s ‘Franklin road’. The road was coned off to the public but we had special permission to park the cars down the street, a Minis-only line up in a street covered in a serious display of lights.

After we had spent a short while walking around enjoying the view, a bunch of cars made their way home and a group of about 10 cars headed to McDonalds to enjoy a late night snack or hot chocolate. We debriefed on the evenings adventure and shared the countless photos that had been taken throughout the evening. Was a night full of Christmas spirit and I look forward to next year. Merry Christmas Everyone!
Hello Officer, I see you have decked your car out in festive flashing lights too! 
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]]><![CDATA[Howick Christmas Parade - 08 December 2019]]>Sat, 14 Dec 2019 02:30:43 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/howick-christmas-parade-08-december-2019
]]><![CDATA[Caffeine and Classics, Orewa run - 24 November 2019]]>Sat, 14 Dec 2019 02:29:05 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/caffeine-and-classics-orewa-run-24-november-2019
]]><![CDATA[December 14th, 2019]]>Sat, 14 Dec 2019 02:23:40 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/december-14th-2019
]]><![CDATA[Port Waikato Run - 10 November 2019]]>Sat, 14 Dec 2019 02:17:59 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/port-waikato-run-10-november-2019
]]><![CDATA[Mini Nationals Tauranga - 25th-27th October 2019]]>Tue, 05 Nov 2019 21:11:59 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/mini-nationals-tauranga-25th-27th-october-2019
BY ZAK GOULD
Well what a fantastic long weekend, and a very well organised Nationals by TMOC.
I found myself opting for the 10am meet up at Bombay petrol station. With a great group ready to roll ,with just one more to arrive Stephen and family in the rover red rocket. At this stage the SPi was running well and both Stephen and the red rocket weren’t in limp mode. There was a grand applause on his arrival.
A great smooth run with all cars staying together in a train with some outstanding Mini colours. As I was tail end Charlie going through Karangahake Gorge I had a fantastic View of Minis winding through it.
We all stopped at the Waikino hotel and Richard got us a lined up for the perfect photo shoot, whilst onlookers cheered. Then we lined up for a Le Mans running start photo, passing traffic must have thought we were bonkers. And off we went!Stephen blew an ankle and went straight into limp mode, and had to hand the driving over to Rachel to get them to Tauranga.

(Throughout the weekend both Stephen and the Red Rover went in and out of limp mode even breaking down in front of a bus, I believe. We never knew if either were going to make it to each event and what state they would be in, but with luck they made it, and got all the home ok too.)

A Bit further on we all stopped for an afternoon bite to eat and coffee, then off again for a straight forward arrival to the Armitage hotel Tauranga, along with many Minis arriving from around the country.
Great to catch up, see all the cars and put a face to people on the internet Mini sites. People started washing their Minis ready for tomorrow's early start show and shine!

I had other ideas. I caught sight of Alasdair Willis hand washing his beauty 998 Cooper, knowing well a Scotsman wouldn’t take much convincing to go for a pint at the Mount! (None at all really). So we loaded into my Mini and off we went for a welcoming hazy pale ale or two in the sun.
Then back to the Armitage hotel to meet more people and some good old talk and banter. Me and Alasdair headed downtown for another beer and a grand curry. A fantastic night was had!

The question was would the weather play ball in the morning, well yes it did; a near perfect day with a little wind.
A very organised show and shine with over 220 Minis, so much to look at and people to talk to! Fantastic to see everyone’s Minis, projects and hear their stories.

The fact we Aucklanders hadn’t seen sun for such a long time most of us forget to bring sun lotion or hats.
After the Show and Shine we were set for the Scatter Run  starting at 1:30pm. Definitely a two people per car for this event, so I teed up with Alasdair who wanted to take his 998 Cooper for a blast.
Off we went, for me it was a fantastic experience in a real classic Mini, very rarely did the RPM drop below 4500, and point to point we went flat tack yeah! We scored 75 points with some long hauls to get the big numbers, and a really good winding section of road with big smiles, not bad going for a small bore Cooper Mini I thought, great effort.
We caught up to the Orange delight (Adam's Mini) broken down with a fan blade in many bits! His dad was coming to the rescue, so we abandoned him as it was time to get those points in before the 4pm cut off! We went back and it was time to clean up for the 60th Birthday party.
​
But firstly a few of us met up for a quick walk into town for a bite to eat and a pint, Grant looked like a well done beetroot at the end of the sunny day LOL (Editor: I'll get you for this, Zak.) he only needed to add blue and white for the themed Mini 60th birthday party and quiz night (with some very hard questions) but lots of fun!

After the quiz it was off to the front bar to watch the All Blacks beat the English... NOT! Enough said about that.
An easy start to Sunday morning, before my midday start funkhana! And what fun that was, it was great watching the Reed family having a parents v kids challenge, an inspiration seeing the whole family getting involved in everything Mini.

Marisa and Brandon did a super job with Marisa the driver, and not long just got her driving license, a fine job!
Me and Stephen teed up for this one, first practice in my Mini, in great fashion tipped the water circle over which caused a great laugh, and next we figured out how to make the light go on without the horn even more laughter!
Second round was in Stephens red rover! And this time we were on form with a five mm gap at each mirror on the rolling gap machine, best of they said!
Yesss!

A thoroughly enjoyed nationals by all. 

]]><![CDATA[Club Night - The Big Reveal - October 1st 2019]]>Mon, 14 Oct 2019 03:01:01 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/club-night-the-big-reveal-october-1st-2019​A very special club night, with Trent Dixon revealing his almost finished race car: a monster RWD Mini with a Honda H22A VTEC under the... roof?  

It's not quite finished, it has yet to finalise the wiring, computer, and be tuned on the dyno, but it's very impressive already.

Watch out for its shakedown run at Hampton Downs during the Club's track day on 17th November. 
]]><![CDATA[UK National Metro & Mini Show - August 4th 2019]]>Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:13:50 GMThttp://www.minis-auckland.org.nz/events-blog/october-13th-2019​by Tony Maulder

Celebrating 60 years of Mini, held at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon near Oxford on Sunday 4th of August 2019.

The Metro & Mini show was a one day event and had probably over 1000 Minis attending. It had display areas, and parking for visiting minis as well as entry to the Museum. I arrived in the rear car park for non minis, next to the Jaguar test track.

Entering the show  my first port of call was the Cooper Register tent, as I belong to the UK Cooper Register. The stand had pride of place near the entrance to the Museum. Talking to one of the register  members, he said he had read about me in the Cooper  World magazine and made quite a fuss over me by introducing me to the club officials. A 1963 Monte Carlo Cooper was on the club stand as well as a Downton Cooper S , and a cut down 6 cylinder jag engined Mini and a rare MK III Cooper S with a sunroof. An absolutely magnificent display of club members Minis .

A stand next to us was the 59 Register which had a display of 30 or so 1959 Minis . Next to them were the woody vans, Then a group of Metros. Opposite them were a group of kit cars including a Unipower Mini in the central pride of place by the main vehicle entrance to the show. Beside the Unipower were the show and shine cars, including a very well restored red and black 1071 Austin Cooper S.

The Action Arena was between the show Minis  and the Cooper Register display. This is were the Italian Job stunt drivers performed. The police chasing the three Coopers, then they chased the bus, and then the stunt driver weaved a Moke between them and did a lap in a Mini up on two wheels

All to soon the fine and sunny day was over, and I was off to the nearby Malt Shovel Inn, for a pub meal and local beer, need I say more.
Oxford Mini Factory Tour tomorrow, and then head off along the M4 towards Bristol For the International Mini Meet the next weekend.


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