The return of club Quiz Night was well received, with good attendance and only a few grumbles when the questions got too esoteric. Zak's special guest round on Mini trivia was very entertaining and informative.
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A great turnout and perfect weather for the Mini Car Club of Auckland's 25th anniversary run. Club Captain Steve had mapped out a fantastic route with some great driving roads and a few scenic stops for photos.
The Wainui golf club reserved us a room and the top carpark, and supplied a light lunch. By Steve Broadbent
A big thanks to Gary Ashton for pulling together our 18th year Night Trial, a tradition for the club on the shortest day, longest night. This was my first and I wasn’t going to miss it, although my Mini’s had other ideas. The 5.15pm start time at BP Papakura was certainly achievable and the retro Cibie Oscar spot lights were hooked up and working on my NZ assembled 1275GT. Or so I thought… After the demise of the cooper at the Italian Job run, followed by a dashboard electrical problem and sale of the BMW JCW the GT was the only car running…. A quick job to fix the dash lights started at midday. That led to one issue after another…. On fixing the dash lights the main beam and spot lamps decided to latch on, fixing that issue led to no lights at all! Trying to keep some of the original parts on the car was proving an issue, the decrepit 1980’s wiring loom had other plans. About to give up at 4.30 I found the second faulty RHS ground connection bullet connector. Lights on! The 1275GT wasn’t exactly as it seemed, after blowing a piston ring the 998cc was proving a little underpowered but that wasn’t going to an issue afterall! The turnout at BP was amazing, we had 11 teams running, some with and some without navigators. Chris had driven his Mini Mack truck pickup 2 hrs to make the run and it looked amazing lit up like a proper big rig. Adam brought his newly assembled orange beast out to play and we had Dave who had eventually fixed his mechanical issues that lingered from the nationals. Ray & Alison West looked set for business in their Cooper Rally car, headsets on and dashboard electrics all working! Steff and me teamed up in the GT as it was my turn to repay the favor after Steff drove me around on the Italian job. What a fantastically well laid out route with some well explained (if not understood directions!). SO, we left the services and headed out to pick up the route and the problem soon manifested itself. Back in the late 70’s I’m sure the GT’s lights and cibre Oscars were the things to have, but roll the clock forward nearly 40years and although the foresaid items were still very much original they are, well….. rubbish! As the roads fell dark the 4x candle power did nothing to help with the clues, but we laughed all the way. Phil and Ted behind and the Mini mack behind that, we grabbed some radios and leaned forward in the seats to see the road ahead. To add to the hilarity, the heater packed in so not only was it dark, it was cold and dark! Epic! Gotta love the 80’s. The run was such a laugh and once we met up with the other teams at BP Bombay the stories got exchanged. Clearly there are winners and people who come second, we came 7th! Thanks to all for another enjoyable evening, the trials and clues add another dimension to the follow the leader style runs. Can’t wait to the next one. Thanks again Gary! 1st Adam & Jessica Jenkin 2nd Ray & Alison West =Viv & Kevin Taylor 4th Alan & Shelagh Murie =Murray, Grant & John Sweeney 6th Dave & Sarah Bates 7th Chris Westlake = Stephen Broadbent &Steff Harsnappe =Chris & Steve McMurray 10th Jo Wooding Phil Kane Photos: Deryck F, Anna Reed, Roger Reed, and probably more.
An early start (for me) on Sunday for the Italian Job run. 26 Minis gathered at Greenlane McDonalds, and half an hour later 24 Minis started out on the run. (Club President Kevin and Club Captain Steve demonstrated the latest club run rule: if you're going to have a breakdown, have it before the run). Seeing 24 Minis driving through the Waterview Tunnel was quite a sight, judging by the amazed stares coming from the people in their regular cars. Trying to keep 24 Minis together while driving through the city turned out to be... challenging? Interesting? Utter chaos? Between the road works, turn-only lanes, and traffic lights our "follow the leader" run became "follow whatever Mini you can see". I'm pretty sure no two Minis followed the same route for the entire run, but it sure was fun. Thanks to Steve for organising another fanatstic day out! A fun day out for everyone! Photographer Chris Dillon (Dillon.co.nz) was there taking photos of the carpark display (where Tony Maulder organised us all in to a big 60 for the MIni's 60th birthday). To see all the photos Chris took, head over to the gallery space here.
By Kevin Taylor
This was the fourth time we had used Tony Vazey's paddock at Aka Aka for the Interclub Autocross, our first event there was in 2014 on a sunny day and it was another sunny day this year for the Minis that arrived to have fun & do a few skids. There were 3 Minis from Auckland & 4 Minis & 5 drivers from Waikato. An early start to set up the tent and mark out the courses before the first run at 10am. Because of the small number of competitors we decided that there would be 3 laps of each course, we would have 3 runs on each course and we would do 3 different courses, you do the math but that looks like 9 runs & 27 laps to me. The first runs were pretty slippery on the long grass but with each run the courses got faster and by the last run there was dirt & dust flying as the tyres dug deep for traction. The Minis were a mix of 1000cc, 1100cc & 1275cc - size sometimes doesn't count for much on grass but today it did as the drier surface did favour the bigger engines. Surprise of the day was Keith Hargraves competing in his mint 1995 Mini Cooper - and very nearly winning the event. Several cones were harmed during the day and everyone had great fun but at the end of the day Lee Norman was too quick for the rest of us. 1st - Lee Norman (A) 1275 2nd - Keith Hargraves (A) 1275 3rd - Ralph Taylor (W) 1000 4th - Kelvin Kewish (W) 1275 5th - Kevin Taylor (A) 1100 6th - Brent Middlemiss (W) 1000 7th - Theresa Kewish (W) 1000 I think 8th - Helen Middlemiss (W) 1000 When the points were tallied up later that evening it was MCCoA who won the Teams prize. Thanks to Brent Middlemiss for organising the Motorsport NZ Permit & Gary & Catherine Ashton for setting out the courses and doing the timekeeping duties, & Ian Gillanders for Portaloo duties & Keith for BBQ duties. |
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