We were one of the last cars to arrive and there before us was a line of Minis seemingly stretched out as far as the eye could see. What a fantastic turnout! More cars arrived to join the queue behind us. Normal procedure is to copy 15 sets of instruction and get around 10-12 cars for this event. Chris Roper seemed to be pacing around nervously, counting and recounting the number of cars in the line and thinking about the 21 sets of instructions he decided to copy, not the usual 15. Plans were being made in case more than 21 cars turned up. Chris had one spare set of instructions left.

By now, the sun had appeared and revealed a clear blue sky for as far as the eye could see, the Waitakere ranges looked striking in this light, and after the briefing the cars were set off one by one. Whilst waiting for our turn, we got a shock to see the Minis coming back up the road past us. “Lost already!” we thought, but no, ‘The Two Chrises’ had devised an interesting start to the run that involved going down to the beach a few times. The Manukau Harbour was absolutely flat and mirror like for as far as the eye could see. No easy beach trips here either, as my lucky navigator had to get out of the car and find the answer to the relevant questions. I wanted her to run but then remembered that this is not a speed event. I was tempted to park across the road and block the exit for the other cars already there, but again remembered that this was not a speed event! The usual vehicles down this way were obviously ‘Titirangi Tractors’ because the speed humps were almost as high as the Mini and care was required if you didn’t want to lose the exhaust system. This wasn’t a problem because.......this wasn’t a speed event!