Our long hot summer was continuing as we headed to Castle Combe for Bristol & Swindon RS Owners Club’s Regional Day. The only mishap on the way was when I met Nigel & Marcia at the services just round the corner from the track and my starter motor decided it wasn’t going to play. After numerous whacks with a scaffolding pole we decided we would have to wait until it cold down enough to fire up again so continued chatting and winding up Nigel with his new theme tune of “Stop The Pigeon” after his pigeon related incident at Santa Pod earlier this year.
Much to my relief Little Grey decided she wanted to start only a short while later and we were soon entering the grounds.
As always the atmosphere was really buzzing as old and new Fords flitted between stands and the track, the sound of screeching tyres filled the air mingled with the scent of Quick Detailer. What more could a petrol head ask for.
The stand seems to be getting better every year with three of our branches getting together to make an uber-club display. South Wales, South West & Devon and Cornwall branches have a good range of XRs to display and with new members joining us this year the variety got even better. We were even joined by some of the Southern branch members who were tempted by the track action but didn’t quite make it out there.
Most of the day was spent chatting and applying sun cream. Although as soon as the afternoon came we made our ritual pilgrimage to trackside to watch the drifters in action, as always they didn’t disappoint. We were treated to drifting from a variety of skill levels. I am never sure what we enjoy the most, the impressiveness of the perfect drift or the excitement when the get it wrong and head off into the undergrowth.
Nigel & Marcia were in love with the graphics on some of the drift cars which leads me to wander what will appear on their XR4x4 next.
This year I have neglected to clean my engine bay as well as I should but this was the day that cycle was broken, after assessing Nigel’s engine bay I was more than prepared to get cleaning there and then… the bug was back. I lost the rest of the day to my engine bay as I cleaned, polished and buffed it back to respectability while Nigel was singing along to some of the car related soundtracks I had added to my iPod.
We saw some old faces at the show and had a drop in from Russ (previously a member before defecting to the dark side of Scooby ownership). It was great to catch up with him and even hear that he misses us (awwwww).
Now is the time to give credit where it is due....
Snoop is an amazingly determined member. He has made it to many shows with us (even though his XR hasn’t seen the road in a looooooong time. It is always a hot topic; finding out what has been happening with his XR4x4 between shows. This year he even bought an honorary XR to the show (although it only visited the stand to collect some parts for the XR patiently waiting at home).
This is another show we managed to stay at until the very end and the staff were on the verge of asking us to leave, the trouble is once we get talking that's it.... the chat just goes on and on and on!!
We all had a really good day and I believe plans are already being laid for next years show so we shall see you there (if you are going that is).
Write up by Laura Summerwill
Photos by Laura Summerwill
