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Important Dates for June and July June 18th, Fathers' Day - This year The Madhatters and all the Southern Clubs are organising a visit to the Hollycombe Steam Collection at Liphook. If you remember last year we put on a good display of cars at Ropley on the Mid-Hants Railway and this year we want to do the same at Hollycombe. The gates open at 12 & rides start at 1 pm. We need to be there at 11:45. We have a special deal for entry i.e. Once inside all rides are free ! These include "old fashioned", steam driven, fairground rides, Traction engine hauled rides and steam railways. The gardens are glorious so it makes sense to enjoy them while eating our picnics. We have promised to have 50 cars there so let us see if we can get 10 Madhatters there at least. July 21-23 Southern Clubs Camp. Walton-on-Thames. Again let us as a club see if we can get a good crowd. If you don't camp come up for the day (or days). There is a lot going on and we need volunteers to man the gate for an hour or two during the weekend. If we all do our bit then nobody will be overburdened. A lot of people are putting in a lot of hard work to make both these events a success, so please put them in you diary and try to come. Chat from the Chair Well folks... I'm still here in the chair. Either I must be doing it right or there is no other individual who wants to lead the club. The AGM was short as usual. Dave, our Treasurer is still holding the purse strings. We have money in the bank so we are planning to have a professionally made banner that we can take to camps etc. Another suggestion was that we should buy a few specialist tools e.g. for changing kingpins, so that more people can "do it themselves". If you disagree with this please let us know. Our editor was praised for his wonderful job but he said he was quite happy for another to take over. Dave Shove said that when he had organised his computer and got a scanner he would be happy to take over - so that's the arrangement. As for the rest of the committee - Bill, Lynne, Dick & Yvette are willing to help. If we announce a date & time for committee meetings anyone is welcome to come. Thanks must also go to Sandie Ambrosen who has been chief photocopier for a long time. It is a chore to be fitted in somehow - great job Sandie. Now you know who is doing what just come along and make our evenings and outings a great success. Gill ROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS I have never aspired to be a rally driver, but there was something a bit unusual, something a bit different about being invited to meet the team who organise classic rallies in this country & abroad. I was recently able to attend a navigation seminar arranged by the Classic Rally Association, aimed at participants in the Classic Marathon between Ypres & San Remo which takes place in September of this year. Unfortunately, I will not be taking part in that event (nor indeed in any other - at the moment!), but I found it extremely interesting to see what sort of skills are needed to be able to compete successfully in historic rallying. There is a great deal more to competitive navigation than simply reading off a map - all the brainwork involved in calculating starting times, average speeds, checking in at time-controls & fuel management is the responsibility of the navigator. The big difference between this & what we do as a club is that historic rallying is not just a convoy through the countryside - each vehicle has its own navigator, & it is not good form to assume that the guys in the car in front (if you can see it!) are on the right road. In theory, scheduled timing is easy; in practice of course, things are more tricky. The time at which cars must visit ordinary time controls is calculated to the nearest half-minute (irrespective of the distance travelled from the previous one), but secret checks are put in as well to ensure that the maximum permitted average speed is not exceeded, & regularity sections are used to test competitors' ability to maintain average speed for long periods of time, & these sections are timed to the nearest second! We were introduced to some of the documentation needed, & given some tips on how to calibrate & use instruments which navigators find useful for timekeeping. The Around the World in 80 Days historic rally started from Tower Bridge on 1st May. Incidentally, this rally is not exclusively a male-dominated event, nor is it for the faint-of-heart: At least one of the entries on the Around-The-World section will be all-female! The other big difference is one of timing. It is not sufficient to think that you need only go as far as you feel comfortable, & that you need only drive at a convenient speed. The organisers decide the route, they decide the average speed competitors have to attain, they decide how much they will be penalised for not achieving it, & they decide where the overnight stops will be. But the whole thing is subject to Tippex of course, because although all the organisation has been done (& done in great detail, too!), & some technical support is available, if anything goes seriously wrong, you are, to a large extent, out there on your own. It has been said, proverbially, that the race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running. In truth this is not a race, but an endurance event, & I will look forward to following the progress of the rally in the press. These events are good tests of driver/navigator co-operation, but it will be interesting to see how far it will test the teamwork between competitors, especially on the tough Asian section between Istanbul & Peking, which includes the first west-to-east crossing of China. A drive round the world would never be a holiday, but neither will it be a race. Nor is it simply an historic rally - it is actually three events in one. Some of the cars (19 of them) are going only to Istanbul, some only to Peking (another 37), while the remaining 42 will restart in Anchorage on 12th June to continue the first-ever timed circumnavigation of the world, aiming to be back in London on 18th July - truly the trip of a lifetime! And it needs to be, too - the entry fee was £25,000! It was interesting to hear what the commentator had to say about the way the event came into being. The idea was conceived after the Peking - Paris event three years ago, & it has taken three years to put together. The team is led by Philip Young, a motoring journalist & veteran of world rallying, & together they have planned the route & driven along all or most of it. If I were competing, I would be asking what arrangements were being made to get fuel, but the organisers seem to have thought of everything. One thing I didn't know is that fuel in places like China is only 70 octane, so it is obviously essential that any vehicle can run either on low-grade fuel, or with additives. That rules out modern cars which can run only on unleaded, but the rally is not intended for that sort of vehicle anyway. The oldest vehicle running is an American one, a 1912 Locomobile, with a 7 litre engine, driven by a British crew. The next oldest (& also the oldest on the Around-The-World stage) is a 1913 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost driven by an American crew. The car with the largest engine is a 7.6 litre 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom 2, the smallest is a 602cc 1952 2CV. This is the car I went specially to see, entered by a couple from Chicago for the Around-The-World stage. I arrived in the paddock at the Royal Mint two hours before the start, but time was against me. Unfortunately, I was unable to spend time discussing technicalities, as the drivers & their vehicles were need for interviews & photocalls. I should have spent some time looking at the 2CV in more detail, as there were several things which made it look unusual & which warranted a closer look. I am naturally curious, so when something a bit different comes along, I like to investigate. Without having the time for a detailed inspection, it is difficult to see what modifications were made, but it passed the scrutineers' examination! I will be interested to know how they, & all the others, get on - & I wish them luck, too! One team who might need more luck than the rest is a couple with a 1953 Morgan +4, but no roof! I think they could be putting too much faith in the weather. Of course, the only thing you definitely get when it rains is wet, & I would be reluctant to risk being wet every day between London & Istanbul! The start could not have been in a better place - Tower Bridge! The bridge itself was closed to traffic, & London turned out in force to see them off. The weather was kind too, & at 10 o'clock on a warm, dry & sunny Bank Holiday Sir Stirling Moss waved the chequered flag to start 98 cars on an epic 80-day 20,000 mile journey around the world. Andrew CALAIS MEETING The Calais area 2CV club, Les 62ˆches du Calaisis held their camp over the Easter weekend at the end of April. I felt it was important to support this event, as it was so well done last year, but I have to say that I had reservations about going to the campsite where it was to be held. I knew that I didn't want to try to cram the event & all the travelling into 2 days, so I went over to Calais on Good Friday, intending to travel home on the Monday. My plans included doing one or two other things, in addition to the camp, so I needed to have plenty of time in hand. Somehow I expected the organisers to arrive on Friday to set things up, but I arrived at the campsite in the evening to find that I had the place to myself. Of course, I should have realised that as the French do not celebrate the same religious festivals as the British, everybody would have been at work, & might arrive sometime on the Saturday. The whole thing evidently didn't take long to set up, because by mid-morning the whole thing was under way. And David was there too! David & I stayed there at the end of the last camp, & found it to be less than outstanding - it wasn't the sort of place I would care to live permanently, as some of the residents appear to be doing. It is a smaller campsite than the one we went to last time - no vast open spaces for football, nor for rushing madly about in cars, no long drive into town - but a good deal more convenient, & with proper facilities, such as hot showers, which last year were notable for their absence. The French set themselves up in one corner of the site, which still left plenty of space for other visitors. David arrived early in the morning, but I knew that he would be able to stay only a short while. It appeared that he was committed to arranging something back at home, & was therefore unable to remain overnight. In the end we made good use of the time by getting some breakfast in a local cafe - one of the advantages of camping in the town centre rather than out in the country. It would have been nice if we could have got a croissant with the coffee, but the waiter who brought coffee to our table directed us to a boulangerie round the corner, so we did that & were able buy something for lunch at the same time. Breakfast was followed by the obligatory trip over to the hypermarket on the western outskirts of the town, & a relaxing afternoon. I knew that Bill & Gill were planning to travel over on Sunday to spend the day there, & was expecting to see them; in the end other things cropped up & they were unable to make it, which was understandable. I had planned to drive down to Boulogne on the Sunday to deal with some family business, but it took a bit longer than I thought it would. It seemed a pity to have gone all that way & come back home leaving the important things undone. Anyway, by the time I got back to Calais the rallye touristique was under way, & it didn't seem to be a good idea to rush round on my own. The rallye we did with them last year was a good one, so this time I would probably have gone only for the navigation, but I have found out the hard way that you cannot drive & navigate at the same time if you want to do both properly. It may be remembered that my poor little car packed up on the same event last year, boldly resisting many attempts to get it going again. Our French hosts very kindly spent a great deal of time & effort helping to fix it, & ever since appear have worn a rather resigned look whenever they see my car approaching. This time I was reminded that they were there for the camp & would prefer not to have to spend ages fixing my car again. Fortunately, all went well. On the Sunday evening I was standing at the edge of the campsite overlooking the harbour & saw a small tug departing - nothing unusual in that! An hour later it was back, but it was BEING TOWED by a much larger cargo ship, & I never found out why - another of life's little mysteries! Another great camp! Andrew Dates for Your Diary May 19-21 Puddleducks - Camp at Headley Park - £5/unit/night. Who Does What ? CHAIRWOMAN & SOCIAL EVENTS MAN Tel 01784 453919
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