mgf.be

[Bruno]

I know !

[ErikB]

Ferme foto's Luc !!
en natuurlijk doodjammer dat we er niet bij waren.

IS Golden Wheels en Scarlet niet naar de ring gereden.... of via een ommetje.

PS ik heb nog een paketje gekregen van Andrew voor U en ErikB.

I know ....

[Luc]

ivm die spulletjes die ik jullie moest geven van Andy ... voor wie van de 2 is het doosje Viagra

[ErikB]

easy one: den Bruno !!
slechts eentje maar, dat ander was voor jou.

[John]

Ook voor zij die geen viagra nodig hebben was dit een prachtige tocht.
We hadden goed weer, zowel heen als terug lekker open kunnen rijden.
Schitterend zicht die 8 F's op een rij door het landschap zien zwieren, denk dat Luc en Veerle dat iets minder hebben kunnen ervaren omdat die voorop reden. Zij werden natuurlijk weer als eerste 'gespot'

Wat de organisatie en begeleiding betreft: onze complimenten !
Hoe het gelukt is weet ik niet, maar Luc had een enorm mooie route uitgezet over allerlei wegen (dus ook de meer landelijke, zie ook de foto's) en toch zijn we binnen een redelijke tijd naar de grens gereden. Tevens heeeft hij samen met Veerle de hele rit op kop gereden en dan de hele dag die 7 auto's achter u in het oog houden is niet gemakkelijk en alles is prima verlopen !
Dank u Luc en Veerle en proficiat met deze rit !

Wat ons betreft zijn we er volgend jaar weer bij !

Groeten,

John en Nikki

[Bruno]

Het Treffen verhaal van Andrew "Scarlet fever", tot nu toe :

[color=darkblue][i]Treffen ‘05

Preparation and stuff…

Typically, Scarlet needed tax, insurance and an MOT prior to the Treffen, I really should do something about this, as it is normally a large financial drain immediately before the Treff, (and I also normally overspend at Silverstone, which doesn’t help!!) This year I have managed to dramatically reduce my insurance premium through Steve Marsh at A-Plan >> mgfinsurance.co.uk << (or something like that!) and Scarlet sailed through her MOT with no problems at all this time around (phew!) Which is just as well given the new modifications done as a surprise for the Treffen this year.

I assume you have seen the pictures by now, unfortunately I had an Essex Roadsters meet on the Thursday night before the ferry sailing, so a few sneak preview shots made it onto the web. But for those who have not seen them (and they’ll be on the web under the Kempenrit pages I would have thought by now), here is a little précis of the ‘new and improved’ items…

New hood – a Sportster glass screen item from BAS Hoods, but typically for me, I specified a red and cream one!!! Not only this, before I’d even unpacked it properly I had changed the hood clamp bolts for the stainless steel items and then of course there is the rear screen… Have you ever seen a double-decker bus with a full size advert on the back that covers the rear windows as well as the bodywork? Well after having the idea planted in my head by one of the Essex Roadsters I made some enquiries and discovered that the vinyl on the rear windows is special, perforated stuff that when looked through is no worse than a mesh windstop. It’s a bit pricey, and also I have been told only available commercially, but the graphics place I visited specialise in aeroplane liveries so they had some in stock – 2 days after fitting, my new hood sported a vinyl rear screen in cream to match the hood with Scarlet Fever emblazoned across it!!! I’m sorry, I’m a bit of a hopeless case I’m afraid!

I am also part way through a unique starter button modification, at the moment all I have is the button, but I have adapted a hazard warning switch, removing part of the internal mechanism (so that it doesn’t lock in the on position any more) and painting the visible part red (with cream lettering in the correct ‘SF’ font!) It looks great, and I am itching to get back now to wire it all in

I also decided to switch back to the cat bypass (cat was fitted for the MOT) and pump the suspension up a little (in case there was a high / low tide at the ferry port) – these last two items were done at 6:00pm on Friday, just as Steve White (Sharky) arrived at my place in his gorgeous monogram ‘bittersweet’ painted TF. As last year, Steve is my co-driver and his TF is nicely tucked away in my garage (much to the disappointment of the Kempenrit organisers, but we shall come to this later).

Day 1 – Dover, France, Belgium

After overnighting at my place, Steve and I set off for Dover, via a pit stop at Thurrock services to join up with Dave & Veronica Stonehouse and Adrian and Dawn Clifford who are also on the trip, arriving at Eastern Docks in good time for the earlier ferry, two Fs and a TF making up the first convoy of the trip down the M20. We met up with Ted and Karin post check in the departure lane who typically had beaten us to it! Patrick and Ann arrived shortly after along with Angela Hartnup and Carl in their F and TF respectively. Mike Satur and Trish were the last to arrive, but in no way late – something to do with driving the whole way down from Yorkshire that morning and being in a Porsche Carrera S – I don’t know, he has all those MGs in his workshop and none of them were ready enough for him to bring on the trip.

The ferry sailed on time and the crossing was uneventful other than Adrian’s F rolling forward when the ramp it was parked on was lowered (scary!)

Hoods were lowered as we drove off the ferry, but were very quickly raised before we left Calais – the rain was torrential, with the cars aquaplaning and making for a very stressful journey. En route we stopped to meet up with Neil Sutton and then we headed for our first overnight stop in Mechelen, Belgium.

The hotel is next to the Anker brewery and we had an amusing tour of the facilities, given by a local who seemed to have been sampling a bit too much of the product!!! Daphne from the MGF Register Holland was waiting for us at the hotel, along with Gerry and Rosemary Hiorns in ‘Golden Wheels’. Following the brewery tour we then headed for the restaurant for dinner and a very nice time was had by all. Eventually we set off on foot for the town centre to discover there was a free rock concert, 5 stages and a deafening and eclectic mix of thrash metal and salsa music!!!!! What a day, new friends, torrential rain (which stopped by the time we entered Mechelen), a tour of a medieval brewery followed up by strong beer and a metal concert

Day 2 – Kempenrit

We set off reasonably early and were joined by Scotty, from Hannover, who arrived the night before but unfortunately we never managed to be in the same place at the same time. Kempenrit here we come!

After a nice, if a bit short drive we arrived at the Kempenrit start point, set in what appeared to be parkland were a hundred or so Fs and TFs, parked in colours (which looked stunning). Fortunately there was separate parking for modified vehicles so Gerry and I, whose paintwork no longer falls in line with the MGR spec, had somewhere special to display our vehicles, along with Adrian in his modified Sienna Gold F. Scarlet (as usual) was in need of a clean, Adrian’s F however was squeaky clean and displaying the bright bolts under his bonnet. After signing in I decided to transfer my chromed bonnet stay, radiator and horn mounts to his car to complete the display – Adrian and Neil meanwhile were busy selling as much MGF Register regalia as possible!!!

As part of the booking in process we were given a route book for the rally, Gerry, Rosemary, Steve and I decided to head off together and so Scarlet Fever and Golden Wheels made their way out of the park and off into the unknown.

We had made it to page 2 of the instructions before we realised that the mileages we thought were between stages were in fact cumulative and thus we were well and truly off route and very lost!! We stopped at a roadside snack bar (with a chicken rotisserie!) and pondered what to do while we munched our lunch. It seems that to get back on route we would need to go right back to the start so instead we decided to plumb in the final destination into the sat nav and head straight there. This actually worked out pretty well, as we arrived ahead of the pack and got good parking places. It also gave me a bit of time to get organised and start taking down VIN details for the MGF Register Archive project – I got as many as I could (until I ran out of paper) and must have details on a good 50 or so cars. I also looked like one or more of the following (delete as appropriate):

a) Sad MG anorak
b) Suspicious character
c) Concours judge

Only the first one is potentially true of course!!!

They started the prize giving, and I confess this was as far as I’m concerned the best time to head for dinner, realising that most of the diners would be otherwise occupied and thus we should get a reasonable level of service. Dinner was very nice, Steve and I ate with Adrian and Dawn who sadly had to leave mid meal to catch their ferry home (along with Neil), they were only with us for the Kempenrit and have been missed among our number since then.

I was going to say my goodbyes (and warm thanks) to the Belgian’s, particularly Erik, Fran and Bruno, but as I got back to the car the others were setting off for the hotel via a filling station so in the end I tagged along to tank up. Sorry I missed you, I had a great time and though the event was excellent – I am looking forward to next year already.

Once back at the hotel there was a familiar looking (and very clean!) green F in the car park, I found my mobile and was talking to Stefan & Jenny in no time. They were in the restaurant having dinner so Steve and I gate crashed! LOL

We sat round their table and talked the night away, being joined by the rest of the group in stages throughout the evening. A good way to end our time in Mechelen.

Day 3 – Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany

Today was split into two halves, Luc Devisch, one of the Belgian MGF enthusiasts and a participant on previous Treffens had put together a run to Luxembourg for us where he would leave us in the capable hands of Ted for the remaining trip to Germany. The group also split for the day with Mike & Trish and Angela & Carl heading off to the Nurburgring with Scotty, whilst the rest of us opted for the ‘scenic route’ and Luc’s good company. Sadly we also had to say goodbye to Daphne as she had to head for home. We waved our goodbyes and headed off behind Luc into the Belgian countryside for what turned out to be a nice drive on a good mix of interesting roads through some great countryside. We had a little problem with a road closure and an unplanned U turn, but the small crowd of children cheering us on as we waited at the junction for the others to catch us up after turning around more than made up for our brief detour ‘off route’.

Ultimately we entered Luxembourg (and immediately headed for the nearest petrol station – cheap fuel!! ) and our handover point, which happened to be a large shopping mall (lots of bargains inside, but sadly, with a weeks worth of luggage in the boot, not a lot of space to get them home). We said our goodbyes and thanx and left Luc to do some shopping whilst Ted resumed the role of ‘leader’ and we dutifully followed through Luxembourg.

As a side note, a curious thing is going on with Steve’s Tom Tom sat nav. It is loaded onto his PDA and he has all the European maps stored on the hard drive. However, they appear to be separate and when we reach a border crossing the map ends and we end up driving in space! Steve has to tell the sat nav unit which country we are in before the correct map appears, which is quite amusing. We are also noting that Ted seems to take the least obvious route to the next destination wherever possible!! And this included a left turn onto a road that said no access for vehicles, and proceeded through a farm yard and then along what can be best described as a track, complete with grass growing in the middle of the road and the occasional loose cow!! Sure enough those of us who have lowered our cars experienced a few problems (especially Gerry who’s underbody was doing an excellent job of clearing the cow pats and occasional boulder from the road!) We may mock Ted here, but he was proved right as ultimately the track ended at a main road and we were heading in the right direction – we are not worthy!! How he finds these roads I’ll never know!

We left Luxembourg and entered Germany with some lovely windy roads and a detour around Trier that saw the group get split by traffic lights. Luckily I had packed some walkie-talkies and Veronica was able to relay their position and movements back to us bringing up the rear until they were able to pull over and allow us to regroup.

Ultimately we arrived at Saarburg and our hotel for the evening. The hotel is situated next to a public car park and sure enough shortly after we pulled up a local asked me to move my car so that he could exit the car park. Disaster!! I selected reverse, it engaged along with a clunk and the gear lever went floppy!! Snapped gear cable was my first thought, and with the car stuck in reverse too! “One problem at a time Andyâ€Â