International Mini Meeting '99 / Mini 40th
'Become, Be or Acquire'

Sunday 15th
I woke up hearing Boris setting off for Gatwick at about 6am. Got back to sleep the minute he did and didn't wake up till about 10 I think.
Sunday was the day of the Russ Swift Mini Display, Mini In The Park (MITP) and the closing ceremony of the IMM.
Russ Swift can do amazing stunts with Mini's (and other cars too for that matter). Since a couple of us had never seen him before, Andy, Arnoud, Carl and I decided to take the chance to see him at work up close and head out for MITP a bit later. After we had breakfast (same story :) we came on the grounds of the BHMC just a bit late; only to find out that Russ was already done with his show.

So we headed out for MITP, an annual event organized by Mini Magazine in Cornbury Park near Oxford, about a 100km drive from the IMM in Gaydon.
As honarary member(s) of the MOCB we got to represent the club on the clubstand and thus were allowed to park our Mini's on the grounds.
By that time it was about 2pm so we'd missed the noon IL-meet. The speaker announced that Paddy Hopkirk was at the rally stage across the park so we went to see this legend at work. By the time we walked over there he had already finished (do you recognise a recurring theme here ? :), but we did meet Tom Francis & Paul Hampton IL who were selling raffle-tickets for the Mini7 racing club. Paul has done a demo on the rally-stage earlier on an apperently had sort of lost it, giving him quite a scare, as it did lots of people in the audience but, next to his nerves being shot, no major problems. After having bought a couple of them (one can have hope...) we'd lost Arnoud and Carl and Andy & I went for a bite to eat.

IL-Meet	MOCB-stand	Paddy	Paul coming	Paul Going ....where ?!

We started out walking towards the stands, looking at the Mini's that were on display there. One of the first we encountered was the V8 Mini Pickup, a rather beefy Mini, based on a space-frame with a nice big V8 in the back. Although not really suited as a daily driver, it does get out every now and then, mostly to hill-climb events. Next we saw that someone had gotten the Int. List (M.I.N.I.) a stand too. On it were MTB (throwing all their weapons into the battle of selling MTB's T-shirts :) and a couple of other listers; Susanne Gross, John England and Yvonne, Ade and Spag (who were not there at the time).

MTB @	MITP	with Ian Houghton, Tracy & Max

While there I got a call from 'Gomez', a fellow GT-Dude and Mini-owner who had spotted my car on the MOCB stand. He and Dave (another GT-Dude) together with their wives came over to the M.I.N.I. stand and we chatted Mini's for a bit. Later on I joined Arnoud for a walk through the park. One stop was made at a stand where a very peculiar head & manifold were displayed. During the day no-one had been able to tell the owner what exactly it was.
We also sourced a trader who might be able to supply Cooper S calipers at a very decent price and then walked over to the MOCB stand where we stayed till the end of the event (which was already near). Met John, who gave us the official Mini 40 souvenir he had bought for us, Yvonne, Michael Heinzelmann IL and Andy there, who were sorting out their Witney visit on Monday.

Fast	and	Big	Mini's	Police :)

We teamed up with MTB and Gaby & Klaus and headed back to the IMM again.
I lost the others while preparing to leave and didn't catch up with them even though I did some hefty driving on the way back. ('Your arguments are losing credibility fast' :) Back at the IMM camp we found that Andy hadn't gotten back yet. Turned out he had stopped to give Gaby & Klaus a hand, who'd been having trouble with one of there wheels. The problem was the same as Andy had had a couple of months back (nut not being tight enough) so his help, jack and Michael's 34mm socket came in handy. In the mean time Carl and I went hunting for the ingredients of Carl's famous cocktail. In the end we did find most of it and the rest we left to our imagination. After everybody had gotten back in again we all joined MTB for a BBQ and some 'Twisted Tunes'. Erik, the (Dutch) owner of MiniTJE was also invited to join the fun. Someone (not to be named :) commented; 'This is the F*cking best steak I ever had!'. IOW; there were no complaints about dinner this time around :) After dinner we went over to the party-tent again to join the closing ceremony. And although maybe not as passionately as the evening before, we did party on... :) With Boris gone Carl got into the tent with me and liked it so much he decided to stay in there with me most of the rest of the week :)

Back at Camp	Mini-	-TJE