Again, the name about covers it.
An IMM basically is a couple of hundred Mini's and their
enthusiasts getting together over a weekend, camping out and
enjoying their favorite subject; Mini's.
In 2001 the IMM was be organized by the Miniclub Oberoesterreich in Pettenbach (OB = UpperAustria); between Salzburg and Linz (Not to be confused with the Pettenbach closer to Vienna !), from June 1st till June 4th 2001.
Thu 31st May.
Knowing how I am I'd taken the extra day off to prepare for the
Meeting. I didn't sleep in till late (actually didn't sleep much
at all :) and headed over to my Mini-shop to have a good look at
the Van. Found one suspicious wheelbearing and some small stuff.
Some if the tires also showed a somewhat weird wear-pattern. As
the shocks weren't too new either they advised me to install
adjustable shocks, which would also help against the tires
hitting the arches at full load. I decided to go the full monty
and have all shocks replaced for AVO Adjustable Shocks. All in
all an enjoyable day at the Mini-shop. By the time I finally left
there I didn't have much time to do my other errands though :)
Turned out my 'local tire shop' had moved elsewhere and I didn't
find another one to help me on short notice (like now! :).
I took a small nap and then headed off to Schiphol to collect an Australian fellow International Mini Lister(IL), Angus Grant, who'd be joining me on the way down to Austria. Although I was running late (so what else is new :) I arrived in time to find him at the gates and gave him his first experience riding as a navigator in my Van.Back at my house we watched Top Gear's first road-test of Ze New Mini(tm) and waited for Arnoud (an IL and Dutch Mini Lister(DL)), who would be joining us on the drive down, to arrive. After some chatting, drinking (nothing hard :) and lending a helping hand, we all found ourselves a place to sleep, be it short...
Fri 1st June.
The day of the start of the IMM. But we first had to get there :)
Pettenbach is about 1000km from where I live and with the planned
detour to meet with Paul Hampton(IL) and possibly Tom Francis(IL)
it would be just over that. So we decided to start out early and
got up around 3.30am. Around 4am we stopped some 20km down the
road to have some coffee at my Mini Shop Mini Parts International. They
were 'just about ready' and at 4.30am we had gotten 'the show on
the road'. As we were going down south a bit more we took our own
route and passed the others early on. We made good time but also
had regular stops, either to take in fuel, or to take a couple of
short naps as the night proved to have been a wee bit to short at
times :) A large part of the time involved driving on the
notorious German "Autobahn", where there are stretches
with no speedlimits and drivers with no sense. Apart from one
Saab hurdling down the road at high speed (I was only doing about
150km/h at the time :) who tried to beam me out of his way (which
didn't work for some reason :), there weren't any close driving
situations along the way.
As we came closer and closer to Munich it became clear that Paul's Mini wouldn't want to start. In the end neither Paul nor Tom made it to the IMM unfortunately.We continued to make good time while driving and relaxing while stopping. That is, Arnoud and I did. Angus had a different rhythm. He'd fall asleep minutes after we'd set off and wake up whenever we would stop again. The racket my Van makes while on the move didn't seem to bother him and even to help rock him to sleep. Good thing I didn't actually need a navigator and knew where I was going :)
We didn't have any troubles along the way. Other weren't as fortunate though. We stopped to help a couple who'd stranded with a broken throttle-cable (it was easy to spot who of the two was the Miniac :), but they didn't require any help. We later also heard of an unfortunate Dutch couple, who's Mini had flipped and who'd ended up in hospital. Latest news at the time of this writing is that they are doing well and coming back home, helped by various other Miniacs and attendees of the IMM.
On arrival at Pettenbach it turned out the weather hadn't been
as good there as we'd had all day. The roads on the grounds had
already turned into a mud-pool. Fun to play in (although you
weren't allowed :), but hard to keep your Mini in
concourse-condition. After a stretch (otherwise known as
'finding John & Yvonne') and bumping in to one or two people
we know (some of whom are a treat to bump into :), we stumbled
upon John and Yvonne (IL) and two other people I didn't know.
Or at least I didn't recognize! They were my long lost pals Steve
Dix (IL) of Snorty fame, and
Helena (IL) whom I go back with will way back MLM 8 time.
So there I was, with egg on my face :)
After an intimate greeting by Yvonne :), we pitched the tents
next to them and started a weekend of 'lounging'.
Sa June 2nd & Su June 3rd
The lounging basically consists of hanging out, talking to people
and the odd party in a tent, somewhere in a field (in Austria
this time :). The weather was great (well, at least I thought it
was :), the people enjoyable (apart from the boyfriend of some
girl misinterpreting my c00l XI-dance :) and the Mini's... well
standing there :)
I again met with loads of International Miniacs. Haven't counted
the countries they came from but I make it to more than a dozen
and three continents easily. This in fact _is_ an International
Mini Meeting.
Sunday didn't start out to well, resulting a various people
breaking up camp and heading out just after the raffle (nope, I
didn't win the Mini). This also meant more room for the rest of
us to play around in (Even if we still weren't allowed :). And as
the saying goes; 'after rain there is sunshine', and that there
was.
Not for long though :) That night the tent barely held on to it's
last peg from being blown into obliviation. But it, and we, those
who stuck it out, survived.
All in all another couple of great 'war-stories' and a good time
re-finding friends from all over the world, somewhere in a field
(in Austria :).
 |
 |
 |
|
| The Drinking Game Angus, Arnoud, Yvonne, John |
Arnoud Happy :) | Still in a field Arnoud, Jukka, Angus |
Sunny afternoon |
Mo June 4th
After getting up to early I found most of the troop I'd 'lounged'
with over the weekend had already set off to warmer places. I
couldn't blame them as the packing of the tent in the icy-rain
with gusting winds nearly froze my hands off. It wasn't this cold
in Finland last year! Jukka of course had to show that he is used
to this kind of weather and declined the offers of a ride into
town, as 'the walk would do him good.' Yeah right :)
Angus and I were heading for warmer places too. Vienna to be
exact. Although Angus stayed awake this time (I took a nap along
the way though :), his navigational skills were still not tested
as a good map and a sense of where you're going is often all
that's needed and I'd been there before.
Where ? At Martin ('Evil Swiss')'s place. He had courteously
invited us to come and hang at his place for a couple of days. As
it had been a couple of years since we'd met in person I took him
up on that.
As Angus was flying out the next morning we did a small tour of
some of the important buildings of Vienna (I think it's tram-line
3 that takes you past them :), en route to a sushi restaurant
where we had... sushi! :) We weren't really up for a heavy night
on the town so rented a movie (American Beauty) and stayed in.
Tue June 5th
Rise and shine and drop Angus off at the airport time. I made
sure he got checked in alright and then headed back to Martin's
for some more R&R.
I have some more friends in Vienna and as with meeting Martin one
of the reasons to go there after the IMM was to hook up with them
again.
One of them is Alex Braun, who we unfortunately didn't meet.
Another was Patrick Hediger and his new wife Giovanna Dominguez.
So after going downtown to do some shopping and having a bite to
eat in a local Greek restaurant, where we were joined by Martin's
friend Andy, we met with Patrick back at Martin's place. The rest
of the evening was spend lounging and catching up.
 |
| @ Martin's Martin, Patrick, Andy |
Wed 6th June
My last day in Vienna. As Martin had 'places to go & people
to meet', I slept in and went in town on my own. Spend some time
hanging around some field (yes, still in Austria :) in a park. As
I knew where Martin would be hanging out I tried finding him, but
with the help of some locals ended up in a different bar, where
he found me :) After finishing my drink we went over to another
bar (no this wasn't a bar-tour :) to meet with Patrick and
Giovanna and talked with them about marriage, work and their
upcoming move to Madrid.
As luck had it a colleague of mine was in Vienna that day to, as
was a former colleague who worked at the embassy there. We
arranged a short meet at the 'Opera', after which we headed back
to Martin's place. Dinner was served at a 'Stube' that evening
and for the occasion we drove there in the Van; a new experience
for Martin as he'd heard of my Mini's but never actually sat in
one of them :)
 |
 |
| Vienna Cafe Patrick, Martin, Giovanna |
Vienna Opera meet Albert-Jan, Andy, Martin |
Thu 7th June
All good things come to an end and so did my visit with Martin.
He had a busy weekend coming up though, so he wouldn't be missing
me much :)
On the way out of Vienna I found a local tire shop that helped me
balance my front wheels that were in dire need of such treatment.
They'd never seen a car like mine before (which told me they had
no experience with it and thus I gave some advice on how to treat
it :) and were very interested, specially in the tire side of it.
They looked up all kinds of tires that might fit and even came up
with two that I hadn't heard of before. (Surprisingly they didn't
comment on my Kuomo tire :).
Then I went on towards Munchen to meet up with Paul and Tom. And
I made good time doing so (yes there still are parts in Germany
where there is no speedlimit :). Didn't have much trouble finding
Paul's place or a parkingspot for the Van.
Met with Paul (no to hard to do when you go to someone's place :)
and later Tom also joined us.
The latter had been ill, which showed in a loss of weight. So we
decided it was time to get some 'meat on the ribs' again and
headed out to a bar to get some good bar-food, served by a very
friendly waitress :) After enjoying this German hospitality we
got some drinks and went back to Paul's place to take in some
English culture (Men Behaving Badly, The Fast show and such :).
During the conversations it became clear Paul's Mini was in no
state to drive anywhere, so they would have to miss out on the
planned weekend at Francorchamps watching the Mini races.
Fri 8th June
Got up fairly early as Paul had to go to work and I had quite a
drive in front of me. Then again, this still was largely on the
German Autobahn so it didn't take me too long to reach
Francorchamps :) There were Mini races there that weekend, so I
walked in to the paddock and talked to a couple of people I'd met
there last time. Among them were the Let's brothers, who were
doing a bit better than last time. I noticed they had the Same
shocks on their racers as I had installed the week before and
they told me they were very satisfied with them ,as well on their
racers as on their street cars.
After browsing the paddock I headed over to the infamous bar near
the circuit (Tom will know which one I mean :) and had dinner
there. Talked to some other people who wehre there for the Mini
races, turned out one of them had relatives in the Netherlands.
Although I'd planned to stay there for the weekend I decided
against it and headed back home, which was only a two hour drive
away.
So after just over a week and some 2500km's I was back home in my own bed. Again a trip well worth taking with again the highlight(s) being meeting with long lost or newly made friends...
