NMM is an abbreviation of
'Noordwijk Mini Marathon'.
Originally modeled after the L2B,
it now is one of the largest events in the Netherlands.
After my win of the 1st edition in 1998 (I have to keep writing
this for every NMM report :), the 2001 venue was my 3rd (out of
4) NMM.
This was the first time my girlfriend Kiki was joining me as my
navigator. New Mini-driver (that is; new to Mini driving, not
driving a Mini(tm) :) Caren and another
former colleague; Suzanne accompanied us along the way. What can
I say ? Going to a Mini-event with 3 beautiful women, it doesn't
get much better than that :)
As the start of the event was around noon, Kiki and I had to
get up pretty early, at least it felt that way to us :)
After a shortened 'morning-ritual' we set off to meet Caren &
Suzanne and made it to the meeting point just in time.
This sort of explains why I really don't like Mini rally's that
start in the morning on weekend-days much :)
The start this time was 'Hofstede de Beesde' in Bunnik.
Contrary to previous years we arrived there early enough to
register and walk around to talk to some other Dutch Mini List
listers.
As it started to rain we set off for Noordwijk.
The 'rally' as such was again fairly simple; a map was given with
a number of point indicated.
At those points letters could be found and together you could
form a word or sentence. And again there was a tie-breaker.
Apart from a small oversight on my side (so it was a bus-lane,
doesn't mean a Mini doesn't fit, does it ? :) we did very well.
The navigational skills of Kiki turned out to be suburb, as were
her 'pace-notes' and directions.
Although the rain poured down at times, it was a very nice
drive.
As always we drove through great scenery (Holland can be
beautiful in any kind of weather) and reached Noordwijk within
time and with most(all ?) letters found.
At the finish we met a number of fellow Miniacs (some old, some
new), had a bite to eat and had a good time chatting about life
& relationships.
At the prizegiving we learned that we hadn't won this time, so
after saying goodbye to Caren & Suzanne, we headed back to
The Hague.
If next years' event is going to be as much fun, I might be
persuaded to attend again :)
As you may have noticed, there are no pics of the event above.
I don't have the pics we took yet, so for now check out the
site's listed below.