Lotus/TVR meet - Brands Hatch - 31st January 2010

[ConorNZ]

Evening all

Thanks to Bibs and Richard for organising a great day out. Next time I will have to stick it out to the lunch stop as well. Richard is right though, the brakes on the Virage were getting very spongy!! I was having to use 2nd gear to engine-brake the car instead! That's what I get for running a 2 tonne car with the likes of Lotuses and TVRs.

Tony (Sport 300) - hope you made it home not too late.

Look forward to the next one and will be sure to upgrade the brakes first!

Cheers

Conor

[Dave Eds]

Was it the brakes Conor?

Or was it that you left most of your tire tread either on the car park at Brands or wafting up over the Kent countryside?

Smokin........

[S6 OOH]

Funny that...at the pub everyone mentioned how you left rubber everywhere!! come to think of it, how did you end up in front of the (sorry) Yellow Esprit and not behind??

Richard

[mayevora]

the Yellow Esprit behind me had great road presence,

You sounded pretty nice too Richard - lovely exhaust note!

Thanks to Tony - no way was I turning down a 500+ mile Sport 300 hoon!!

Well done to whoever chose the lunch venue - nice pub, good nosh and a nice catch up with familiar faces and 1 or 2 new.

Ian

[S6 OOH]

Ian, thank you - the pub is our regular monthly meet venue.

How come your pic is blue and (if it was you behind me) your car is yellow (sorry to keep referring to cars by their colour - I will learn the difference honest)

Richard

[Bibs]

What a cracking day out today! Great cars, great friends and lots of fun, nice to make some new friends too

Richard, Ian was the 9 foot giant who was passenger in the yellow Sport300, the blue car is his old V8 her recently sold.

Thanks for co-organising the day, everyone had a lovely time and really enjoyed the lovely mix of machinery and I now know the difference between a Tamora and your Tuscan, right?

We'll definitely do this again, ideally with grippier tarmac as the Virage seemed to struggle to accelerate without lighting up the rear wheels

I'll pop up some pics in the morning.

[mayevora]

How come your pic is blue and (if it was you behind me) your car is yellow (sorry to keep referring to cars by their colour - I will learn the difference honest)

The blue Esprit left me in December - so I was just the passenger in Tony's Sport 300 today.

Edited January 31, 2010 by mayesprit

[Backmarker]

Sounds good guys.

2 inches of snow here so no Lotus play today.

Hopefully all clear for the 7th Feb NMEG/NWEG/Cheshire LOG meet

[S6 OOH]

Ian

Ah I see, thank you.

Bet all the TVR guys have been eying Esprit's on PH Classified!

Cant believe we did not get a spotted.

Hope to see you guys again some time

Richard

[Jonathan]

Was a very good day out - mrs was well happy so it musta been

Nice thing was the variation of cars - I mean I do like the Esprit but there is only a certain amount of times you can look at one and get excited, really good to have some different scenery to look at as well.

Ice on the roads scared me a bit, brand new (under 50 miles) tyres and brakes still very much bedding in so it got a bit poopoo time here and there. That snow has wreaked the roads though, cant believe the damage it caused + what was with all those crazy cyclists ? Madmen (well....men who shave their legs and wear lycra ??? very strange goings on there...)

Lovely pub (LOL wht was with the bonfire in the carpark ???? ) - good times !

[Loteuk]

Thanks for organising chaps, that blew away some cobwebs and thanks to my instructor/nav for saving me nearside wheel from distruction.

What a great day in the company of those fantastic cars!

Bibs (trying to keep up, yes I know you have to look after it but not like a 'driving Miss Daisey), Richard (lovely car, what a noise)

Hats off to you both (yes me ears were cold at that point)

Again?

[braziers]

good day out sorry had to cut it short only we got a little lost so "we" the group of 4 that were lost thought it was only right to blame the directions list.the vote was unanimous ! seeing i was only 15 miles from home and it was my daughters birthday i bailed out. hope to stay longer next time.

[MPx]

The usual mix of great company and great cars - this time of many marques. Well worth the jaunt up from Somerset. Sorry not to lunch with the crowd but just felt like a burn this morning and really needed to get back to do some stuff this PM. An excellent hoon, and amazingly much shorter than Tony and Ian's total!) Someone remind me not to put the hood down just cos its sunny when its way below freezing FFS! Anyway - much enjoyed so thanks to Bibbo and Richard for organising and many others for making it fun. Some pics

The other two M100s (Dave and James)

The early birds Bibs in Ken's Car, Paul's Elise, Cliff's Excel and Graham's panorma roof look

Some of the many Trevors

[TomE]

Great to see such a mix of machinery, chat to some old friends and meet some new faces - good to meet you at last Paul and see & chat about your Evora. Feeling tempted by that Maserati too

Massively p'ed off to come back from having a coffee to find you'd all left early for the run

Thanks to Paul for letting me blag a set of directions - had to keep stopping to read them - and by Maresfield I thought I'd caught the back of the group, only for the two Esprits to pull off for fuel! Eventually came upon the Virage by Pembury, by which time I'd had a call from MrsE to say my youngest had been throwing up all morning and they wouldn't be coming over, so I baled out of lunch and headed home.

Really nice route (coincidentally went past Colin's house and within a mile of my mum!) and a lovely day for a drive. Would've been fun to do in convoy rather than in hectic catch-up mode

Look forward to next time!

[MPx]

...and.....

Some of the other exotica

Some of the Esprits

Some of the band of Petit Loti

...and of course Beady's Evora

[Dave Eds]

Hey Mike - it was roof down there and back all the way for me - only thing to keep out the cold was tail gating Beadys Evora back as far as Harlow.

Nice pics mate.

[PierreLP]

Good to meet up with a few people and a fine range of cars from both marques.

Unfortunately my day ended with 4 hours in A&E with a fractured arm.

[Bibs]

Nice to meet you Peter. How did that happen?

Oh, and here's some pics - 45 cars in total was the turnout

[FuriousD]

Hi All,

I came along with The Persian from SELOC yesterday, really nice to see a large number of Esprit's. It was chilly though, not sure my daughter appreciated having the roof off of the Elise

Cheers

D

[Rick Edwards]

Wow! it looked a seriously good day. really gutted I could not be there. hopefully next time. great pics from all though.

[Pied Piper]

It was great seeing everyone yesterday and meeting new people, We were in quite possibly the dirtiest car there, the green Cerbera P80 WOW.

Wished we could of completed all the run but had to break off early as work beckoned.

It had me hankering for another Elise though, I miss mine a lot, had it for 3 years, the longest I've ever owned any car.

Well organised, when's the next one?

[Simon350S]

Looks like a fab day out had by all! Can't see you though Ian? or did you not wear shorts?

What happened to your arm Peter?

[Jonathan]

Haha Simon I used the same excuse !

It was only when I got there I realised I hadnt wiped the wax off one side of the car from the previous evening LOL

[Bibs]

http://www.thelotusforums.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157:lotus-and-tvr-and-astonferrarilamborghini-etc-meet-at-brands-hatch&catid=42:about-us&Itemid=98

[ConorNZ]

Was it the brakes Conor? Or was it that you left most of your tire tread either on the car park at Brands or wafting up over the Kent countryside?

Funny that...at the pub everyone mentioned how you left rubber everywhere!! come to think of it, how did you end up in front of the (sorry) Yellow Esprit and not behind??

We'll definitely do this again, ideally with grippier tarmac as the Virage seemed to struggle to accelerate without lighting up the rear wheels

There may have been one or two instances of accidental loss of traction...

Actually there are lots of perfectly good excuses - I mean explanations - for such behaviour:

- It's better for the car if you break traction with the tyres, rather than slip the clutch.

- Warming the tyres thoroughly before a road session improves grip - safety first.

- The Virage has a very quiet exhaust, so burnouts help to let people know where I am - again, safety first.

Is anyone buying this?

(P.S. Apologies for the bulk quote - I'm lazy as well as a hoon )