HairyDJ

mondeo man was stickered up and personal plate as MENU - also might get some unwanted attention for the big number 10 on his door not being crossed through (or has that strange bit of law gone now?). Y reg Scoob was stickered up as D Smith & J Dolan - David Smith was the second chap that they interviewed.

sky news web site has a link to the justgiving page and it's also being quoted on the ITV teletext pages. What a shame the bbc news and the top gear pages haven't linked to it yet - I've sent an email, but i doubt if it'll get anything changed? some big donations going through currently - a few at 100 and an ameican (expat?) just gone for 500. Now it's past the 52k plus 13k tax bac, I have a hunch that the weekend will take it over the 100 mark.

Barretts at Canterbury did my 30k recently 203 labour plus 224 parts = 427, so a bit better. Just looked at mine in detail and see the service charged me 42.75 for oil, plus 9.50 for another litre "top-up" - suspect that should have been an overpriced wee bottle that they forgot to leave in my car when I collected it!! Other big parts costs were castrol syntrax at 30, plugs at 38, 4 units of coolant at 22 quid and a fuel filter for 21. Just had Cotswold do me 2 new front disks and pads all round for 404 after sidc discount (thanks Drew!). looks like the labour for the rears was 65, plus parts 39 so i really would take a close look at the lines that make up your bill in case there is a typo or an unexpected extra in there.

1. Loony Toon & Vicky Plum 2. Pele 3. Q Dog 4. White Warrior 5. Scoots 6. Daniel and Danela 7. T123VOR & CONNOR - Can you get kids sizes by chance? 8. Dunks 9. HairyDJ & Chrissy

Nice one Tony, Good to see them after the odd wee discussion on here <grin> I tried to persuade the Oxon crew to do some voting for theirs, but they don't seem to have the same energy as you lot! I like the look of them - can't tell for sure, but assume that they are printed rather than expensive embroidery? How much and when are you starting a list/ Cheers, David

Cracking day thanks! good crowd on the stand and not too long a delay to get in. The rain stayed away all day - but we got really bad wind (oops pardon me). So good that Chrissy got her face sunburnt. Track time was not so good -not enough people seemed to have a clue and a lot of sessions were red flagged early and everyone lost the rest of their session. Our guy ran in the 1:30 slot which got ruined by a little pug blowing up and dumping oil most of the way down the finish straight and round the corner - in the first flying lap too grrrr. The next session had a minor prang after one guy lost it coming out of the pit straight and then a blown engine and a smoked to death tyre ruined that session for the others too. The weather being better than expected lifted spirits and there was some good social time - especially with Type-R Pete who did his back in yesterday and still managed to crawl around and polish up to win best in show. I'm sure i didn't notice, but Chrissy mentioned that the Falken tyre bus was in such a sunny spot that one of the young ladies on the top had to take her tee-shirt off!! The convoy worked a treat and we got joined by the big white van riven by the guys running the modded show at Detling later this month - they spotted the scoobies and decided to tag along to learn the back route in.

presume you've tried the obvious of rocking the steering wheel slightly and also tried pushing the key deeper or pulling back slightly? If all else fails, and you have your second key handy, chuck an old shirt or other casual clothing over the wheel to "accidentally" keep it out of sight - then lock up with your spare. Never tried this and not sure if the alarm will be too clever with a key already in, but I've set mine off by mistake while sitting in it before now! good luck

Chrissy & me will probably hook up with the Kip convoy when you get to Milton Keynes - avoids going all the way down to J11 just to turn around and come back up again (good fun 2 weeks ago, but I fancy the extra hour of sleep). We'll be the blue wagon in the layby between one of the roundabouts ..... but which one, so many to choose from. We know Kip's route - assuming he goes the same way as last time - so can help pick up the odd stragglers or join up the broken chunks. Once in MK there are plenty of bits of dual carriageway to make ground - the biggest break point will probably be off at J13 and the roundabout at the end of that single carriageway. A word of warning to "visitors" - that stretch has head-on fatals far too often - look for all the floral tributes and keep your right toe steady until you make it to the roundabouts / dueled bits. Fingers crossed for the weather. David

The Kent folk were great entertainment when they put it to a vote a few months back <grin> They were hooking up with local dealers to get a bit of sponsorship / subsidy in return for adding their company name - maybe the folk at Cotswold would be interested?

HOL, I touch goats with my mobile number so we can meet up to store your tools Cheers, David

Wagon owners stick together - you get one bite <grin>

Happy to help if you don't get any other offers - more space in a wagon <grin> I'll only need room for my usual junk, plus the group buy wheel bags that Phil is going to be distributing that day. We're booked onto the club stand, so hopefully not too far to carry the bits. I've got a 12v socket in the rear, so if your coolbox is a leccy powered one, I can plug it in for you. Cheers, David & Chrissy

Hi Tony, If you're willing to take a late order for a pair of side window stickers, I'll stick a tenner in the post to you if you pm me the address to post it to. Cheers, David

useful site that - thanks for sharing. It shows that my old WRX that got t-boned by a golf and written off is back on the road with some poor new owner. We were lucky to walk out of it and were not at all keen on the idea of it being repaired after the whack it took.

A pretty well structured day - 4 sections each with 2 vehicles and you always drove both of them. There were 14 of us there and we were split into 2 groups then split again into 3 or 4 per car. took from 10 till 4 with a lunch break so got about an hour at each section. The pro's were the usual hired hands - all very good drivers, but some better than others at coaching / communicating. Off road - not a tough course, but the forester went almost everywhere that the isuzu went. Adverse handling course - an STI and a 3 litre legacy to take over a deliberately twisty course - changes of direction / camber / surface every second or two. Lunch was a jacket spud with chilli - enough to fill you up, but not too much to risk it coming back!! WRX and a 2 litre legacy on the slippy section - a long straight run of wet tiles to slip and slide all over - more fun than educational as they wanted you to keep the slide going rather than correct it and regain control. second element was an apallingly slippery roundabout where they tried to get you drifting round on the power - the circle was too small and the reglazed surface just too slippy to give you a realistic chance. Last slot was another STI and 3 litre legacy to take 4 laps of the high speed circuit - straight was long enough to bust 100, but they tried to get you pushing it around the bend at the end without dropping below 80. As ever, the odd plonker who thought the day should revolve around him, but pleased that quite a few ladies were driving as well as their fellas. No goodie bags but no sales pitch either - just aimed at letting you hammer someone else's tyres & brakes and discover how much fun the range could be. Whilst the impreza was always the obvious chioce, the legacy did almost as good a job on both fast bits. Might be tempted to go again - they also do a similar with Ford cars. If you get 6 numbers on saturday then go for it!!

The big day came round at last! A very well organised day (10 til 4) with a generous amount of time in each car. A couple of scoobie owners there apart from us, but the rest were ex owners or wannabe's. Got the impression that 14 was less than the planned max (30ish), but the day got better as the weather improved all the time. Also good to see a few of the ladies behind the wheel instead of just watching - at least one watcher wants to come back and drive next time. It isn't cheap at 250 quid (each), but was pretty good value in my opinion. No engines blown but we gave their brakes and tyres a good seeing to as well as burning a full fuel tank on every vehicle they brought along. David

Chrissy & me are booked in (no track time though) and will probably try to hook up with the convoy as you pass MK - can't miss kip showing us his back passage!

I'm working on it [] [] only 1 dot to go [Y] Just another 600 odd to jump up past chrisp! .. now then, one a minute for the next 10 hours .... you could be there before lunchtime!!! It puts Rasher just busting 20k into some context - I suppose every hour at the keyboard is another half-tank o fuel not getting burnt.

Nobody spotted me crawling along the M20 from Bluebell Hill to Ashford and then all the way back to MK on Saturday? I was the p155ed off blue WRX with the silly winker wheel restricted to 50mph all the way!! I suppose I should be grateful it was still going at all, as whatever bit a chunk out of my NSR when I was going "slightly faster" off the M25 slip made a real mess of it. The fuel economy was the only good bit - 1/4 tank lasted me 120 miles home. Trouble was, I had to swap all 4 corners at midnight, then get up again at 6 to go visit me mum again - that used the rest of the tank no probs. Off to costco this evening for some michelins - interesting set of sports 225/45/17 on the 8" rims, stocked as a BMW * recommended and look a lot like the toyo's - all done for just over 450 squidlings. Back down in a day or so, so see how the feel on a long run. Cheers, David P.S. loads of luv to the stupid yank bird who thought i was the ideal person to park behind to ask directions to Faversham, when I was already covered in cr4p and cursing like f*** without her help!

booked in for it's 30k with Barretts in a couple of weeks - assuming that they don't want to put on any photocall or publicity to get something back for their generosity? Cheers, David

Glad to see you had such a fantastic time. Well done Dean for grabbing that Trophy. Chrissy was on her way to work (Milton Keynes to St Albans) and says that the convoy up looked phenomenal - that might explain the mad t**t in a Citroen C3 giving you a big wave!! Cheers, David

bttt while i wait to see if i can rearrange my weekend to get there!

Bounced off their answering machine at lunchtime, but spoke to a very helpful lass later. They only have 3 dates open at present - late July, 12th Aug? and i've booked 2 of us for 21st August. My birthday week, but I'd probably have invented a different excuse if I really had to pick a different date. Anyone else booked yet?

Went there a couple of years ago on a ford (volvo / jag / Landrover) company car day freebie - fantastic site and well worth saving up for (only 5 tanks of fuel). Got to take a mix of cars round (maxed at 100mph), but the Prodrive guys were able to take passengers out in the Jag XKR at 150, so the track is up to it - just a few strange surfaces / rumble strips on the long straight. Given that there were a few other cars on the track, including Aston's with strange panels stuck on, they were pretty laid back about photography, but might need checking? http://uk2.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?clie...amp;scale=25000 hopefully will make the call on tuesday and try to find out how heavily booked they are already. Might look around 22nd aug or 10th oct dates if they have them. Cheers, David

Grandad here - 20th October 1972 = almost 34 years! drove an Austin A35 until I got my A40 with a matt black bonnet. Sad enough to still have my old red licence with my only endorsement from 30 years ago. Now should I be putting my old log book or my very old motor fuel ration book / coupons up on eBay? Now, where's me pipe, slippers and heavy right boot .... David