Lotus Festival Brands Hatch 23-25 August 2013

[Rice crispy]

Merv my phone has packed up so if you want to meet later my other phone is zero 774 zero 145781

[rip]

I've spoken to Iain who is coming down tomorrow and he is bringing his header tank which is incredibly good of him so I should be OK now.

In the Calibra's boot now. I'll have it with me tomorrow.

[lotusnut]

Hi David, sorry, no Internet on my phone, I tried ringing you as I left Brands and stopped in Brentwood to try again, obviously with no luck. If you want to go tomorrow, give Geoff a ring, he posted his number on the forum topic and I believe he has spare tickets and passes. Sorry I missed you, regards Merv

[GeoffSmith]

Hopefully see you tomorrow David.

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[mitreklov]

To all at of you at Brands Hatch today in the LEC area, it was a pleasure to meet you all and sorry for not saying goodbye personally this afternoon, when I came to leave you were all off enjoying yourselves somewhere.

See you at the next one.

Tim

[Rusty Wishbone]

It was great to meet TrevorB, lotusnut & Steve A this afternoon. I now just need to stop unbolting bits from my Elan and get the thing back on the road. Still, it was a nice run out in the Scooby.

[TrevorB]

Good to meet everyone yesterday both old and new faces. Thanks to Peter who gave us all gifts.

Photo of the Sunday crowd, at least one of us had the hood down

[mitreklov]

The many colours of Lotus!

Here's one for the photo album and a chance for me to test my new Photobucket account.

[lotustonybassplayer]

just want to add a thanks to peter for his generosity not that many of us drive in the rain except maybe trevor b, who i am sure could enter a wet t shirt competition whilst driving merlot

[Steve A]

We were fortunate not to endure the rain suffered by the Saturday gang, but still the wet roads on the Sunday morning did their best to spoil our cars hard earned waxed finish
We were relieved to see the sun appear eventually Nice to meet a few new faces, some not so new that I"d not met before and some I'd met before that it was good to catch up with
Special thanks to Peter for the gift


I didn't realise Geoff could jump so high


Note the number plates


Still showing signs of Saturdays weather

[Peter D]

It was a pleasure meeting you all in real life, and catching up the lucky ones that did the trip in Ypres.
I was happy to hand out the gifts, too bad I didn't have enough for each of you...
And my thanks to TrevorB for getting the coolant for me.
(The lower pressure in the cooling system is probably in favor to the coolant header tank...)

The weekend was great fun, and there where so many things to enjoy I didn't spent very much time at the LEC area...

Most of you I met for the first time, which gives me a hard time to recall who is who
As I'm very bad in remembering names, it's even more difficult to connect them to a face...
I do remember people's faces, so please do not be offended if I can't remember your name next time we meet

I hope everybody got home without any hassle.
For myself, the rain stayed out on the way to Dover, so my weekend in the U.K. ended topless

Coming over to the U.K., I got a special spot on the ferry ...
(Bad phone quality)

[Stef]

Well, Friday night was dry and good. Happy campers!

Saturday, aside from a severe lack of sleep thanks to some 'happier' campers, started OK, and was generally alright with showers but not torrential rain. But very murky and thick with mist. Racing was hampered by the wet, the track very slippy. So slippy that even the Safety Recovery HiLux vehicle came off!

Massive praise to Graham for the Gazebo! Accident or no, top marks for bringing it along, saved our bacon... and sausages and burgers and beer The ingenious idea of shortening one side to shade from the driving rain and wind was cracking! Still got soaked though.

Sunday turned good and even packed the tent away dry.

Great to meet those who we managed to meet! Fab to see new faces and receive the usual friendly welcome from LECers!

Here is to next year!

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[Rusty Wishbone]

It was great to meet TrevorB, lotusnut & Steve A this afternoon. I now just need to stop unbolting bits from my Elan and get the thing back on the road. Still, it was a nice run out in the Scooby.

Oops. I mean LotusTonyBassPlayer, not lotusnut.

[Stef]

Did any fellow campers find Ian's superbright LED head torch in with their stuff?

Can't seem to find it here.

Thanks

[chris.t]

Good to see some of you there on Sunday. You had a good display of Elans on the Sunday. Sorry I was parked up with the vxers as I couldn't bring the élan on a ticket that said VX220 on it.

Loved the racing especially the cortinas. Boy am I glad I didn't camp on Saturday night

[GeoffSmith]

We had spare tickets that didn't say VX Chris....

Good to see there were some (fool)hardy Elans for the rain drenched 'parade' laps:

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[Peter D]

Someone asked me for the LED type I use in my parking lights, after seeing me doing the parade lap.
It's the EU NL152 from Autostyle (in Belgium and Netherlands).
Can't remember the brand or manufacturer.

[chris.t]

To be fair Geoff, I was on my own anyway, Dee was playing golf otherwise we would have been there in both cars like last year. They didn't check on the gate anyway. I had to drive up to BH with semi slicks on which was a bit hair raising at times in the wet.

[ShaunM]

Hi BCD Peter, it was me that asked about the LED's. Thanks for the info. People that know me on here, know that modifying cars isn't my thing, but when I took the photo's of the Elans on the parade laps, those lights were nice and bright and, but being inside the original covers don't look out of place. I think that even some of the brand new cars out there look garish and chavvy with strips of LED's curving around headlights.

Geoff, glad you've found the pics on facebook. I took over 200 photo's of all the cars going around (5 fps snapping is awesome!), so if you were in the parade laps email me shaun@shaunmarrison.co.uk or message me on facebook and I'll send you all the pics I have of your car. I'll probably put some pics on flickr account over the coming days, but for now, here they are on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153186048620174.1073741838.844685173&type=1&l=97f3fd7c87

Saturday camping wasn't that bad, okay it rained a bit , but wasn't cold (as long as you stayed dry Graham ) Had a great weekend, it was the first time I've been to Brands Hatch and thought the track was awesome. The ability to see most of the track from every metre of the perimeter is awesome. Not sure abot driving it though, a bit too mountainous for a Norfolk lad like me!

The highlight for me was watching the Cortina's 4-wheel drifting though the trees on the back end of the circuit. Could just imaging Colin Chapman looking down with a huge grin on his face at the way the driver's were pushing the cars.

Stef, have you tried looking in the tent? I thought I'd lost my camera Sunday morning, but after emptying the entire boot, I unpacked the tent and there is was wrapped up inside!

Burt said that ticket sales were up this year, which is good news. Let's get more Elans out to join in the camping fun next year!

[DaveT]

Hopefully see you tomorrow David.

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Great Steel Blue Elan at the front.