It seems as though there were definitely some lessons to be learned from this particular convoy. Or maybe some "what went wells" and "even better ifs"...
It was really good that people were happy to take on board the idea of turning their cars round so that everyone wasn't trying to reverse out of parking spaces at the same time. It made for better pics of the car park at the services too! And everyone was very good-natured about being shepherded, which helped.
Amusingly, as the last car left the services car park I found I had a stack of maps in my hand. I'd been so busy frantically waving people about that I'd forgotten to dish out virtually ANY of the maps!!!
My initial relief at having got everyone out of the car park without directing anyone to crash into each other (although there WERE a couple of near misses - sorry about that!
) soon turned to horror when I saw the country lane just the other side of the M4; and it was rammed with stationary Elans.
Not only that but a 4x4 was visible part-way up the line, so the people at the front were waiting for a signal from behind, that would struggle to get past the, er, blockage!
In conclusion the idea of flashing headlamps (which was dropped onto me) was a great one in theory, but in practise it fell at the first hurdle.
There wasn't much I could do about that - my brief had simply been to start the convoy off; I wasn't supposed to be participating in it after that, because that was when I was supposed to be going back to the hotel to pick up MJK and Barrie. So I carried on up the road. Moments later I happened upon a purple Elan in a layby, whose driver was frantically consulting his map. He was totally gobsmacked when this random bloke in a Jag pulled up next to him and said (in a slightly Terminator-esque way) "come with me if you want to find the convoy"!
Luckily by the time I got the purple Elan caught up, the line was moving. That is, all except for the Steel Blue Elan with the CTS problem - although we hadn't worked out what his problem was at that point.
I was sure that it was a problem that wouldn't cause lasting damage to the car, and if he could just get closer to the circuit then we'd be able to diagnose and rectify the problem. So he limped off, and I went back to my task in hand, having left him with my mobile number.
Around the time I got back to the hotel, the chap with the Steel Blue Elan texted me to say he'd made it there and was parked up. In fact I believe he beat the main convoy!
And by the time MJK, Barrie and I arrived (thanks to a magical mystery tour courtesy of my sat nav), the rest of the convoy had just parked up. Apparently getting off the road and onto site was a bit of an issue, but again I couldn't help there due to being elsewhere.
There were no accidents, and other than the odd grey hair I don't think anyone suffered any lasting damage.
Clemo later told me that 2 Elans didn't make it, but I don't know any more details. Anyone...?
