|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BIG BAD WEDGE FEST 2005 (BBWF '05) - PART 1 [ 2 ] By Mike Bressington
Well, it's come and gone, the biggest Wedge meeting of all time, over in what seemed to be a flash. 127 Wedge cars of all types (plus about 15 other types of TVR) braved the damp start to the day for the big meet at the Big Bad Wedge Fest 2005 held at Ettington Chase hotel on Saturday the 30th July.
It was always promising
to be a bigger event than last year but as it also coincided with the
25th Anniversary of the launch of the original Wedge car we had no idea
that so many cars would attend. Many people from all over Britain made
the effort to attend, numerous convoys were arranged from Scotland, England
and Wales, there was even a contingent from Holland who made a dramatic
appearance to say the least!...complete with their own supply of imported
lager safely stashed in their Audi support car. This year, a lot more attractions were planned including various high profile traders, charity raffles, concours competitions, BBQ's etc. To ensure it all ran smoothly, significantly more hard work went into the planning and preparation beforehand to ensure the event built on the success of last years meeting held at the same venue.
A 'hidden' www.pistonheads.com
forum was kindly setup and provided by Dave Edmonston months in advance
to allow the organisers of the event to bounce around their ideas and
formulate the plans for the event. Although there were
many, many kind people who helped out on the day (and after) to ensure
the proceedings all ran smoothly the main organisers were: Alan Toomey
(Rev_erend), Richard Hurd (Dickymint), Sean McDonnell (Seamus), Steve
Randall (Stever), Roger Tattersall (Tallbloke) and myself Mike Bressington
(MikeB). It is thanks to the hard work and effort of this team of people
that the event turned out to be such a success. Even now after the
event people are still putting in hard work compiling video footage (Martin
Turner) and burning DVD's of the event, all for FREE and for the benefit
of others…in the true spirit of the original Big Bad Wedge Fest. The main reason for
the complete success of the day however must be down to people like YOU
for supporting the project and turning up. I have never met such a bunch
of down to earth, knowledgeable and genuine people, many of whom I can
now proudly call friends. Long live the Big Bad Wedge Fest. The Big Day had come I had spent the week
running up to the big day cleaning the car and tweaking the oil, water
and electrics to ensure the 450SE would be able to make the trip. I had
a few electrical starting issues a few weeks before that sort of cleared
themselves as if by magic (great things TVR's aren't they?) I didn't want
any of these things giving me trouble on the way up. Little I was to know
then that the trip up was not going to be the issue, but more on that
later. We set off bright and early, the BBC weather report was almost a re-run of last years, 'overcast with some rain but brightening up later on'. Just in case I had purchased and applied some Rain-X and gave the windscreen a good dousing with the stuff.
The South Wales gang had arranged to meet up on the M4 and then blast over the Severn Bridge to meet up with Steve Davis's group at Junction 18. I had also arranged for my guys to come armed with two meter Welsh flags on wooden poles to proudly wave out of the roof at the first sight of any Englishmen! In our convoy were Simon & Lynne (blue 350i), Jeff Morgan & Linda (red 400SE), Mike Bowen and Mark riding shotgun (blue 400SE) and myself and Elaine (450SE). At Junction 18 we joined up with Steve Davis in his white 400SE, Dave Sims in his newly acquired red SEAC, Paul Blake in his blue 400SE along with Kevin Tolley and his white 280i FHC.
We were also scheduled
to meet up with Paul in his Chimp and Dave Denney in his 390SE along the
A433. After a brief chat and quick tyre kick with the other guys at Junction
18 we filled up with some fuel and then blasted off, headed for Ettington. The run up went mostly
without any drama, just the usual Audi and BMW wannabes driving dangerously
close trying to 'have a go'. Not a good idea as Wedges tend to hunt better
in packs, against my better judgement I could not resist to make the guy
look a little silly. I think that the guy's ears must be still ringing
after the ragging I gave him in the 450 ;-) One funny thing that
happened on the run up going through Moreton in the Marsh town the convoy
came to a halt midway through the town centre at a pelican crossing. This
old lady and her husband were slowly crossing the road staring intently
at the car, me and then onto my 2m Welsh flag fluttering in the breeze
out of the roof. On seeing she was staring at my flag I shouted over to her that 'we were Welsh don't you know'. She shuffled over to the drivers window, held my arm and said 'That's nice dear, never mind, nice flag though' - old codger!.
We had made good time up the Fosse Way and roared into the car park at bang on 11.30am exactly as planned - flags flying. On arrival we parked the TVR in the car park expertly escorted to our '450SE' allocated parking space by Roger (Tallbloke) who had taken up the challenge of sorting out the parking, he certainly looked the part in his traffic wardens cap. I had just managed to turn the engine off and then it started to rain. My heart sank when I felt the first drops of rain on me head, all the months of planning, all the work people have put in, I just hoped that it would not last.
Determined to make
the most of it come what may I put the roof on the car and made my way
over to the traders area where most of them were getting ready to greet
the many more guests due to arrive later in the day. Tower View Race Services, Steve Heath Publications, the Polishing Company, TVRcarparts.com, Absolutely Shocks, RT Racing, ACT Performance Products, London Carriage Craft and the TVRCC were only a small number of the people who managed to turn up. I greeted each of the traders and tried to talk to as many as possible, it was good to actually put names to faces; many of the guys who had turned up I had dealt with for many years, but had not actually met face to face.
Later on to my joy the rain subsided and the sun started to shine through, cars were still turning up thick and fast. Roger I could see was starting to panic! Early Tasmins, 350i's 450SE's 400SE's, SEACS, 280is were parked as far as you could see in the most amazing array of colours; I even managed to see a 500SE and these babies are rare! Both car parks of the hotel were completely full to busting with the other reserved for the traders and for the naughty boys (people with a TVR that wasn't a Wedge!). The sight was just awesome. The wedding guests who had also booked into the hotel simply did not know what had hit them - poor things. The silver MGF wedding car certainly felt a bit inadequate.
At this point Elaine suggested that we book into the hotel and get our room before the masses descend. As if a re-run from last year I managed to get five meters before meeting up with some old friends. After talking for about half an hour I immediately bumped into another load of regular contributors to the TVRwedgepages site and set about talking shop. Elaine could see that I would be busy and did the booking in (and lugging the bags) on her own. She and some of the other wives and girlfriends made a bee line for the bar afterwards to mark out our spot for later on.
Dickmint (Richard Hurd) and myself made ourselves busy by spending the next few hours handing out tickets for our free TVR raffle with some of the most amazing prizes kindly contributed by the traders. Fair do's Dicky and myself had worked hard on obtaining these prizes and looking down the impressive prize list it showed.
There were sets of GAZ adjustable shock absorbers from Absolutely Shocks, several polishing kits, a set of polished wheel nuts from Shiny Nuts Ltd, two regalia vouchers from the TVRCC, we had rolling road time at Surrey Rolling Road Ltd, Some smart Pistonheads jackets and caps, polishing kits from the Polishing Company, toolkits from Toolsnstuff.com, sets of Wedge poly bush kits, money off re-veneering jobs by London Carriage Craft, a set of suspension rose jointed drop links from Tower View Race Services, several Wedge maintenance books supplied by Steve Heath Publications, keyfobs and some other bits from Toyo tyres, money off vouchers from ACT Performance Products and the list went on. It just showed the kindness and generosity of the traders in the TVR community.
The biggest prize for the day however was kindly donated by the guys at TVRcarparts.com (Neil Perry & crew) and Mark Adams. Dicky had managed to talk them out of a very expensive programmable ECU upgrade and a full rolling road setup of the chip in the lucky winners car by none other than V8 tuning guru Mark Adams. This prize the organisers of the BBWF decided to donate to Jeff Morgan's special Cystic Fibrosis Trust raffle.
All monies raised for this raffle were going to be donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust (which Jeff has a personal interest), he had already done some good work for the charity earlier on in the month and proved his bravery by 'jumping off a large cliff' to raise money for the trust. All afternoon he busily went about selling his raffle tickets with his Wife Linda and did a sterling job. [ The finally tally being £440. The monies were counted in front of a witness and were handed over to the CF Trust on the 10th of August 2005. Well done all. The news article can be found HERE. ]
Later on in the day a run out was organised (which I managed to drag Elaine out of the bar for). We went out for a good blast around theWarwickshire countryside accompanied by Dicky in his red SEAC in hot pursuit. All along the route we saw Wedges making their way around the excellent driving roads in the vicinity, it was amusing just to see so many Wedge cars on the road at one time. The local population are probably still pretty much traumatised. Wedge Data CD's were also handed out by Dave Simms during the day containing .PDF parts manuals, old TVR sales videos etc all for free. Continued [ HERE ] |
 |
