I am going to wait for the official Lands End Results to come out before finalising the full-blown report. Meanwhile, here are a few notes.

I really enjoyed my Lands End. It was three years since I had driven in the event and the priority was to enjoy it, I was not to be disappointed. I’m sure the weather must have helped. Everyone seemed to be happy and I’m sure the organisers will have ingratiated themselves to the MCC committee as the event seemed to finish early if anything.

My Beetle seemed to be in good shape after The March Hare and there was none of the terrible shimmies that McPherson strut Beetles suffer from, after the re-bushing of the front suspension just before the lay-off. Mike Hayward was back in the passengers seat and we started our “eat meals at the normal time” policy with a proper dinner at a pub just before the Popham start.
We enjoyed the “night” run, where we saw the sun go down about half way to Bridgewater, the benefit of an early number. We hadn’t realised from the paperwork that there wasn’t going to be any petrol at the consolidation control. However, we decided not to go out in search of some during the rest period but it turned out not to be an issue as there were several garages open on the way out of the town.

The highlight of the night occurred on the way to Felons Oak when we were overtaken by half a dozen of the local boy racers in their hot hatches who lined up across the road in front of us, three abreast, in a well practised rolling start, before blasting off on the wrong side of the road.

After Felons Oak we came across Neil by the side of the road with a very poorly Primrose. There had been horrible noises coming from one of the front wheels and it got so bad he couldn’t go any further. While he was taking it apart the local law arrived and we feared we were obstructing the Queens highway or that they would start looking for splits in the tyres. But no, he wanted to help and even went home to get some grease in case it was possible to repack the bearing.

 Unfortunately it was to no avail as the inner bearing on the Triumph Herald upright was completely destroyed so it was an Arthur’s Autos job for Primrose, while Neil and Julie got a hire car from Bristol Airport and went on down to Cornwall to offer moral support.

The sections were all very dry and we climbed Cutliffe Lane for only the second time. We weren’t so lucky at Darracott, where wrong pressures, wrong stopping place and bad clutch control meant we didn’t move when Brian Alexander dropped the restart flag. Apart from that we think we cleaned all the other sections. Lets see if the MCC agree!