Bath “MGs on Grass” 12th June  2011

We are all but the sum of our own experiences

Anon

Or reflections on the first:

M.G.s On Grass

(AKA MGOG)

(With added quotations)

(Ladies) And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

W. Shakespeare

Of course, there is time needed to set up the course and, in the case of the first M.G.s On Grass event, this was achieved on Saturday afternoon by Victoria Jones (the organiser) and helper who arrived at the site at Hartley Farm on the very edge of the Cotswold Hills, a few miles north of Bath and, in glorious sunshine, set out the 6 different tests that included and equal number of timed ‘speed’ and untimed ‘judgement’ extravagances. As she laboured the cows lowed, the birds sang, the butterflies flitted and there was even a hare that leaped through the long grass with unbridled joy in the summer sun—all practically perfect in fact.

It was the best of times—it was the worst of times

C. Dickens

The only fly in this idyllic ointment was the rather dour BBC weather forecast that suggested heavy rain all day on Sunday (the day of the event) but, predictably, it was wrong. The heavy rain didn’t start ‘till lunchtime and then it was encouraged, aided and abetted by gale force gusts. This was something of a pity as the event’s start was advertised as 2pm.

However we of the M.G. Car Club are made of pretty stern stuff and didn’t led a few drops of rain deter us from having fun—well, a somewhat diminished number of us anyway.

In the previous months of planning (available dates in the calendar that didn’t co-inside with schools half term to be ascertained, suitable land to be identified, landowners to be contacted, permissions sought, permits applied for, equipment to be gathered, safety paraphernalia to be assembled etc) it had all looked so promising with half a dozen entries sent in, on the right forms accompanied by cheque for £10, well before the event and two  or three times more verbally anticipating ‘on the line’ entry; however before lunch Andrew Smith rang to say he had had 2 punctures in his PB on his way over from Abergavenny and so had to retire home hurt, Jim Lot took many hours renovating the Metro’s rear brakes, only to be told by stepson Sam that he wanted the car on Monday, so chose to marshal rather than stay lounging about at home and several others, presumably, having taken one look at the weather chose to watch the Canadian F1 Grand Prix on TV (and that, I gather, was stopped by rain for a good while—hope the TV watchers were all jolly bored).

On the positive side we had the same number of marshals as competitors—and that is something you don’t hear that often !—however, rather disappointingly, there were only 5 of each. Should we proceed with the event or retire to the pub ?

Well, as over half of the entry had never attempted this sort of thing before, we thought it a shame to pack it in so the marshals, Victoria Jones, Ann Hawke, Jim Lott and Chris Leverett, dutifully trudged off to wo/man their posts and the select few fired their engines and set off with great gusto and no little abandon.

Now the trouble with holding events in such inclement weather is that it tends to test the grandiose assertions of the clothing industries ‘100% waterproof’ claims—after the first few months of wear, especially on the more expensive stuff. Very soon the elbow of the right arm that hangs out of the window gets wet—then you realise that the water on your lower legs has found its way to your skin—then the added cascade from your jacket lands in your lap and permeates where you’d rather it didn’t and so on.

Then again it can be a bit difficult to see the bollards used to mark out the course as both your glasses and the windscreen are wet on both sides and the consequent refractions, tough making pretty patterns, are not altogether helpful navigationally speaking. The towel you had thoughtfully included to cope with this eventuality was, by this time, drenched as were the 3 handkerchiefs in your sodden pockets.

Then there is the problem of the score cards that seemed to want to regress to the consistency porridge and resisted the most determined attempts to have numbers inscribed on them which will make the final scores even more fictional than usual.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

W. Shakespeare

There were, however a good miscellany of cars there: oldest was the J2 of Jeremy Hawke (who the prize for the most brave/foolhardy competitor as the J2 doesn’t have a hood and his light jacket was, on his own admission, one of the a large chain store’s more economical offerings), the TCs of Michael Packer and Peter Jones were joined by  Michael Searle in his MGBGT of (who suffered the indignity of having to be pushed off the start line of due to the fuel pump taking exception to the damp conditions—the brand new, all electric, never been known to fail, version is still in the box on his garage shelf—he did get it going again and finished the afternoon) and an MGF belonging to Roger Trotman.

Driving on grass in such clammy conditions is, once you discount the discomfort, quite exhilarating—a bit like driving on sheet ice. The great benefit is that you are in a wide open space, no other vehicles/houses/street furniture to bump into which give plenty of scope for learning car control on slippery surfaces (which the media news hounds always refer to as ‘treacherous’ for reasons that escape me) . The element of being ‘timed’ adds urgency and sideways drifts, opposite lock, steering by throttle and so on can all be experimented on at a mere 10-20 MPH in complete safety—something that people pay hundreds of pounds to do on the ‘skid pan’ down the road at Castle Combe !

One of the ‘judgement’ type tests was to park equidistantly between two posts—silly really but then, how often to you see other road users who have no idea how wide their vehicle is ? Learning these things is all helpful in every day road situations. As it says at the top—“We are all but the sum of our own experiences” so please be encouraged to experience as many different diving conditions as possible.

All attempted all six tests three times each (with the worst score being discounted) but with such a slender entry any victory will probably be pyrrhic.

A few quietly understated comments from those present, recorded after the onslaught:-

Michael Angwin  MGF—“I’ll have to wait for the adrenaline to go down before driving home !”

Peter Jones TC—“tremendous fun sloshing through the puddles and the car looks quite shiny when it’s wet”

Victoria Jones  Sec. of Meeting—Not been as wet as this since marshalling all day on Burledge on the BMC&LCC’s Allen Trial in 1996 !  Now comfortably dried out.  Great company on a wet day.

Jeremy Hawke  J2  I can honestly say I’d happily sell my house to repeat the fantastic experience amongst wonderful company, made even better by having the additional pleasure of those extra hours cleaning off all the cow-muck from crevices I didn’t even know the J2 had !

Everybody deserves at least 100 bonus championship points & the marshals should have a x3 multiplier applied to theirs !

Jim Lot  Marshall  Just a short note to say how much I enjoyed the event on Sunday. It’s not often I get to gather with like minded people that enjoy getting wet for fun (are we all a sandwich short of a picnic?). I did discover one thing on Sunday…My waterproofs aren’t… I was wetter that a wet thing that just got out of the river under my coat.  Watching the competitors having tail sliding moments on the course was great fun which is what MGOG is all about. Regardless of the weather, MG owners just want to have fun.  It did become difficult trying to write on sodden score cards with a pen that would write and then stop. Best use a pencil next time. Did I say next time of course I did wouldn’t want to miss it for anything.

Mike Serle  MGBGT  As a member who manages to attend only a few events each year, I am always impressed with the warm and friendly welcome I receive. This time was no exception and I was soon skidding around in Peter’s TC as he showed me a course marked out with road traffic cones on grass – “the key is never to go through a gate in a straight line”. You may remember the afternoon of 12th June as one spent indoors – perhaps you occasionally glanced outside and marvelled at the amount of water falling from the sky. Well, this didn’t deter a small group of enthusiasts as they put their cherished vehicles through their paces.  In my BGT I made an early ‘windows down’ decision to avoid the inevitable misting of the windscreen and subsequent problems with navigation. The downside of this strategy was that it made conditions inside the car pretty damp too – I just hope that my soggy time card will be legible once it dries out.

A great time was had by all and despite the weather; we proved once again that friendly competition, a soggy field, and the octagon badge are a winning combination. Finally, a word of warning. Always check the position of your friendly marshal before you speed away from the start line. This is especially important if the field has been used to keep cattle. Thank goodness for those waterproofs.

What a difference a day makes.

M. Grever

It is now Monday afternoon and as I sit here in a gloomy office struggling with the computer key board the sun outside is shining brightly once more as if to taunt me.  Just how wet was it on that fateful Sunday ?  Well when I came home I measured 1½” of water in the bucket I had inadvertently left by the back door before we left for the event a matter of hours before………..

Perhaps our next M.G.s On Grass (MGOG) event at Yatton on 7th August the weather will fair better—for more details of this and much, much more go to http://www.mgccsw.com/calendar/ See you there ?