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THE MINI MAG. Volume 2 No.2 |  |
 February 2000Vol.2 Home Page | Index Page |
Another great day out in the mini. The weather once again was kind to us, which was the perfect start to a great day. 
Nine Mini's started the rally at several control points, mine being at the Brisbane Sporting Car Club rooms at Montague Road West End at 8.00am. Each car was required to have both a driver and navigator. My sister Nicole was my navigator for the day. At this point, we were checked in, cars inspected for correct operation of lights and horn, licences handed in, and car numbers distributed.At 8.15am all cars were given their first set of instructions for the rally. By 8.20am most Drivers and Co-drivers, me included, were having their first dispute. If it wasn't how to read the map or how to follow the instructions, it was "What does TL, KL, CB mean?. Turn left, keep left, and head city bound. This was the making of a very interesting day. All the entrants worked their way from their first nominal control point to the official start at South Bank. Another set of instructions and questions was given to the teams at South Bank as we started to work our way through either the North or South sides of town. Between arguing about directions, we had to answer basic observation questions, some proved to be quite tricky but this aspect proved to be the easiest of the tasks ahead. Having completed the first stage, Northside for us, which took us to Scarborough and back to South Bank, (after being held up by Saturday morning traffic, numerous red lights while we watched our rising temperature gauges), we handed in our answers and received the next stage papers. By this time several cars had pulled out due to mechanical problems and unfortunately one was a mini. Bad luck Glen, fortunately nothing serious. Being Northsiders, our second stage "Southside", proved to be difficult. Tony and Cathy Formosa however, managed to add to the fun for the day. When heading for an "off street" park Tony decided to do "Four Wheel Driving", straight down into a gully ending up with one front and one rear wheel in the air! As we approached the stranded couple, a lot of waving indicated that help was needed. If only we had a camera! After a quick push we were all on our way again. Well done Tony! Seven hours after the official start we had found new ways around Brisbane and managed to arrive at our final destination, "The Brisbane Sporting Car Club, where we had a chat and a BBQ lunch to celebrate another fantastic day out. After the BBQ a small collection of cars formed a display outside the Brisbane Motor Show bringing in quite a few lookers as the winners of the day were announced and given their prizes. Out of all the makes entered which included Mustangs, MG's, Alfa's, Corvette's, and numerous modern cars, the Mini's made up the greatest number of the entrants for the same make of vehicle - Nine mini's, out of fifty odd cars. The legend lives once again Thanks go to all the organisers for this well planned motor rally event. Andrew Wright |