I am a member of the Mini Car Club of Auckland. We had a 40th aniversary celebration on the
28th August 1999. We held it in a carpark behind the North Habour Stadium on the North Shore.
We were expecting between 300 and 500 cars, according to some of the committee
members. I thought that this was optimistic. It turned out that about 250 cars
turned up. This was very impressive. The largest number of mini's I've seen
before was about 90 at the Palmerston North Nationals last year.
These three pictures are courtesy of Penny Brooks who drove all the way from Fielding to be here.
We had the facilities of BMW's truck. I'm not sure what the truck was for, but it
was BIG, it had a generator, a platform on the roof, and a great big awening
thing to stand under. Perhaps it was to promote BMW at events like this? It did a good job.
The other major sponser to turn up was Maguire's (spelt badly), an american
polish company. We were also sponsered by Dunlop, Bridgestone, Racepro and
some others that I've forgotten. They provided prizes for the various events.
We had a tyre changing competititon. 1:01 to take the wheel off run 5 metres
to get another one bring it back and put it on. We had a wheel rolling
competition, where you had to guide a wheel around a small course, and we also
had a mini painting event. Nathan's mini was masked off and people were let
loose with paint brushes and tins of fast drying enamel. An Austin Powers
theme emerged. These pictures are also courtesy of Penny. They capture it's state about half way through the
exercise. The car has been repainted on one side since the event s the assembled painters wrote rude things on that side.
From a distance it looks rather good, and certainly eyecatching. It is only when you get close that you see it was done with
brushes...
The show and shine competition was divided into the usual catagories. The one
car that stuck out for me was a burgandy clubman with a turbo. It was very
well presented, and had some interesting touches. The doors had clever
handles, recessed into the frame in the B piller. There were no locks. The
boot had no handle at all. I didn't get to talk to the owner unfortunatly. I didn't get a picture of the door handles either :-/
There was a lengthened mini with about two and half minis cut up and stuck
together. It had the front of a mini cut just behind the B piller. Then it had
the front of another mini cut in the same place and the two were welded back
to back (think of those cars with two fronts). The front of the back mini was
cut off and the back of a third mini welded onto that. I don't think this was
the order that it was done, but that is how I'm describing it. It had 4 doors,
two in the normal position and two opening the other way behind the front
ones. It had seating for at least 6 inside.
There was a shortened mini, so short that the rear wheels were inside the
doors. It has an engine as powerful as mine in it and according to the owner
handled brilliantly. Murrey Lockie has driven it and says that it is
diabolical. Apparently you put your foot down and it changes lanes.... He was
very scared driving it. In fact he said he would feel safer dirving with me
than driving in the shortened mini! That's saying quite a lot. Unfortunatly, that guy got in the way with his
sholder just as I was taking the picture. You can't see it, but the back wheel is partially inside the door.
There was a 6 wheeled ute based on a normal mini ute. It had a vertical
exhaust coming out behind the driver, and a wooden bed significantly wider
than the rest of the car.
We convoyed to the Domain, probably about 10 or 15km away. We got many amazed
looks, and caused a HUGE traffic jam in the city. We drove down Cook street,
into mayoral drive and down Queen street, what could be called the main street
of central auckland. It took a VERY long time to get down queen street as we'd
jamed it up very well. We went round and round the domain a few times and
filled up the carpark and stood around talking for a while before going home.
We had a dinner in the evening but not many people turned up. There was food
and cake and a bit of dancing to bad music. The cake was good. In fact I've
still got some :-)
I've got Sky TV's raw footage from their coverage of the 40th celebrations.
I'll bring them along to next week's clubnight. I haven't viewed it yet, as I
don't have a video player at the moment :-/
The nationals at Palmerston North were a bit chaotic with 90 or so cars, and
it was there was only just enough time to do all the motorkahna and speed
events. I don't know how we will cope next year when we hold the nationals.
We had a tyre changing competititon. 1:01 to take the wheel off run 5 metres
to get another one bring it back and put it on. We had a wheel rolling
competition, where you had to guide a wheel around a small course, and we also
had a mini painting event. Nathan's mini was masked off and people were let
loose with paint brushes and tins of fast drying enamel. An Austin Powers
theme emerged. These pictures are also courtesy of Penny. They capture it's state about half way through the
exercise. The car has been repainted on one side since the event s the assembled painters wrote rude things on that side.
From a distance it looks rather good, and certainly eyecatching. It is only when you get close that you see it was done with
brushes...
The show and shine competition was divided into the usual catagories. The one
car that stuck out for me was a burgandy clubman with a turbo. It was very
well presented, and had some interesting touches. The doors had clever
handles, recessed into the frame in the B piller. There were no locks. The
boot had no handle at all. I didn't get to talk to the owner unfortunatly. I didn't get a picture of the door handles either :-/
There was a lengthened mini with about two and half minis cut up and stuck
together. It had the front of a mini cut just behind the B piller. Then it had
the front of another mini cut in the same place and the two were welded back
to back (think of those cars with two fronts). The front of the back mini was
cut off and the back of a third mini welded onto that. I don't think this was
the order that it was done, but that is how I'm describing it. It had 4 doors,
two in the normal position and two opening the other way behind the front
ones. It had seating for at least 6 inside.
There was a shortened mini, so short that the rear wheels were inside the
doors. It has an engine as powerful as mine in it and according to the owner
handled brilliantly. Murrey Lockie has driven it and says that it is
diabolical. Apparently you put your foot down and it changes lanes.... He was
very scared driving it. In fact he said he would feel safer dirving with me
than driving in the shortened mini! That's saying quite a lot. Unfortunatly, that guy got in the way with his
sholder just as I was taking the picture. You can't see it, but the back wheel is partially inside the door.
There was a 6 wheeled ute based on a normal mini ute. It had a vertical
exhaust coming out behind the driver, and a wooden bed significantly wider
than the rest of the car.
We convoyed to the Domain, probably about 10 or 15km away. We got many amazed
looks, and caused a HUGE traffic jam in the city. We drove down Cook street,
into mayoral drive and down Queen street, what could be called the main street
of central auckland. It took a VERY long time to get down queen street as we'd
jamed it up very well. We went round and round the domain a few times and
filled up the carpark and stood around talking for a while before going home.