October Swimmers Part II
Southrun 12
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Up at 7am, the car still shiny and waxed from Saturday with the electric polisher and an hour and a half drive to the Cotswold Farm Park to meet up for the twelfth Southrun.
It amazes me still to this day that everything from the Maserati to the Esprit's that attended still get an amazing amount of attention from the public. A customer who was visiting the Farm Park even commented "Wow, what a bonus this is" while frantically taking pictures of each an every car. And what a change for Southrun this time around, more Esprit's than Elise, even a Porsche 944.
As I didn't know this route off the top of my head, we grabbed someone who knew the route and plonked him in the Maserati to set off first. Myself trailing, I got to hear the crackle of the MC12, a stunning sound, and then later swapping places with the red Esprit behind.
We were very lucky, the weather was fairly clear, no rain what so ever which was a complete opposite to that of Southrun 2 (October Swimmers Part I), still, the afternoon even ended by warming up with bright sunshine.
Unfortunately for the MC12, it was far too large and powerful for the A and B Roads of the Cotswolds to get the same edgy trip that us Elise drivers got to experience. Driving through some of the sleepy towns and villages of Gloucestershire drew more attention from waves from kids to loud comments from passers by, all good thankfully.
Unfortunately for me, I got split up at a set of traffic lights in the last several miles of the route. At an important Y-split in the road I ended up taking two other cars left instead of right, ARGH! Still luckily I twigged a mile or two down the road. Steve in the Elise pulled left and went back to the junction and the Porsche had already carried on to find an alternative route, but got a bit stuck when he tried to short cut into a single track muddy lane. I had carried on along the road that the Porsche had used but went further on and found some quiet manic unclassified roads going all the way back to Bourton-on-the-Water.
Thankfully I finally found Bourton and everyone else had already arrived.
I need to thank the owners of the Farm Park for being understanding in allowing us to park up and use their cafe facilities at short notice (that being that we had just turned up). Thank you also to all those to attended and especially to Rick for bringing his fantastic Maserati along for us to see and hear.
The next run is likely to be the end of November in Cornwall which will be a special event.