British Invasion

Back from my third British Invasion (the first year I just visited, and last year I was there with Jason & Keith).
For this years visit a MINI2 thread got Jason (again) along with Gavin, Ricardo and Rich – and some MINI owners I have not met before including another Jason with an unusual VR MCS!
While it rained heavily in Massachusetts, we stayed dry – an overnight shower left us with clearing skies and eventual sun! This year the new MINIs were recognized as a separate class to the classics; we had 10 including a convertible and a late arrival from Hrach – the convertible drew the lions share of attention – most people have not seen one up close – and it also drew first place in the “peoples choice” awards!

GBMINI came away with second place, and the “VR MCS” got third place – no doubt due to the sun reflecting on its roof. As well as the new MINIs, there were many classic Minis and other British cars.
After the MINI awards, Jason again led us on a local drive, including Smugglers Notch and a couple of photo-ops:

Sunday morning is much less formal, with cars parked by color instead of class, and events including driving a figure 8 course with the driver blindfolded(!), and the tailgate picnic competition – my absolute favourite was Nightmare Before Christmas:

If you love British cars, MINIs or otherwise, put next years British Invasion on your calendar!
Thanks again to Jason for leading us on the run, and to all my MINI owning friends for a great day 🙂

Back from our British Invasion weekend in Stowe. Drove a total of 583 miles – including an AMAZING 100 mile round-trip to nowhere planned and led by Jason Ross (“snid” on MINI2) who lives in the area and clearly knows it very well! Thank you again Jason! And I hope you find new employment soon (he was one of the many people recently laid off by IBM).
We arrived in Stowe at 5:30pm Friday evening, collected our registration package (which included a red coolbag gift) and checked in to the Olde England Inne, directly opposite the show field. Hurricane Isabel remained quite kind, with only light rain during our drive up.
Saturday morning I got up at 8, and spent half an hour wiping all the dirt off GBMINI before meeting Jason, and driving with him onto the show field, where I also met Keith (mudbud) on MINI2).

 

In total there were 8 or 9 new MINIs – but none of us got any prize! People still prefer the old Minis I guess (maybe next year we will get our own class). There was a long delay with the award giving on Saturday afternoon, so four of us left the show field early; we followed Jason on the 100 mile loop drive which, including scenic stops and a short walk on (a very small part of) “The Long Trail”, got us back to Stowe at 7:30pm.

After that we all enjoyed a great Thai dinner at “Red Basil” in Stowe, then headed our separate ways.

This morning Margaret & I left the Inne and followed route 100 south, down through Woodstock before joining the Interstate. Including many scenic stops and dinner, it took us 8 hours to drive the 240 miles home!

GBMINI claims 34.5mpg at an average 47.8mph … but the mpg estimate is always overconfident; I guess 31-32mpg but after filling in Stowe this morning and driving home, I am still at half a tank!

We decided to go up to this “British Invasion” event we’d heard of, in Stowe, VT; Tthere were loads of Minis and MINIs there (GBMINI was not part of the field events, we just visited) …