UK ESPRIT GT1(less) MEET
8th December 2002

The Plan was to meet up with Mike Sekinger's Esprit GT1 Replica, and to have a look before he takes it off to Italy. Mike couldn't make the meet (see below), but a few still braved the weather. It all turn out well in the end when a Lamboughini Diablo turn up for a spin.

Turnout

1 x Blue V8 — Mark Sweetland
1 x Orange GT3 — Mick Kremzer
1 x Red S4 — Dermot
1 x Red Turbo — Mark Blanchard
1 x White SE — Ian Rawlings
1 x White Turbo — Simon
1 x Diablo — Jeff
1 x Dave Nickless
1 x Micks mate in the M3

Missing

Mike's GT1

these were taken with a phone camera so excuse the quality

  

Weather on Sunday the 8th for our meeting at the M4 Services (J13) Newbury was not the best, freezing cold wind and light drizzle. After a few "Latte's" and "Cappuccino's" in the warmth of the services we headed off. The route is shown in the map (below), I think in the summer it would be a nice run, over the Chiltons, past Lambourn, and the Williams F1 headquarters.

We headed for the White Hart (www.pub-explorer.com) pub in the village of Fyfield, well know for its food and it has a decent car park.
Despite the 350/GT1not being there Sunday's run was still a great one. A small turnout but hey what quality!

 

Ian Rawlings View

The run was marred by rotten weather and slow traffic but it was still good fun driving around the roads in a convoy especially with the monster Diablo at the front just behind Dermot (of course). The only time we really managed to open the cars up was on a dual carriageway in which Dermot allegedly scorched the Diablo and my 1989 SE basket-case managed to keep up with Mark's 2002 V8, which is an achievement in itself! Some of the local drivers pulled over to let us past, which was nice.

 

We managed to lose about half the convoy a very short distance from our final destination and realised that we didn't really have any telephone numbers, so next time we'll be prepared for that, it's useful to be able to call people when you lose them. We went on to a very good pub where we hung around admiring the locals and eating, I did my best to hate Jeff (the Diablo owner) but failed miserably.

 

Those who ate said it was very good food but I'd had a burger at burger king so lost out :-(

The way home was dreadful, the traffic was terrible and I got lost after leaving the pub, but eventually arrived home very pleased with my car and still dreaming of selling everything (apart from the Esprit and the Landy) and buying a wrecked Diablo and doing it up.. Some other time perhaps!

 

Mike's Explanation for the now GT1(less) Meet

The explanation regarding the Sunday run is dead simple, the amount of time that I had was dramatically reduced, so it was just not possible to drive down to Newbury.

As it was I had to drive from Maidenhead to Worcestershire to collect the car. MHR needed to prep the car ready to go to the sprayshop for final polishing very first thing Monday morning. I still had to test the car, so instead I stayed local to Worcestershire. This made it much easier for Rob C as he simply came up the M50.

Route