What started off as an idea at Helen’s birthday meal came to life on Sat 28th June…

After months of preparation by numerous people who I’ll name later, myself and Sarah (Sez) arrived in the Flying Legends car park at 6 o’clock ready to set up and send people on the hunt. Already waiting for us were two cars that had come from Goole, and we were pleased that word had obviously got round about the event.

Slowly more and more cars turned up and by 6.45pm we had 26 cars ready to go. There was a nice selection including BMW M3, Ford Ka, Sapphire Cosworth, Corsas, Peugeot 307, Golf Cabriolet, and many more…

Once the instructions were given from on top of Trev’s bonnet, the running order was decided by picking numbers out of a hat then the cars lined up ready to go.

Trev and Baz were the first to set off at exactly 7 o’clock in the trusty (or should that say “rusty”) Nova, and then the rest of the cars left at one minute intervals. After the cars had left the car park, Dave and I collected the camper van and all the equipment for the finish. After arriving at the Stockton on the Forest pub car park, Dave and I sat and waited patiently for news of the runners.

Two hours after the start Sarah rang to say the first car had been to her check point running half an hour behind time, at this point we started to wonder if we had made a mistake with the length of the route. Another phone call was received from Nick in his Nissan Primera to say he had reached Scawton which was one of the scheduled stops. The problem was that he had rung Danny’s Dad for directions and had been sent to the wrong Scawton; he was at Scorton near Northallerton……….

Don’t think he’ll be allowed to forget that!

At 10 o’clock my parents came to see the cars coming back in, we were in for a long wait……..

A few more phone calls were received to say that people were running late and struggling to find the answers to the questions on Oliver’s Mount, which were all at the monument. After a seriously long time, one or two people decided that they’d had enough and headed back towards York. This included Dawn who had taken 3 hours to reach the check point at Malton, and three others for various reasons.

By this time it was nearing 10.30pm and we still didn’t have any cars back at the finish, my parents and Sam (Danny’s girlfriend) took the camper and all the equipment for the BBQ round to the field before it became to dark.

Slowly but surely cars started arriving back at 10.45pm. What a relief it was to see Dom and Stretch come back! When Stretch lifted his bonnet the down pipe on his exhaust was glowing red, not bad for a 1.4 Saxo! Nick arrived back from his little excursion to the wrong Scawton; he was very quiet for some reason….!

Once people arrived back, we took the answer papers from each car and started marking, in the meantime people made their way to the camping field. They must have got as much of a surprise as I did when I pulled in through the gate - all you could see were a string of fairy light draped across the camper and food all laid out ready to eat.

At 12.30am the last car rolled in much to our relief. After a very stressful night for those of us who organised the event it was time to get to the field and relax.

The last thing to do was to announce the winners:

1) Ian (Stretch) and Lisa, Saxo 1.4
2) Dom and Karen, BMW M3
3) Frank and Scraft, Pug 106 Rally
4) Rob and Helen, Honda Civic Type R

We collected the money for camping and food, which most people donated towards generously - thank you all very much for that. A quick game of pass the parcel was set up with the use of Buzz’s sound system in his Corsa, and with that it was time for Sez and I to finally put our feet up and enjoy some food. We stayed up talking till 4 in the morning and the sun was coming up.

Thank you to all who kept the field tidy and especially Dawn! We woke up at 9 o’clock to find Chris and Beki were the only people left, but the field was spotless. At 2.30 on Sunday afternoon we finally left the field as we found it and thanks to this we have been offered the use of it as a venue for further events of this nature.

People we must thank for there support and help:

Sponsors

1) Startafresh - for the cold food provided
2) Badgerhill Bakery - for the bread buns and for the use of the generator and fairy lights
3) Halfords - for the Autoglym prize
4) Camerons - for the goody bags and trolley jack
5) Kershaws - for the rolling road session
6) Motosave - for the 1:18 scale models
7) Unicar of Doncaster - for the jackets and power wash
8) Wetherspoons - for the champagne
9) Grayfin Associates Ltd - for the webcam and joystick
10) Harpers - for a cash donation of £60
11) Chase Performance – for the induction kit and hosing
12) Fast lane - for the printing of flyers and application forms

Helpers

1) Sarah - for the massive amount of time spent sorting all the questions out and masses of paper work
2) Andy - for the design and printing work
3) My parents and Sam (Danny’s girlfriend) - for setting up and looking after the BBQ
4) The farmer - for providing a venue for camping and trusting us not to make a nuisance of ourselves!
5) G - for storing the food during Sat and not eating it all!
6) Mark (yorkproton) and C.C - for helping Sarah at Malton
7) Buzz - for the use of his car during pass the parcel
8) Last but not least, everyone who turned up and trusted me (and didn’t slap me when they got back) in setting the event up

Thanks to your participation and support we raised £200 for Macmillan Cancer Relief.

Cheers again to everyone involved.

Heres to the next one…….