The Naked Rallye with Blue Steels

[Orta]

FastCar might not be the most respected of motoring publications this side of 2004 but it has seen off Max Power and gone some lengths to shed it's chav-tastic past and whilst I would still never pick one up off the shelves over a Performance French Car, or even a Practical Performance Car... or Fast Ford tbh, it's still a car mag and it's about the only one active on twitter.

Why do I mention one of only two social media apps I use? (The other being linkedin) well a month or so ago they tweeted saying that they were seeking particular cars (Link to a list was included) to showcase on the "Power to the People" stand at their upcoming and inaugural "Fast Car Festival". I checked the festival out; a full weekend affair with camping from Friday through to Sunday hosted at Donington Park. Whilst the camping for me wasn't necessary as I'm less than an hour from Donington. I checked the list out and found out they were after some French cars, I read down it seeing the usual "Renaultsport Megane, Renaultsport Clio, and what a surprise... they wanted a 205 GTi, but my jaw almost dropped when it specifically said they were after a 306 Rallye. Not a GTi, an actual Rallye. So I tweeted them back with a picture of the Rallye and said if you don't mind it being a bit modified I'd be happy to come along.

I got an email jetted back to me saying the car was perfect and they'd be issuing two free weekend tickets worth £50. A win I thought...

So the Saturday morning rolls around, I'd done a fairly rushed clean of the car the night before and off I went. Arrived oodles too early to an almost empty showground and was greeted warmly by an organiser. I parked up and sat with some breakfast for a while and waited for the rest of the cars to roll in. From the list of cars they'd been after I was expecting quite a few and had strategically picked my spot so I wasn't getting boxed in.
8.30 rolls along, which I'd been told was the cut off for getting cars onto the stand and my original copy of a 205, an MX-5 and a very nice Volvo T5, had only been supplemented by a turbo'd CTR, a mark 2 Astra GTe and a brand new Mustang (At £40k or whatever they are that's hardly a "car of the people"). 9am passes with the addition of a BMW coupe in crayon blue and that's about it...

So I had a mooch around, and there were other stands there from other magazines in the main showground. Retro Ford, Retro Japanese, Fast Ford, Performance Vauxhall etc. and then maybe half a dozen club stands (100% Ford, Vauxhall or Civics) out in the "club area". There was a strong Lotus presence as the show was semi-sponsored by them, but once you've seen one Elise / Exige you've seen them all right?

I had to PAY for a festival guide, otherwise there was no map or itinerary available at all. All the Caterham passenger rides had sold out by 9.30 as there were so limited numbers and all the actual "stuff" was scheduled for the Sunday... so I spent Saturday watching the triple barrel challenge (Essentially drift cars skidding around barrels) and some track stuff. Then at about 3pm I was bored and went home...

Sunday I thought I'd give it another go, even convinced the Mrs to come. We got there a bit later (around 8.45) and the main club area was a lot busier, "excellent I thought" it's stepped up a bit.

We had a wander around all the metal first off (Pics over in my show thread on "Meets and Photos"), then had a ride in a monster truck, had a gawk at the Aston Martin Vulcan and then poddled over to see Tiff Needell, scheduled to start at 11:00 at the main stage. After he didn't turn up until gone noon I wasn't really interested in what he had to say so we wandered off to have a BBQ on the park benches in the centre of the circuit as at 12:20 the Lotus club had a dedicated track session on the itinerary followed by the dedicated pistonheads - advanced driver's one immediately afterwards. So we sat and waited and ate burgers... and not a single car appeared. At 13:20 the first lot of cars appeared for the usual novice track day session...

Dejected we headed back out to find where they were to be announcing best club stand... best wheels etc. all of which was scheduled for 2pm-3pm. Nothing announced, nothing happened.

We had an ice cream and wandered around to watch the guys on the barrels (as the mrs hadn't seen this) to find not a soul was doing in, and the only entertainment was the guy organising it trying to drum up some business. We had one final look around the mediocre trader's bit incase we'd missed any freebies and found the club stands beyond almost deserted (this was about 3pm). So we just hopped back in our car and went.

So all in all, the show was free so I can't grumble and some of the cars WERE awesome. But there was no organisation, and nowhere near enough content to fill two days. It could've easily been just the Sunday or just the Saturday. Disappointing... especially as I'd taken the time off work especially. Anyway, could of pics of the Rallye in it's company..







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