BRRMM! BRRMM! BROMLEY PAGEANT 2001

It was early on a Sunday morning, and the sun was shining in contrast to the week before when the sprint meeting had been damp and miserable, but then that’s North Weald for you, even in the middle of June. Today’s event was a little different, no cars racing around a circuit as quick as their drivers could push them, and in some cases too quick! No, today was the biggest one day classic car show in the world, Bromley Pageant of Motoring.
The Astra had been loaded the night before with the equipment needed for the day, and arrangements had been made with the other members of the team to arrive to about 7.30 am to avoid the inevitable queues to get onto Norman Park, the venue for the day’s little shindig.
The trip to Bromley proved uneventful if a little slow behind several “classic” cars that were also en-route to the show, but there was time in hand and so no point in blasting past them. Having entered the massive showground the stewards on the gate were directing traffic to their stands. A spotty faced individual who looked as though he was on holiday from his job in a DIY superstore pointed to the right and instructed me to turn left, management material there I thought.
I found the area we had been allocated, and was relieved to see one of my team, Stuart “engineering genius” Giles, unloading the SRG1A, a potent V8 powered single seater built from scratch in his garage. I quickly unloaded the equipment from the Astra and parked it up out of the way alongside Stuart’s Discovery and trailer.
The club’s stand began to take shape with the erection of the Gazebo recently purchased by the money man of our operation Neil B-J, and before long the other two members of today’s team arrived, having managed to negotiate the traffic chaos outside. Daren Hall, our ex British Rally champion had brought one of his fleet of Novas along, the 2 litre 16 valve engined car that he was hoping to sell to pay some of the bills likely to be incurred in running an ex works Nissan Sunny rally car. The third member of the team was Graham Pryme who was recently back from a tour of duty based in Darwin. He had brought his Matra Mureena that he uses for sprints and I was hoping that this unusual vehicle with its three abreast seating layout would cause some interest.
The Gazebo went up without too many dramas and with the display boards showing photos of the club’s events, including the sadly defunct sprint at Crystal Palace, the stand was at last ready to receive the public.
The show was opened by some guy who had done a bit of Motor Racing in the past, called something Moss I think. Daren went over to get his program autographed by him, and came back to show the rest of us this tiny mark in the centre that could have been anything.
Around 11am one of the event organisers came onto the stand. He was trying to drum up interest in the parade of competition vehicles in the arena and asked if Graham would like to display the Mureena. I collared the guy and asked if he’d be interested in having a real competition car, the SRG, and having persuaded him that Stuart could drive it slowly, the gullible fool, we had two cars in the competition car class.
The parade was not scheduled until 2pm so we decided to check out some of the opposition’s stands to see what we would be dealing with. The Borough 18 boys were next to us with a Formula Ford and a couple of Rally cars, no problems there. Dave Jacobs, a name well known to us was running the Sutton and Cheam mob’s stand and had brought along several of his cars including the Mk1 Lotus Cortina and the 6R4, it looked as though things could get tough. Daren had a good look round the Metro but decided that the £65,000 price tag might require a bank robbery. Another 6R4 almost caused him to lose his normal cool, as this particular Metro was in full factory spec, had done 26 miles from new as a BL display car and had never been used in anger.  We all agreed this was a crying shame and Daren did offer to try the car out on a couple of rallies to make sure it was OK, but the owner declined, maybe he was not as stupid as we had thought.
The scheduled time slot for our jaunt around the arena came and went, it seemed just as difficult to organise classic car owners as it is sprint competitors and the programme was inevitably running late. Eventually the call came through and Graham led off our contingent in the silver Mureena followed by Stuart with the SRG. Now a classic car show is not the best environment for a large V8 engined, and, from what Stuart had been saying, soon to be even larger courtesy of a TVR, single seater. We were concerned about overheating as well as the fact that it was running with a light weight battery that would only be good for a couple of re-starts. Fortunately we had planned for this and I followed with the external battery pack.
Once the cars had trundled into the arena they were supposed to do a parade lap, park in a line and then drive out to be interviewed by the event commentator. Now we had come across this guy the year before, and knew he was from the Murray Walker school and he did not disappoint us. Graham’s car was greeted with the comment that Matra hasn’t much of a competition history. Now I may be wrong but didn’t Sir JYS win his first F1 championship with one and Hill senior won Le-Mans with one of their sports cars. Stuart’s car was described initially as a Formula Ford(!) and then as a Formula 5000.
After the interview the cars drove back around and into line and although the on-board battery had managed to start the car it would not have the strength for another start so the external pack would have to be used. After what seemed ages, mainly due to the cringe making comments of the commentator, we finally got to the awards. The judging at Bromley had always been a bit strange, and we had seen cars win that to our mind had no right to.  A couple of years ago an immaculate MK 1 Escort was the winner with its only claim to a competitive history being that it had done a couple of Drag races! With this in mind we waited for the winners to be read out. Third place, Dave Jacobs’ Lotus Cortina, Second place the Fiat 500 (like I said the judging has always been a bit odd) and finally first place the V8 hillclimb car. I hastily plugged in the battery pack and the V8 burbled into life for Stuart to drive out to collect his trophy and have his photo taken, a little bit of recognition for the not inconsiderable achievement of building a racing car from scratch. We then made our way back to the stand, having to push the SRG, as the heat and lack of air through the rads had finally resulted in it overheating.
The day slowly drew to a close and we hadn’t had as many punters as the previous year, but hey that’s the way it goes, and at least we were all going home with a suntan. Eventually with all the gear packed up and thanks said to the team members, Graham, Daren and Stuart, we made our way home. There will be another Pageant next year and a few plans have been hatched to raise our profile so watch out Bromley—we’ll be back!

Colin Shipway

The Acorn : August Edition