Sunday equals fun day

Another sunny Sunday so what else would club members do but organise a club run to give the cars an opportunity to tackle some of the twistier B roads in County Antrim.

Meeting point this time was McDonalds at Junction One. Dave and Chris were early arrivals and even though Dave couldn’t join us for the drive Chris insisted that he came along at the start to buy him his breakfast!!

When I arrived I didn’t know whether to be worried or not as it appeared that the Mafia had turned up too – a menacing black Lancia Thesis sat prominently in the car park.  As it turned out it was Harpo who had decided to join us and put the Lancia with its Maserati suspension to the test on some of the challenging B roads. Others arrived shortly afterwards and the carpark definitely had an Italian theme with Alfa Romeo being the best represented brand. Paul Leckey had decided to bring his 1999 Alfa Romeo 156 Twinspark and give his Bertone a rest and Steve had his first outing in his yellow Mito Cloverleaf – not too many of these about. With Guilias old and new, Tom’s Alfa Spider, my GT Coupe and Alastair’s Alfasud Sprint the line up was complete.

After breakfast fuel we headed towards Randalstown and following the B roads went cross country via Ahoghill Rd, Portgelnone Rd, Cullbackey Rd, Kilrea Rd before arriving at our lunch destination – Hullabaloos at Riverside Retail Park.  Despite an extensive menu some of us exercised restraint and went for a healthy Caesar Salad, others enjoyed a more substantial feed but none of us were disappointed.

As we left the restaurant it was pleasing to see a Fiat 128 3P in the carpark.  We had a good chat with its owner, Ken Smyth who told us about his ownership experience and the work he had done to the car – a real credit to him. We were all impressed with its originality and hope to see Ken again in a couple of weeks at the car show being organised by Dollingstown Classic Car Club in the Stormont Estate.

I headed on to Portrush to a family fun day at Kelly’s complex where the Porsche owner’s Club were displaying a selection of vehicles. The other club members headed back cross country to Antrim and then departed for home. The cars all performed well and everyone enjoyed some safe but spirited driving on a range of  challenging roads – the quality of the road surface on some coupled with a few hidden dips and bumps meant that we had to be careful to avoid any unwelcome damage to the cars.

Once again we had a healthy turnout with 10 cars and it was great to see some different faces and meet new people.

 

Tim Logan

Club Chairman