Anyway.
It was foggy when we arrived. I say we. I mean me and two other random Beetle owners who in no way were mates, friends, accomplices or associated with me in any way. Why did this matter?
BNMAC by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
(added
bstardchild matte black SL action). It mattered because BNAMC. Or Billy No-Mates Automobile Club stand to give our small, dank foggy corner of the Goodwood Motor Circuit its full appellation. A club formed from disparate elements disenfranchised from the masses, either too mutant or too antisocial to be deemed acceptable in any social gathering and welcomed into any other kind of club.... or is it a crafty double-bluff? After all, the great Groucho Marx himself once said "I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member" Hmmmmm...
Arrival in the fog by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Anyway, it was foggy. I'd lost count of the number of invisible cyclists I'd nearly collected on the trip over Bury Hill... their obstinately dull lack of hi-viz and cavalier attitude towards road placement speaking volumes for their sense of entitlement and blithe ignorance of the handling and steering capabilities of a 47 year old Volkswagen in an emergency situation. Somehow we arrived without ending up with a lycra warrior as a bonnet ornament. Our complete lack of stand passes seemed to mean little.
HoTWire mumbled a few "aahs" and "errms" in a delightfully indecisive way and then did the proper managerial thing and delegated us to a flunky as quickly as possible. Fortunately
VIP was motivated enough to be up out of his lawn chair (well it
was a bit chilly that early on) and recognised me... promptly denying everyone else at the entire event the peace and quiet that would have been bestowed by chucking me out immediately as an undesirable... and waved us through.
....and through. And through. The BNMAC stand was almost in East Sussex, pretty much halfway back to my house in fact. I could have had half an hour more in bed if I'd known. Alright, it wasn't that far away. But it was
pretty far. Other than the SL and
gewy 's bronze Miata (and I'm very sorry for not twiggin who you were until it was too late) the BNAMC was deserted... appropriately enough, I guess. We parked. A Goodwood flunky in a Hi-viz and a golf cart charged up and screamed at us for parking on the grass.
"It's a working airfield you know!" he puffed in inchoate rage, blowing for breath in righteous indignation like Gordon hauling the Troublesome Trucks up the hill.
"we're not
on the grass" we tried, half-heartedly, wilting in the face of such unexpected ire
"Your back wheel is" he pointed at the nearest of us. No, I'm not naming names. We in BNMAC stand or fall together. Whoever the hell we are. I tried hard to purge images of the inflatable Headmaster from
the Wall being trashed by his fat and psychopathic wife before getting in his golf cart and screaming at random people all day.
Lewis errrrr one of our number apologetically moved forward the requisite one wheels' width until no part of our vehicles encroached on the
invisible plane of the goal-line hallowed and operational airfield while the other two of us looked for the laden Antonov that was clearly inbound hot and requiring those extra five inches of clearance in order to make its landing successfully. The Headmaster roared off ... inasmuch as it's possible to roar off in a golf cart... as he spotted an infringement further round Woodcote. A trail of self-importance and righteous fury followed in his wake like the musty scent of the male menopause crushing his hopes and dreams
I struggled to suppress
that Scottish accent playing on a loop in the back of my mind...new car caviar four star daydream think I'll buy me a football team... poems everybody. The laddie fancies himself a poet... cane crack over knuckles....get on with yer work, laddie
Fortunately,
Ada another nameless member of the BNMAC Massive started cleaning (he called it detailing) his car so that distracted our attention while we took the curse word out of him for a bit. After a while even that lost its attraction so I wandered up the track a bit to look at some cars.
Escort MkII blue 78 by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Celica GTFour red 91 by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Escort screamer by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Strange mix of J-tin and Escorts randomly chucked together, but some cool stuff to trunk at. Never really "got" 924s. Look too much like an RX-7 (or is it the other way round) and all that stuff about Audi/VAG van engines is hard to shake off. This turbo in a downright superb colour goes a long way towards dispelling my prejudices though
924 Turbo grey 80 by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
924 Turbo grey 80 d by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
You'd think after eleven years of RX-7 FD ownership I'd miss mine bitterly, but every time I see one it mostly serves to remind me of how bleeding glad I am to have flogged mine. Don't miss it at all in any way, shape or form. Talk about a monkey off your back! They still look great though, especially in profile. Lovely shaped thing, all organic curves like melted chocolate. If only the engines weren't made from chocolate as well
RX-7 and friends by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
So that was our first experience of other "normal" humans and their cars at the inaugural
Retro Rides Weekender At Goodwood. 2018, it was. You should have been there. No idea what this club was, I'm assuming they started with an "A" since they were even further out in the wilderness down the Lavant Straight than the BNMAC were. Hah! Noobs! Didn't they realise the clubs were laid out alphabetically and having an early letter as your capital would relegate you to the Land Where the Wild Things Are where normal folks fear to go!
Nope, us neither
Back at the BNMAC the Un-named Stranger ... let's call him Ada... was still cleaning stuff, but in all honesty I couldn't be too cruel as part of what he was cleaning was my car, which had acquired a considerable coating of Hampshire wildlife on the trek to the Beaulieu Autojumble the day before. Other BNMACers had arrived to. I can only apologise for harrying the extremely delicate and fragile
fr€$h&m1nt¥ who was at least polite enough not to tell me to **** the hell off out of his face
Honda Acty 84 Minty by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
The Acty is one of those car...van...things you hope won't disappoint when you see it in the flesh but if anything its cute ludicrous greenness is even more satisfying in real life than in the pictures. Likewise the cheesy grin of the one and only
Frankenhealey
Healey 100 by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
The disappointment of the lack of Green Goddess was perfectly understandable, but so was the reason. I wouldn't risk two years and thousands of sovs of work to non-functioning gauges either.
Frankenhealey (the gent, not the car) proved as entertaining in the real world as in print too, although I can only apologise that VW made their fanbelts too short to replace that on a Healey. How's your luck... parked next to the three cars that out of any in the entire field are
guaranteed to have a spare belt and it's the wrong length. Sad times. Moar Healey
Healey 100 s by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Not forgetting the Racing Snail too. Hilarious. Good to see an EDSA-Ring decal too in honour of BNMAC's downed wingman and founder member
georgeb who couldn't be arsed to show up muttering some feeble excuses about having to get up too early to make the drive from Manilla feasible. Something about having to leave a month beforehand and the poor exchange rate of the escudo versus Zimbabwe dollah and... stuff
2CV blue sunoco by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
2CV blue sunoco d by
Nick Liassides, on Flickr
See? It's begun. Happy now?
Never thought I'd actually miss PhotoBucket 
Like the Red Arrows... only a lot slower. And with more smoke 
Hasn't left a lot of time for anything else 
Just a tiny cog in a very large and very broken machine. The only part of the myriad reasons for delay and many many cancelled services that I can wholly lay claim to were the ones arising from having to throw a racist knife-wielding psycho off the train. 
I was about to gently remind you that you were there
in a photo, so be it, duly snapped and move on
