Some pictures are available.
Having volunteered to tow the club trailer down to the Hop Farm showground, the weekend started early for me with a trawl of my camping gear to chuck in the car before heading off to where the trailer is stored, down in sunny Darenth. The first major challenge was to remember how to affix the removable tow hitch to the car, not having used it since... towing the trailer back to Darenth from our Legend Rally last July! Conquering the safety catch more by luck than judgement, I was soon on the road in fine sunshine with some quality Prog on the stereo.
Arriving at Dutchy's mum's garage, he was already there and checking that the trailer was strapped up adequately. Once the car was gingerly reversed into place, we hooked on the trailer and were ready to go.
Bowling down the A20 I noticed signs around Brands Hatch warning of delays at the weekend due to a Touring Car race meeting, so I made a mental note to use the M20 for all future comings and goings, just in case. There was also a steam rally at Wrotham just to compound things!
Arriving at the Hop Farm with Dutchy behind me, my rather out-dated auto-pilot kicked in at the wrong moment, causing me to ignore the big yellow direction signs and drive into the main entrance. Another sign reading "all BMF traffic" caused more confusion, resulting in Dutchy zipping off up the road and me staying put scratching my head. Fortunately he soon returned and pointed out I should have gone further up the main road, which we duly did, bringing us to the exhibitors' check-in.
After a bit more head-scratching we found pitch A30, almost exactly where we were last year. Immediately evident was that the enormous vertical catapult ride that had put the fear of God into those mad enough to have a go on it last year was sadly absent. Never mind! We parked up and got stuck in to putting up our own tents before the reinforcements arrived to help with the club stuff.
By about five o'clock more people were arriving in the shape of Tank, then Andy and Lee, Gary, Ian and Julie, Chris and Kaye and Geoff. We got started on putting up the marquees and once again I managed to remember almost everything necessary to do it correctly... almost. I really should write out a reminder list.
Ian and Julie brought the generator, barbecues and a small 'fridge to keep the grub chilled over the weekend. Drinks had to go in the big tub of water however, due to shortage of space. All in all we were pretty self sufficient.
With all the essentials taken care of I hopped back in the car to go home and collect my Speed Triple. The round trip was uneventful and when I got back to the site, cooking was underway on the barbecues and some more tents had been crammed into the limited space behind the marquees. Our full camping complement was (forgive me if I miss out anyone): myself, Gary, Andy and Lee, Ian and Julie, John and little John, Colin and Maggie, Brenda and not forgetting Dutchy, Helen and Elizabeth. Chris Walliker was also taking in the show as a paying punter with his mate John, working it in to the start of a week's trip as far as Devon and/or Cornwall.
Dinner prevented us from sampling the first band on at the beer hall but curiosity and a lack of competing attractions drew me over there with some of the others in time for the main band. I thought the name ("Hooker") sounded familiar and as soon as I spotted the singer's orange boiler-suit I realised I'd last seen them at the Galleybagger rally over 12 months ago.
This time they were struggling from the start with a strange problem affecting the vocal amplification, whereby much of the loud moments were punctuated with horrible crackling from the PA. The sound engineer changed the singer's mic and cables more than once but to no avail. I was glad that I had brought along my newly-acquired musician's ear plugs (from the nice people at Ultimate in Sidcup) because when I took them out just before we all retreated back to camp, the noise over the singing was grim. Judging by the fact that the drummer had just sung lead vocals from behind the kit with a different mic and the problem was just the same, I figured that the trouble was located in the vicinity of the mixing desk, not on stage. Maybe someone solved it eventually, maybe not.
Those who had not come to see the band had been enjoying their own selection of music from a ropey old portable player that Ian had rigged up to a big battery. It tended to skip unpredictably, leading to general agreement that this would be its last outing, especially when it refused to work at all for some time and we were faced with the notion of throwing ourselves on the mercy of the Radio Kent night time show.
With these amusements we passed the evening until it was gone midnight and people drifted off to bed, experiencing widely different success in sleeping, partly dependent on drink consumption earlier?
As usual on Saturday we had a leisurely start, with some people cooking up hot breakfast on the barbecues and others sticking to the "pour the milk straight into the single-serving cereal box" technique pioneered by Gary all those years ago. With the show officially opening at 10:00 we had to push the bikes out of the marquee into the fresh air, lift Chris and Kaye's vintage machines onto the display stands and position the extensive Bexley TOMCC merchandise in the most alluring arrangement we could manage.
Saturday's programme in the main arena was some stunts followed by different stunts, then a break for more stunts. However particular credit must go to the "Over The Top" team whose modus operandi was to have one very big ramp for landing on and a smaller one for launching their bikes into the air. In-flight, they were holding themselves away from the bikes, twisting them round and doing everything to make the landing part as hard as possible. Within the modest confines of the arena area, it was genuinely impressive.
Ongoing activities throughout the weekend were as expected: a succession of comments and enquiries from passers-by (varying from those who thought Chris's 1954 Tiger had the wrong carburettor to those who couldn't tell a Hinckley from a Meriden); some merchandise sales; shopping for bargains (in my case a pair of sunglasses and a tin of chrome polish); walking around the stands; drinking; eating; commenting on how good the weather was... and so on.
The Saturday night bands divided opinion - again I think we missed the first one but got to the beer hall in time for "Tilted Smile", who didn't look to me like your typical covers band. Nor did they treat the well-known material in quite the reverential way most rally bands do. Their sometimes-frenzied renditions of the Stones, Hendrix, the Faces etc. were to me fresh and captivating but to Tank they were beyond the pale! Slightly off-putting even for me was the front-man's unvarying habit of ending every song with the phrase "thank-you-very-much-thank-you" in exactly the same way before the last biff on the drums. Of more general popularity within the Bexley crowd was the last band of the night who, if I remember right, were called Leech. They did a mixture of old and newer stuff but for me it was a decided anti-climax so I went back to camp early.
Saturday night was more restful for all I think, with Andy dozing off in his chair before bedtime and some sneaky so-and-so snapping a picture for posterity (see gallery). I realised rather late in the weekend that having brought all my camping gear in the car there would have been plenty of room for the luxury airbed for once. Never mind.
Sunday daytime was very much a repeat of Saturday. I kept the doughnut truck busy with repeat visits for decent and reasonably-priced "proper" coffee (unlike the noodle people near our pitch who were demanding £1.50 for what I strongly suspected was a spoonful of instant and a cup of hot water). There was a slightly bigger crowd as usual and the weather stayed fine. The cavalcade of clubs remained Bexley-free due in part to the early timing - participants were expected to get into line by about 10:10 when we were still putting the finishing touches to either breakfast or the display!
Gary entered his T160 into the bike show (overseen as usual by the Renegade MC) but it was overlooked this year in favour of the only other Meriden to feature. Returning from another coffee trip, I was stood by the display area admiring a red V-Rod with a very shiny rear end consisting of a single-sided swingarm and wide wheel when my attention was drawn to a US Police Kawasaki next to it. To my surprise and consternation, as I inspected it from a distance of just a couple of feet it lazily pitched over sideways in the direction of the Harley before hitting the ground with a horrible crunch. I felt it prudent to reassure anyone in earshot that I hadn't laid a finger on it, and once some Renegade members stepped in to haul the bike upright it became clear that apart from a detached windscreen it had not suffered badly and even more fortunately it did not appear to have hit the V-Rod. At that point I withdrew to a safe distance...
With the show winding down I left the others to pack up and headed off home for the car. Driving back to the Hop Farm I passed various people going the other way before encountering a minor hazard - a couple of very slow-moving traction engines trundling home from Wrotham. Fortunately overtaking was possible and when I got to the site again there was just Dutchy waiting with a neatly-stowed trailer to haul back to Darenth. If he'd hung on to the keys to his mum's garage, we could have finished up a little earlier and saved him a trip home (!) but before too long I was home for dinner with another successful weekend over.