In which Sid and Doris have a small break before the fun commences.
The event that we are on is called the Carrera Italia, organised as I mentioned by Rally the Globe.
The actual event website is here https://rallytheglobe.com/carrera-italia-2021/ and it has daily rally reports, pictures of your favourite crew and their Mini, and pictures of some of the other cars too. Well worth clicking on and I’m not going to try and duplicate all that information here.
But I will tell you how this type of event works. People who have old cars – or rather, cars over a certain age because the Mini, while not in the first flush of youth, still qualifies for this event – pay to do it. The organisers then provide a certain amount of organisation, and because this is a Very Well Organised Event, this one includes things like mechanics, timed sections, the chance to drive round other people’s racetracks, nights and dinners in nice hotels, shiny stickers on your car, detailed roadbooks and maps to tell you where to go, camera crews to remind you that you went there etc. On this event there are about 40 cars (80 people) taking part and I think there are 22 or 24 people doing the organisation, which is pretty impressive.
Of which probably the most important are the mechanics. Because cars over a certain age – like people, alas – take a certain amount of maintenance and if you ask them to do a lot of exercise that they are not used to doing then they will probably have some problems.
I hope to have some pictures of the mechanics later, because they were very helpful today fixing the fuel pump and brake problems. For now, here is a picture of Teal the Mini in some excellent company, ready to start the hard work tomorrow.
Meanwhile we are off to dinner and the chance to meet our new rally companions.