Ok, I've been home for 10 minutes and felt I had to share my experience with you all.
I joined RR in January 2012, but was unable to attend last year due to a work related commitment in Germany. After reading peoples reports, and viewing the photo's everyone had posted, I swore to myself that I would make it this year no matter what.
I should add at this point that certain members of my family think I'm a) insane, b) a 47 year old adolescent, c) suffering from extreme Old POS Acquisition Disease. The last one is based on the fact that I keep buying cars, but what can you do when you find a retro you haven't owned before at sensible money? Ah well, at least I'm happy, even if they're not, even the missus....
So, The Gathering. I have been to a huge number of car shows during my time as a car fan/addict/obsessive nutter (please delete/agree as appropriate..) which started when I was 6, quite a long time ago(see above and do the maths people), and until now the best I had ever been to was Pebble Beach. Without wanting to sound as if I'm sucking up to the forum in general, The Gathering has blown even that out of the water, so to speak. Why, I hear you ask? (Or maybe it's the same voice that tells me to keep buying cars). Well, firstly the diversity of cars on show and in the Retro Parking(where I was) is nothing short of spectacular. From Fiat 126's, to a stunning Aston Martin, from a camo green Viva estate daily driver sporting a turbo derv(what a cool idea) to a 1050 BHP Audi Quattro, a replica '65 Chapparel racer, to turbo MX5's, and on and on and on....
Secondly, getting to see some of these awesome cars being driven up the hill in a manner befitting their awesomeness. The Quattro was incredible, so violent and spectacular. Same for the Chapparel, the Escorts tugged at my heart strings as I own a couple of them and have always been very special to me, the Forge Golf was super impressive, and Claymore's Volvo was something I've wanted to see in action ever since I started following his thread.
Third, and perhaps most important, the people. RR is populated by people who truly love cars, and that passion stands out when you speak to them. As a first timer, I was made to feel very welcome by the people I spoke to, and that made the experience complete for me. It felt great to be able to be a car person without anybody looking disapprovingly down their nose at me. For that, I would like to thank everybody involved in making this show the most enjoyable day of the year for me, long may it continue.
Last, but by no means least, I wish to thank the staff at Prescott. Professional, helpful and friendly, a lot of service companies could learn a lot about successful customer service from these people.
Unfortunately I was only able to come to the show today, as I was working Friday and Saturday, but you can be assured that I have now sworn to myself I will have a car prepped and ready for a club stand next year, and I will be staying all weekend.
Sorry for rabbiting on, that is all from me now, until I work out how to transfer my photos from my phone to my computer, then onto here(hopeless with computer tech). Thanks for taking the hours necessary to read this post.
Gaz
I joined RR in January 2012, but was unable to attend last year due to a work related commitment in Germany. After reading peoples reports, and viewing the photo's everyone had posted, I swore to myself that I would make it this year no matter what.
I should add at this point that certain members of my family think I'm a) insane, b) a 47 year old adolescent, c) suffering from extreme Old POS Acquisition Disease. The last one is based on the fact that I keep buying cars, but what can you do when you find a retro you haven't owned before at sensible money? Ah well, at least I'm happy, even if they're not, even the missus....
So, The Gathering. I have been to a huge number of car shows during my time as a car fan/addict/obsessive nutter (please delete/agree as appropriate..) which started when I was 6, quite a long time ago(see above and do the maths people), and until now the best I had ever been to was Pebble Beach. Without wanting to sound as if I'm sucking up to the forum in general, The Gathering has blown even that out of the water, so to speak. Why, I hear you ask? (Or maybe it's the same voice that tells me to keep buying cars). Well, firstly the diversity of cars on show and in the Retro Parking(where I was) is nothing short of spectacular. From Fiat 126's, to a stunning Aston Martin, from a camo green Viva estate daily driver sporting a turbo derv(what a cool idea) to a 1050 BHP Audi Quattro, a replica '65 Chapparel racer, to turbo MX5's, and on and on and on....
Secondly, getting to see some of these awesome cars being driven up the hill in a manner befitting their awesomeness. The Quattro was incredible, so violent and spectacular. Same for the Chapparel, the Escorts tugged at my heart strings as I own a couple of them and have always been very special to me, the Forge Golf was super impressive, and Claymore's Volvo was something I've wanted to see in action ever since I started following his thread.
Third, and perhaps most important, the people. RR is populated by people who truly love cars, and that passion stands out when you speak to them. As a first timer, I was made to feel very welcome by the people I spoke to, and that made the experience complete for me. It felt great to be able to be a car person without anybody looking disapprovingly down their nose at me. For that, I would like to thank everybody involved in making this show the most enjoyable day of the year for me, long may it continue.
Last, but by no means least, I wish to thank the staff at Prescott. Professional, helpful and friendly, a lot of service companies could learn a lot about successful customer service from these people.
Unfortunately I was only able to come to the show today, as I was working Friday and Saturday, but you can be assured that I have now sworn to myself I will have a car prepped and ready for a club stand next year, and I will be staying all weekend.
Sorry for rabbiting on, that is all from me now, until I work out how to transfer my photos from my phone to my computer, then onto here(hopeless with computer tech). Thanks for taking the hours necessary to read this post.
Gaz
but 99% of that is in a friendly fun way.
