I visited my fourth Mini meet this year. Why? Isn't it a busmans holiday? some people ask. Well yes, I suppose it is in a way, but there are good friends there that I rarely see, a fun three day event. and it was in California, Never been there you see, So I made last minute reservations ( thanks Mr Dodd for allowing me time off for good behaviour), and in no time at all it was time to catch that aeroplane and do that journey, Unfortunately the three and a half hour late arrival at San Fransisco stretched the already lengthy journey to something near nineteen hours, No real problem, I dozed a little, read a whole book. ate and drank, suffered the delay at Fort Worth, Dallas and arrived late, I offer my undying gratitude to Keith and Debbie Deguaque (two Canadians - !! !???), Firstly because they waited for me at SF airport, secondly because they ditched the original plan of action for plan B, Mainly because of the somewhat haggard state I appeared to be in, You see, we were going to be leaving for the mini meet from the airport -a four hour drive away!

With a good nights sleep at a friends house that was donated for the night, we (Keith, Deb and I) departed SF at an ungodly hour of the morning on Tuesday 3rd August. This also happened to be the first day of the meet. KO drove a moke (owned by Teri Sullivan, co-owner of the house we stayed in, and one of the meets organisors), I rode shot-gun with Deb in a "Rice Burner" (Suzuki Swift 1.3 GTi) , We only got stopped once by the LAPD, A "Chips" man. Yep, motorbike cop. And they're still using them old Kawasaki 1000's!! Seems he'd never seen a "golf cart" on the highway before, wasn't impressed at the speed we were travelling at. nor for Deb' s attempt on KO's life. Or so he seemed to see the situation. You see, Deb was "tailgating" the moke. Yep. Tailgating. The practise of driving as close as possible to the person in front - in the eyes of the law. Ten yards is plenty distance at 70mph! A lecture ensued - a lengthy one as the cop concerned was seemingly put out by the fact that Keith and Deb were both Canadians. If he'd given them a ticket, it would be highly doubtful that it'd get paid. And NO chance of prosecuting if that was the case! No more dramas, we got to Squaw Valley late morning, well lunchtime. I have to say I was very dischuffed to find food prices (eating out) had become markedly more expensive than last year! This was not helped by the pathetic state of the pound verses the dollar. Moderation was the name of the game, and not a Shoneys in sight! Oh well. At least there was Seagrams Seven Crowns - and this was CHEAP! It wasn't long before KO, Deb and I had unloaded the vehicles, located the registration room, done the registry thing, and found our room. Wow! Not at all shabby is all I'll say. And at, erm - what was it? $25 or $30 a night - well worth it.

Now Squaw Valley is a ski resort. Consequently it is in a fairly lumpy region. These lumps are quite high up. 6.200 feet at "Lodge" level. So the air is thin. I ran up the stairs to the room once; but only the once as it took almost half an hour to recover! So moderation of movement was the order of the day. A visit to the show area revealed 60 plus minis on display, All sorts from bog standard to the superb race machines belonging to Bill Gilcrease (Minicomp) and Mike Kearney (Fortech), Not many cars compared to meets here, but the quality of preparation is outstanding, Some of the cars were not "my style", but were still done superbly well, For this I congratulate their owners whole-heartedly, There were obViously "favourites", but then each and everyone to their own. Apart from the racers, mine was a light grey road mini with a "Fortech" kit applied. Beautiful. There were also the original (why did that man fit those Mikunis to an eight porter using steel tubes stuffed down the ports?) to the weird/ugly (yes, "Bamum·'). like I said, each to their own! So the first morning of the meet was display time, and the panel of judges were able to wander about at leisure to do their thing. I spent the day answering a barrage of questions put to me by all these mini fanatics. They certainly took advantage of being able to talk to me in person rather than run up huge transatlantic phone bills, and I was happy to oblige. There was also a radio controlled race staged in the lodge car park. I missed this, but saw most of it on video in the evening. It was very entertaining, wish I'd seen it in the flesh!

The afternoon was devoted to the rally. Now this rally was the first one I've taken part in at these meets, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Keith and Deb were borrowing Teri's moke, so I went along with them, accompanied by a young lady visiting from Luxembourg at the invitation of "MMM" (Mad Mountain Mur - or Murry O'Shea from Regina). Deb was handed an envelope, and off we went. The sun was blazing down, the scenery spectacular, but how does this rally work? We weren't exactly tearing up the tarmac. So what do you do in these situations? When in doubt, askl A quick discusion with Deb revealed the details, it goes like this ..... In the envelope there are a number of sheets of paper, on which there are pictures and directions. These pictures are of all sorts of things from signposts to buildings, or parts thereof, or significant points around the route. The idea is to spot these points/pictures and note down your mileage at each. the winner is the person who sees all the pictures, and covers the course in the least mileage following the directions given. It was great fun. Somebody put in a mammoth effort to organise this. The rally took a couple of hours, the route took us around Lake Tahoe and was obviously laid out as a sightseeing tour. Very well done. Only one incident to note - apart from copious quantities of laughter -and it concerned a dog. A BIG dog. I reckon this was planted in the rally to liven things up.

Now the entire rally was conducted on public, tarmaced roads. Except for a section that can only have been 300 yards long. But it was downhill, steeply so, and very bumpy. Four in a moke on ten inch wheels dictates low speed over severe terrain. Keith was pussy-footing down this road when the dog appeared. It obviously decided four people in an open car was fair game and came towards us barking, growling, baring teeth and generally showing an ugly tempramentl Holy cow - "Keith put your foot down - I do not wish to be lunch for this bear sized dog! " , or words to that effect. So Keith did so. It was all I could do to stay in the moke - Sandra (the young lady from Luxembourg) and I were holding on for dear life. Not made any easier by the both of us laughing until tears were flowing. Talk about a close shave!! Once off the dirt, Keith gave it the big right foot trying to make the moke go balistic. The dog gave up chase then - wasn't THAT keen on lunch after all. We didn't see all the required points. especially at first.We got better as the rally went on until we managed to spot all the last couple of pages worth, and a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon was had by all. That evening several loads of us left the lodge to visit the local "Sizzlers". One of these "eat all you can for a set price" joints. I remembered my visit to the one in Ragstaff, Arizona, at last year's meet, so was looking forward to this. Bill Gilcrease and I rode in the back of the moke with Keith and Deb, doing our best to avoid 90mph bugs that made it over the front.

For some reason , as I mentioned before, eating out had become much more expensive than I remember last year. By the time the exchange rate was added into the equation, it was just as expensive to eat out over there as it is here. HOWEVER, they still have this "eat all you can" thing - which is wonderful.

Back to the lodge, a few beers, more chat, and a relatively tame/early night. I was pretty worn out anyway.

Day two. Basically autocross day. A circuit laid out on the extensive parking area using traffic cones (sorry "pylons" as the natives call them). From a standing start, you get three laps, the quickest of which counts. Various classes split the two cars up. Class winners run-off against each other. This year Don Racine - owner of Mini Mania West - put his very quick 970 'S' engined moke forward for the run-offs, and proved very entertaining. Especially when driven by those who had never driven a moke before. Once again the sun blazed down all day. Even I had to seek refuge under the Mini Mania canopy. This did afford me much time to talk race-cars with Bill, and some very interesting discussions took place. Much food for thought, and the seeds for a new project were sewn. The evening was planned as Bar-B-Que night, so some of us strolled down to the nearest supermarket and purchased the required vitals. The lodge management were allowing us to use their superb Bar-B-Que equipment. It was in this supermarket I spied one of my favourite "tipples" - Seagrams Seven Crowns. This is a Canadian Whisky, and is excellent when a little 7 up is added and is not available in England. I just had to get some, so I did. A litre bottle, and it only cost £8!! Oh deep joy! The Bar-B-Que was very fine, the company excellent, and copious quantities of the aforementioned nectar made that evening VERY agreeable.

Day three, last day. Once more the sun was blazing. Aparently the weather was considered a heat-wave as it never really gets this hot. Time to line the cars up for the customary panoramic picture. This takes some arranging , a couple of hours in fact. So once more there was plenty of discussion time. And again I find myself talking mainly to Bill about race stuff. Then the picture is taken, and it's Funkhana time. Kind of English style autocross/autotesting but with "sillies" thrown in. Like driving with a bag over your head, directions given by your partner. In and out of "garages" where said partner has to load boot with a number of logs, that sort of thing. That took the rest of the day.

Evening arrives, and it's banquet time. This is also where all awards are given out. As Squaw Valley was the site of the 1960 winter olympics, there is a major facility (restaurant, bar, ice rink, etc) at the top of the hill. This hill has a peak of something like 8 ,000 feet. The lodge is at 6,200 feet. So of course a cable car ride is involved. There was a small problem. The cable car company - seperate from the lodge owners - would not let one of the Mini people on board because he is wheelchair bound. I won't go into exact detail, suffice to say all the people at the Mini meet stood together until alternative arrangements were made for Jim to get to the banquet. He. unfortunately. could not enjoy the cable car ride but was taken up by car.

The cable ride was great. The views of this beautiful area were quite something. The car goes up in a series of stages as it passes the pylon towers holding the cables up. When it passes each of these points, the car swings back and forth. After the first one, I suggested it would be a real hoot if we all ran back and forth at the next one to see how far we could swing the cable car. (Sounds very sensible - ed). I got a few devilish smiles, but most put the idea down to me being a lunatic and suggested if I should attempt this it would be entirely possible to find myself restrained for the rest of the journey. Hmph, some people have no sense of adventure!!Original? The food was excellent, the trophy ceremony long. After which we went back down in the cable car in the dark. Even more fun! As the first pylon approached a number of people looked my way with a "behave yourself" look in their eyes. So I did. Then it was all over. Three days of sun, fun and Mini madness. We - Keith, Deb, T eri and the other co-organisers of the meet Chris and Leslie Pegues - stayed for another night. Another Bar-B-Que, somewhat smaller but still thoroughly enjoyable. Followed a visit to the Summit again - and some figure skatingl! The next day, Saturday 7th, saw the final break-down of the meet and we stowed away into the cars ready for the four hour haul back to San Fransisco.

In the next issue, I will be covering the rest of my stay in California which includes a visit into San Fransisco for a whistle-stop sightseeing tour. visits to Mini Mania West, Minicomp and an earthquake experience.

Keith Calver

Importation rules regarding vehicles are very specific: Only those over 25 years in age may be brought in to the USA without compilance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).