Duxford 2004

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Panorama of the rally at Duxford
A Panorama of the rally at about 3PM

Spring Rally 2004 - Imperial War Museum Duxford, 9th May 2004

The opening national event of the year was held at Duxford Air Museum near Cambridge. As usual, with events that I have organised, on the morning of the rally the weather looked poor. Having driven through light rain to get to Duxford for the setup of the rally, we were relieved to find that when we got there it was no longer raining. Half an hour before the official opening time a steady stream of MX-5s started arriving, and we were pleased to see this continue for most of the day with some cars still coming in after 3PM.

The highlight of the day was a great flying display by a Spitfire and a Hurricane, as part of another event that was being held on the same day to raise funds to take the two planes to the island of Malta for an anniversary celebration. Although by this time the weather was fairly murky they were still able to put on a spectacular display to the large crowd. Unfortunately although I specifically planned to have the event on this day to coincide with the display, due to the unexpected popularity of the event this meant that we were at the opposite end of the airfield to our previous parking area. Although it was further from the main entrance than usual, this meant that many members visited the closer exhibits, which they missed out on previously.

After the flying display the expected rain arrived and some people started to leave, but we were still pleased with the 340 cars that attended. This included six RX-8s including Mike Hayward's (the (Past) Club Membership Secretary), who was proudly showing us his new car.

I would like to thank MX-5 City for their support of the event, along with all of you that risked the weather to attend.

Since this is likely to be the last big event that I will be organising (at least for now), I would like to encourage any of you to think about organising a Club event yourself. The event itself was organised by just myself and my wife Gillian, with the help of John Batup, trying to persuade traders to attend. If an event has good road access, and the venue has other attractions that will be popular for the members, you can easily do an event with much less work than you might think.

Thanks for your support

Andrew Fearon