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Morris Minor Owners Club 2005 John O'Groats to Land End Endurance Run

by John Cooper

Day 3 - Tuesday 21^st June 2005

As is always the case on these occasions when you could really do with a good lie in, we woke quite early. We really didn’t have any idea when or where we would be eating next, so breakfast was a functional affair, cramming in as much as we could from the menu.

By about 9 o’clock, we had eaten, packed up and checked out. It was still 2 hours until the start, but with little else to do, we headed for the start line. We were the first to arrive, so we used the time to check out the sights of John O’Groats. We were back at the car by about 9:15.

It wasn’t too long before the other entrants started to arrive, along with ferry traffic, the obligatory tourist coaches and rain. The time now passed quite quickly. This was the first time the full field had been together so there was much looking over the assembled cars and photo taking. I managed to capture most of the cars present, but my biggest regret is not getting a picture of Joy Rainey’s which took her from London to Sydney. I won’t attempt to say much about this but do check out Joy’s website at www.joyrainey.net to see pictures of her car and to read about her adventures.

It seemed that we were in one of only 2 convertibles taking part and were also in the joint oldest car (1958). The rest of the cars were a selection of saloons, travellers and a solitary Morris Ital. There was also a van that apparently was from the local club who had come to see us off and help out with the proceedings.

As the 11 o’clock start time approached, the rain cleared (allowing us to drop the hood) and we were given a final briefing of the very simple rules. Once again the major point iterated was that this was to be an endurance run, most definitely not a race.

A nice touch the organisers added to the start proceedings was boards counting down the minutes to the start. As we were travelling with the organisers we were one of the last cars to pull out of the car park to much beeping of horns. I’d like to b able to say that the start was just like Le Mans, but I can’t.

Much of the first part of the journey was retracing our steps from what seemed like only the day before. As we passed through Wick we saw one of the other participants taking on petrol. As a slight aside, I should explain that based upon hard experience learned from the previous 16 runnings of the event, we’d all been issued with 2 coloured cards, one green and one red. The idea is that if you pull up for any reason, you should clearly display the appropriate card (I’ll leave you to work out which) so that others know whether you need assistance, or it’s just a simple scheduled stop.

Getting back to Wick, the car at the garage was clearly fine so we passed by without stopping. It’s worth saying that with the exception of this sighting and the 3 other cars in our mini-convoy, the only other car we saw before we got to Lands End was the Ital flying past us on the M6 (remembering when I say flying that this is of course relative). Now I come to think about it, while we were in Cornwall we did pass one other participant, but going in the other direction. Clearly they had completed their run and were already starting the journey home. Had we been more alert this could have been demoralising. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To be honest, after the very pleasant (and in our case too eventful) run to the start line the actual run was at times quite tedious as the route meant that we were on motorways for much of the time. That was until one of the cars with use split a hose. I must say it was a pleasure to watch everyone pull together like a well-disciplined formula 1 team.

I would say that this set us back an hour at most and we were back on the road. The hours and the miles passed by and there were few notable events to recount here. I recall seeing the moonrise over Preston. I’m no Wordsworth so I won’t even attempt to describe it, but I’m sure there’s no better sight in Preston.

As we progressed along the motorways through the night we didn’t necessarily remain within visual contact with the other 3 cars with us. The front and back cars carried walkie-talkies and kept in regular contact. Being the novices, we usually occupied second position. By this time it was getting chilly so we had the hood up meaning that our backwards visibility was negligible. So it was no surprise that we didn’t notice the third car was no longer with us. Fortunately the walkie-talkie system worked perfectly and we followed the leaders into the next services. Here we learned that the same car had split another (different hose) and had had to stop for roadside running repairs with help from car 4.

This delay was somewhat longer and gave us ample opportunity for refuelling. Eating on the road can often be a literal affair as some of our party demonstrated!

Once the stragglers had caught up and had their own comfort breaks, we were back on the road.

I couldn’t tell you exactly where we were when Tuesday rolled over into Wednesday. On a more general note whole portions of the journey were only pieced together days later by wading through crumpled petrol receipts.

Day 3/4 statistics

From To Distance Time Average speed (MPH) Average consumption (MPG) John O'Groats Inverness 35 0:55 43.7 38.2 Inverness Aviemore 131 3:00 52.5 38.2 Aviemore Perth 71 0:40 40.6 44.3 Perth Bothwell Services 85 1:45 48.6 44.3 Bothwell Services Services 58 0:55 63.3 43.7 Services Richard Charnock Services 144 2:20 61.7 43.7 Richard Charnock Services Birmingham 105 1:50 57.3 40.6 Birmingham Michael Wood Services 74 1:55 38.6 40.6 Michael Wood Services Hayle Services 213 3:05 69.1 42.0 Hayle Services Lands End 21 0:38 33.2 37.9
	Average speed between stops
	Average fuel consumption between refuelling stops

Note: figures not adjusted for speedo inaccuracies.

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