This year we started the rally at a shopping centre, fortunately. So at least we had some shelter, the centre had sponsored our fryups as well as the finishers awards. Before we left the centre I removed the carpets from the lowlight as water was pouring in the windscreen. We left at 12.15 and headed to Lisburn Civic Centre for lunch, which is only about 12 miles away. Even then the roads were quite bad. We stayed in Lisburn until 4pm before leaving to go to La Mon Hotel for evening meal. By this time several roads were floated and som ecars were able to get through, others got stuck. One man in an Austin 10 decided wisely to miss out on dinner and head on home.
Dinner was a carvery and was really excellent, if you were still hungry after it it was your own fault!! We had our usual raffle, presentation of finishers awards by the Mayoress of Castlereagh and trophies awarded too.
Mean while outside the rain continued. The worst affected car in the carpark was a MG Midget which had to be bailed out. Johns car in the picture thankfully stared and moved without hassel. There was a river beside the carpark which had burst its banks. Once we got out onto the Ballygowan Road, we had to go through about a foot of water, the lowlight made it ok in first with high revs, but Chris was behind me in a 1000 traveller and his car stopped about 8ft into it.... We ahd to push him out and got started after a dry up and WD40. Chris had about 70miles further to go home, but made the rest of the journey safely.
And now its 11pm and still raining. Its not looking good for our biggest rally of the year on 6th September, the council are having a meeting about the state of the ground on Monday. 990 cars were entered for this.
Sorry the photos so out of focus<br>
not exactly summer then.
