I was up at 3:30am ready and waiting to go! Then as I was finishing my tea I looked out my window and saw a Mitsubishi 4x4 screaming down the road. Thought nothing of it until I heard a huge crunching sound. Ran out the door and the 4x4 was on its roof! 5 cars along the roadside were crumpled and there was glass everywhere! If it had have been 5 minutes later I would have been in that!
So then I was about to leave and the ambulances, police cars and fire engines all arrived. Now I was blocked in! So it was 4:30am before I actually left to go anywhere.

Eventually when I left I got to my mates and picked him up. The adventure had begun (albeit an hour late).

Got onto M6 southbound and headed for Darcy’s (darc from MR) house. It was about an hour into the journey till we saw the first mini. Was only doing about 40 down the motorway but it was jam packed with about 10 people and I'm not joking. It was a nice yellow clubman, we were going to follow it for a bit but it was just going far to slow.
Had just less than half a tank of petrol, so stopped at a BP garage to fill up. £13.83 filled it to the top.

There was 1 or 2 wrong turns on the way there, but all in all we did ok on the trip down. Got a bit complicated when we arrived in the housing estate where Darcy lives. Only found where his house was because of the gorgeous mini parked outside.

These pics are (from left to right) my run ticket, the long road ahead towards Harlow in Essex and finally the car sat near Darcy’s house resting and cooling for a while.

After, we followed Darcy into London. Getting into London was no problem at all, it was finding our way around London that was the problem. We made quite a few wrong turns and had to double back on ourselves. There was one point when he nearly killed me!! Driving along in a lane and all of a sudden the lane goes into a sort of slip road, Darcy shoots across into the next lane leaving me heading for the slip, so I accelerated getting closer to slip trying to overtake this nova! He thinks I’m racing him and speeds up, so I dart in front of him before he can get along side me and put me into the central reservation or down the slip road. Cheers Darcy!
Eventually we found a line of other mini’s and they took us close to Crystal Palace Park.

As I was following him, my mate was taking pics of his car. Looks really nice.

Pulled into Crystal Palace Park and parked in a queue of about 1000 mini’s. Took my token and got my run pack. This consisted of a T-Shirt, Plaque, Window Sticker and a Programme. I went and fitted the plaque to the front of the car. Time to look around. When I was looking at the “Show N Shine” cars I noticed a beautiful purple mini. Took a closer look and had to get a pic as I thought it was Jay’s (Jay from MR). Hes got a PS2 in the passenger side! How cool is that. Speaking to him later he said it was his! Here are a few pics from inside the park.

.Well after the drivers briefing, it was time for the mini’s to make their way to Brighton. It took 2 hours for us to even move an inch. There were that many mini’s moving out it was unreal! Was a really good atmosphere, considering the amount of time we were waiting. Air horns were going and people pulling wheel spins and throwing loads of dust up.
When we got out of the park it was straight into the nearest petrol station. There was a queue to get in, and all were mini’s! Another £9.73 and another full tank. The queue to get out was huge but as long as you were a mini you got let out no problem! During the drive down all the Mercedes and Porsches were flying down the bus lane, then trying to cut back in further down the line. Funny thing was that a Mercedes overtook us and like 5 minutes later it still hadn’t been let back in!
A Mondeo tried a sly one going down the oncoming traffic and tried to cut in front of me! I wasn’t letting him back in! And neither was he let back in by most of the others mini’s behind me. He wasn’t happy! Beeping his horn, so all the mini drivers beeped theirs, haha, was awesome.

On the way into Brighton we were stuck in traffic and 4 girls in a Saxo wound their window down and starting talking to us. "Whats going on?". Well without trying to make her look really stupid I politely said its a mini run. They were really cool actually. They ended up beeping their horn in tune with all the mini's, we were along side them for quite some time after that. They weren't ugly either! Closer to Brighton the steering all of a sudden pulled left. This was quite a harsh pull and was rather frightening. My steering wheel was about 10 degrees to the right just to go in a straight line! I darted across 3 lanes of traffic to the hard shoulder and parked up. We checked the car for any flat tyres etc. But couldn’t find a thing. So we plugged on and made it into Brighton.
Well as we entered Brighton at about 3pm some of the mini’s were leaving! Got to a point in the road when we could see the sea, it was absolutely brilliant. At last I thought I was going to be able to get out and stretch my legs. It seemed an absolute age since we had left London!
Then disaster struck! All of the mini’s slowed down and as you do, I pressed the brake pedal and it hit the floor! No change to my velocity whatsoever! I was getting closer and closer to the car in front now, so I pumped the brake pedal and thank God, the car stopped! The brake pedal had gone really long! My initial thoughts were either a fluid leak or air in the brakes. Again, determined not to be beaten, we soldiered on. Eventually we got to Madeira drive and we were on the slope down towards parking when a convoy of fire trucks came down and blocked the path for all the mini’s. It was an ideal time to stretch the legs. Once the fire engines had gone was about 3:30pm and time to park on the drive!

Well after we had rested for a bit and had some food (Hot dog and chips for £3.10 that was absolutely rank) we decided to have a wander round. I rang Darcy but never found him in the end, Matt (Random Nonsence from MR) had buggered off home due to headache, Dan (Speedfreak from MR) was AWOL, Will (Willc0 from MR) was there but didn't see him although he seen SOF! Heres the picture he took...

and I got a text message from Adam (Jeeko from MR) saying where was I, when I tried to ring back couldn’t connect.
Here are a few pics I took of other mini’s.

We had a quick look around but didn’t really have a lot of time. I managed to pick up 2 sills (£20) and 2 new A-panels (£10) for the mini though. I also bought a rear window sticker. It says “On A Mission For Mr. Bridger” (£3).
Well we decided to drive home, determined not to be towed. Got back onto the A23 and headed towards London. When we got just outside Brighton there was a huge crash! So all the traffic was diverted along the A27 then A24. BBC News About The Crash
We got to the A24 and I hit a speed bump! Now whenever I touched the brake a huge grinding or rubbing sound was made at the left front wheel. This really didn’t sound good. I considered pulling over and calling a tow as we had 100+ miles still to go. Encouraged by my co-driver we carried on.
Just before we got to the M25 I looked at petrol gauge and was just under a quarter full. I thought I would just get on M25 and stop at first services. Well onto M25 and what do you know! “M25 Services 47miles”. I was never going to get that far. So we nipped off the M25 at Heathrow terminal 4 junction to fill up. As I finished paying we saw this!!!

Well back onto M25 and it was a really smooth journey home. Nothing went wrong at all. The wheel never fell off, brakes weren’t good but they just about stopped the car. Just need to get them sorted ASAP really. Here is one happy chappy.

Written By Doc