The Camaro Club (UK)

Anyone going to this event?

http://www.v8uk.co.uk/full-power-launch ... rd-update/

I along with one of my Mustang friends are meeting other Mustangs at Beaconsfield services at 09.00, planning to leave to cruise there at 09.30

Thoroughly enjoyed the drive in convoy to the event and the cruise around once there.

Was my first meeting with my new car and I can report no problems at all, well apart from it getting rather hot in the cabin!

Went to the first one, badly organised and more like the Vauxhall owners club meet, I was going to do the tour which was apparently ruined when one of the organisers decided To do do a rolling burnout destroying the youth rugby club field that had been kindly Offered For camping, added to the moaning about not taking a change of tyres by people etc. I got the impression if it was a brewery in need of a piss up that would also have been a struggle

_________________
1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

Was a lot different this time, well there was no fields involved!

It was just a load of powerful cars gathered at the Topcats Racing base, then a 30 mins tour. No burnouts as they were banned, but plenty of nailing it from zero to err the speed limit!

I even managed tyre squeal as my auto box changed gear!

The field was on the "power tour" rather than the power meet, glad you had a good time, was it heavily populated by pot bellied white tee-shirt wearing 50somethings all driving Monaro's?

_________________
1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

Haha, no there was quite a mix this time. Was plenty of modern muscle from America and Oz (few Maloo's), a few classic American, Mustangs, Pick ups etc, even a few non-V8 cars like Lambo'so

To be fair the convoy cruise up to the meeting was as much fun!

Hello Twistedsanity,

I'm Andy, part of the event organising team of for V8UK and the UK Power Tour. I feel like it's only fair I correct some of those points you've made, as it's all too easy to hear what someone said, and it be taken as gospel.
I remember you turning up at our second 'Full Power Launch' which has traditionally been our season kick off meet. Normally at a speed shop or workshop which kindly opens its doors to any one who comes along on the day. All our events are entirely free to attend and organising all of this is entirely done out of our own free time and pockets. These normally include a now traditional 'Convoy' to another location or just a quick 20-30 minute drive around the block such as the last two Full Power Launches at Topcats Racing.

You may notice a large portion of Vauxhall VXR8s and Monaros because that is what the club was formed from, a group of owners who weren't happy with events offered for V8 owners, of which mainly consisted of stuck up Pistonhead meets. V8UK offers an alternative which is seemingly very popular. As stated above, we do this all out of our own spare time, we are not professional organisers but we try our best. Having now run 4 Full Power Launches with over 200 cars turning up to each one we feel we're doing something right.

You were indeed signed up to our first UK Power Tour, but never turned up. Again this was a free event organised by ourselves and put together in the hope to give the UK what the US enjoys in the Hot Rod Drag Week. Now, the events of the first night. No, there were no rolling burnouts and no, there was no ruined youth rugby pitch. There was a stuck Monaro trying to move and unfortunately wheelspinning a bit before parking up for the night. This unfortunately woke up some of the other campers. All was resolved the next morning with all the organisers and the groundskeeper of the rugby pitch who said it was nothing and that the grass gets churned up worse during a rugby match.

On a first event the rules were very loose, with the aim of just trying to get as many people along as possible. The tyre issue is not a new one and before the first day of the event it had been clarified to all those who entered. It can't be helped if people weren't happy with the ruling, but it follows the same rules as Street Eliminator class which has been successfully running for years.
Our meets are very diverse, as was the second Full Power Launch meet which you attended, there was a strong 20 or so contingency of VXR8s and Monaros, but that made up a small fraction of the cars in attendance. In fact, if you'd given us another go last Sunday, you probably would've been pleasantly surprised with the strong turn out of 5th Gen Camaros who not only demonstrated how to arrive in style, but also ruled the dyno with one 5th Gen kicking out an impressive 749hp at the wheels.

Thank you Oddball for coming along and posting this up, I had lost the link for this site and have only just found the forum again from a post on Facebook, otherwise I would've put a link up to the event myself. We are arranging an American Speedfest stand and several more RWYB events and a dyno meet up North for our further afield members.

Kind regards,

Andy

Hi Andy, thanks for taking the time to reply and correct my inconsistencies, as you stated I was not there and relied on information passed on to me, you the convoy was a complete shambles though and I wasn't the only one with this opinion, as frontage rugby pitch incident clearly I have second hand information and wasn't present (that'll reach me to listen to rumours) but there are at least ten people who came away with this information, once again thanks for clearing things up. Although I think claiming One of the attendees who I believe ran an 11 sec quarter? has the quickest street car in the country is more than a little insulting to the guys who do have those cars, I hope you have many happy events in the coming years, I did actually attend shakey though but decided not to run as I heard most of the competitors weren't going to complete the 3rd leg anyway, all the best, Paul

_________________
1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

Hi Paul,

Not a problem, as much as we love feedback about our events and we want to hear what people thought, sometimes when wrong things get passed along as hear say, what can be a minor incident suddenly becomes blown out of all proportion and I kind of feel it's my duty to step in and correct. Though I must say, this is the first time I've had to do that.

The Full Power Launch you attended was at Paragon Motors and from there we attempted to get around about 100-150 cars across Northampton and down to Towcester, after looping back on the A43 for a photo and video opportunity. Now as I pointed out above, we aren't professional event organisers, we do the best we can, we're a bunch of like mind petrol heads who want to give people an event they can all come away from with a big grin on their face, and the feeling they were part of something! After all, all your cars are part of the event! We know we can't publish convoy routes online before the event, otherwise the police would be all over it. We did however hand out maps to everyone we could, being such a broad event area though, I guess we missed you, and for that I am truly sorry!

I think I have an idea who you are referring to when you say most of the attendees weren't doing the third leg, in which case you heard bad information, as we lost a few from a group who were competing in another event and didn't want to continue to York. We can't help that but we were actually camped and set up in another area of the pits. You should've been informed this when you arrived by the gate, and if you'd seen us, we had about 20-25 cars who continued on that night up to York. As it happens it was one of the members of that group who didn't want to continue who then went on to win the event with an average ET of 11.11, after completing over 300 miles in 3 days, on road tyres. Now we see that as a big deal. You ask any of the Street Eliminator guys if they fancy doing that in their cars and I think you'll find that the 30 mile convoy is as much as they'd like to do. As of last year that record was reset down to an average of 9.96 seconds over the 1/4 mile, again all in a completely road legal street car running street tyres and completing the road trip.