V8UK Southern Meet

[Andy]

Yesterday I joined up with the V8UK guys and went down south for their Southern Meet at a race shop called Insane Creations. Owner Ron Haslett runs in Street Eliminator, a heads up drag racing class where all cars have to be street legal when running on the track (treaded tyres, pump gas, no wheelie bars).

The day started at 7am when the first bunch of guys met up in Aylesbury to start the convoy. My pickup was a Holiday Inn at Junction 4... looking back at it now, probably wasn't the best place to meet up, bunch of incredibly noisy V8s at about 7:30 in the morning.


(This was them waiting for me to turn up, most local person and I was late)

After that it was time to hit the motorway to Guildford where we were picking up another couple of cars en route. We ended up pulling off the A3 at the American Golf store to be met with a Supercharger AMG Merc and a Triumph Herald that was packing more than just the 1200cc badge it had on the boot.



The Herald was running a 5.7 Supercharged V8, but was still 'in tuning' so wasn't joining us for the rest of the run. Lovely guy that owned it and more that happy to show us around it. At the moment its running 11's but wants to get that down to 10's once he's sorted out a few things.

The convoy continued along the A3, with the new pickup. Its at this point I started to feel like I was missing something. When we hit the Hindhead tunnel I found out it was any sort of exhaust noise!


(This video features a Red VXR8 that had possibly the most ridiculous exhaust possible!)


(Shouty b@st@rd)


('67 Packing one hell of an engine)

Once through there the weather broke and we had fine weather as we cruised into Portsmouth. Our first stop was the new workshop for Insane Creations, this had a funny car body and chassis that they were building, as well as a Twin Turbo Capri running a huge engine.





This was also a chance for some great photos from a guy there. One called V8 Alley being my favourite.


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Once a fair few more had turned up it was time to roll out... V8UK style, not compulsory but a lot of guys took the opportunity to.



From here we went on a great cruise that took in the sea (or harbour) front and then up over the hill past the Forts and guns on top. A little badly planned as there was a bike race on at the same time. That said, it did make a few peoples days seeing about 30 rumbling cars go past.

We then reached Insane Creations current work shop where there were several cars in various states of build. One that was sat out the front was a road legal Willys with a supercharger. Estimated over 1000hp and recently had been a feature in one of the car mags.







All of this was topped of with a really sweet bunch of burgers on the BBQ and some cold cans!

At each event V8UK give out a Hero award, during the day everyone gets a bit of paper on which they write the reg of the car that they like down. The winner at this event was a guy who came from Guernsey in his 'Ute'. On the way he slept in the bed of the truck!



After a couple more hours chatting about each others cars, people started rolling out, and I made a move still with the roof off. I seem to end up bringing the weather back up with me.

All in all a great day out with some like minded petrol mates!

More information about V8 UK at http://www.v8uk.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">www.V8UK.co.uk

[art b]

great pics and vids .


looks like a good day out ..

[Andy]

Was great fun! They're looking at arranging another meet next month at a US Army base over Cambridge way, but it's looking like it could be quite difficult to arrange with security clearance etc.

As soon as I get details ill post them up!

[Roadkill]

Looks a blast.  When I've actually got a V8 I can reliably use I'll be up for something like this !

[Andy]

After a couple of weeks editing, the guy with the Corvette got around to putting all his GoPro footage together and came up with this!

Check out my awesome parking!