It was always promising to be a bigger event than last year but as it also coincided with the 25th Anniversary of the launch of the original Tasmin we had no idea that so many cars would attend. Many people from all over Britain made the effort to attend, numerous convoys were arranged from Scotland, England and Wales, there was even a contingent from Holland who made a dramatic appearance to say the least!...complete with their own supply of imported lager safely stashed in their Audi support car.

This year, a lot more attractions were planned including various high profile traders, charity raffles, concours competitions, BBQs etc. To ensure it all ran smoothly, significantly more hard work went into the planning and preparation beforehand to ensure the event built on the success of last years meeting held at the same venue.

Although there were many, many kind people who helped out on the day (and after) to ensure the proceedings all ran smoothly the main organisers were: Alan Toomey (Rev_erend), Richard Hurd (Dickymint), Sean McDonnell (Seamus), Steve Randall (Stever), Roger Tattersall (Tallbloke) and myself Mike Bressington (MikeB). It is thanks to the hard work and effort of this team of people that the event turned out to be such a success.

Even now after the event people are still putting in hard work compiling video footage (Martin Turner) and burning DVD's of the event, all for FREE and for the benefit of others…in the true spirit of the original Big Bad Wedge Fest.

The main reason for the complete success of the day however must be down to people like YOU for supporting the project and turning up. I have never met such a bunch of down to earth, knowledgeable and genuine people, many of whom I can now proudly call friends. Long live the Big Bad Wedge Fest.

The Big Day had come

I had spent the week running up to the big day cleaning the car and tweaking the oil, water and electrics to ensure the 450SE would be able to make the trip. I had a few electrical starting issues a few weeks before that sort of cleared themselves as if by magic (great things TVRs aren't they?) I didn't want any of these things giving me trouble on the way up. Little I was to know then that the trip up was not going to be the issue, but more on that later.

We set off bright and early, the BBC weather report was almost a re-run of last years, 'overcast with some rain but brightening up later on'. Just in case I had purchased and applied some Rain-X and gave the windscreen a good dousing with the stuff.

The South Wales gang had arranged to meet up on the M4 and then blast over the Severn Bridge to meet up with Steve Davis's group at Junction 18. I had also arranged for my guys to come armed with two meter Welsh flags on wooden poles to proudly wave out of the roof at the first sight of any Englishmen!

In our convoy were Simon & Lynne (blue 350i), Jeff Morgan & Linda (red 400SE), Mike Bowen and Mark riding shotgun (blue 400SE) and myself and Elaine (450SE). At Junction 18 we joined up with Steve Davis in his white 400SE, Dave Sims in his newly acquired red SEAC, Paul Blake in his blue 400SE along with Kevin Tolley and his white 280i FHC.

We were also scheduled to meet up with Paul in his Chimp and Dave Denney in his 390SE along the A433. After a brief chat and quick tyre kick with the other guys at Junction 18 we filled up with some fuel and then blasted off, headed for Ettington.

The run up went mostly without any drama, just the usual Audi and BMW wannabes driving dangerously close trying to 'have a go'. Not a good idea as Wedges tend to hunt better in packs, against my better judgement I could not resist to make the guy look a little silly. I think that the guy's ears must be still ringing after the ragging I gave him in the 450 ;-)

One funny thing that happened on the run up going through Moreton in the Marsh town the convoy came to a halt midway through the town centre at a pelican crossing. This old lady and her husband were slowly crossing the road staring intently at the car, me and then onto my 2m Welsh flag fluttering in the breeze out of the roof.

On seeing she was staring at my flag I shouted over to her that 'we were Welsh don't you know'. She shuffled over to the drivers window, held my arm and said 'That's nice dear, never mind, nice flag though' - old codger!.

We had made good time up the Fosse Way and roared into the car park at bang on 11.30am exactly as planned - flags flying. On arrival we parked the TVR in the car park expertly escorted to our '450SE' allocated parking space by Roger (Tallbloke) who had taken up the challenge of sorting out the parking, he certainly looked the part in his traffic wardens cap. I had just managed to turn the engine off and then it started to rain.

My heart sank when I felt the first drops of rain on me head, all the months of planning, all the work people have put in, I just hoped that it would not last.

Determined to make the most of it come what may I put the roof on the car and made my way over to the traders area where most of them were getting ready to greet the many more guests due to arrive later in the day.

Tower View Race Services, Steve Heath Publications, the Polishing Company, TVRcarparts.com, Absolutely Shocks, RT Racing, ACT Performance Products, London Carriage Craft and the TVRCC were only a small number of the people who managed to turn up. I greeted each of the traders and tried to talk to as many as possible, it was good to actually put names to faces; many of the guys who had turned up I had dealt with for many years, but had not actually met face to face.

Later on to my joy the rain subsided and the sun started to shine through, cars were still turning up thick and fast. Roger I could see was starting to panic! Early Tasmins, 350i's 450SE's 400SE's, SEACS, 280is were parked as far as you could see in the most amazing array of colours; I even managed to see a 500SE and these babies are rare! Both car parks of the hotel were completely full to busting with the other reserved for the traders and for the naughty boys (people with a TVR that wasn't a Wedge!). The sight was just awesome.

The wedding guests who had also booked into the hotel simply did not know what had hit them - poor things. The silver MGF wedding car certainly felt a bit inadequate.

At this point Elaine suggested that we book into the hotel and get our room before the masses descend. As if a re-run from last year I managed to get five meters before meeting up with some old friends. After talking for about half an hour I immediately bumped into another load of regular contributors to the TVRwedgepages site and set about talking shop. Elaine could see that I would be busy and did the booking in (and lugging the bags) on her own. She and some of the other wives and girlfriends made a bee line for the bar afterwards to mark out our spot for later on.

Dickmint (Richard Hurd) and myself made ourselves busy by spending the next few hours handing out tickets for our free TVR raffle with some of the most amazing prizes kindly contributed by the traders. Fair do's Dicky and myself had worked hard on obtaining these prizes and looking down the impressive prize list it showed.

There were sets of GAZ adjustable shock absorbers from Absolutely Shocks, several polishing kits, a set of polished wheel nuts from Shiny Nuts Ltd, two regalia vouchers from the TVRCC, we had rolling road time at Surrey Rolling Road Ltd, Some smart Pistonheads jackets and caps, polishing kits from the Polishing Company, toolkits from Toolsnstuff.com, sets of Wedge poly bush kits, money off re-veneering jobs by London Carriage Craft, a set of suspension rose jointed drop links from Tower View Race Services, several Wedge maintenance books supplied by Steve Heath Publications, keyfobs and some other bits from Toyo tyres, money off vouchers from ACT Performance Products and the list went on.

It just showed the kindness and generosity of the traders in the TVR community.

The biggest prize for the day however was kindly donated by the guys at TVRcarparts.com (Neil Perry & crew) and Mark Adams. Dicky had managed to talk them out of a very expensive programmable ECU upgrade and a full rolling road setup of the chip in the lucky winners car by none other than V8 tuning guru Mark Adams. This prize the organisers of the BBWF decided to donate to Jeff Morgan's special Cystic Fibrosis Trust raffle.

All monies raised for this raffle were going to be donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust (which Jeff has a personal interest), he had already done some good work for the charity earlier on in the month and proved his bravery by 'jumping off a large cliff' to raise money for the trust. All afternoon he busily went about selling his raffle tickets with his Wife Linda and did a sterling job. [ The finally tally being £440. The monies were counted in front of a witness and were handed over to the CF Trust on the 10th of August 2005. Well done all.

Later on in the day a run out was organised (which I managed to drag Elaine out of the bar for). We went out for a good blast around the Warwickshire countryside accompanied by Dicky in his red SEAC in hot pursuit. All along the route we saw Wedges making their way around the excellent driving roads in the vicinity, it was amusing just to see so many Wedge cars on the road at one time. The local population are probably still pretty much traumatised.

Wedge Data CD's were also handed out by Dave Simms during the day containing .PDF parts manuals, old TVR sales videos etc all for free.

How loud!?

A sound meter competition was also carried out in the hotel car park, which 'Pistolar' easily won, by a country mile. His car was putting out 117.8db and could be heard miles away. The crowd around his car during the sound test was a testament to how impressive it was. Another amusing sight was to see the pimped up 'Bad Boy' 450SE absolutely blast away an adjacent A-class Mercedes car with his custom dual exhaust system - oops!

Karl Cordwell's impressively maintained red SEAC came second with 113.6db. My own 450SE came in a respectable third place with 112.8db; a fact that I was very proud of. The car even beat Neil Hyde's new steed his shiny blue 4.2 Cerbera, which managed to put out 107.5db. After talking to Neil later I think that after seeing all the Wedges together again (including a few for sale) his wallet had started to quiver!

Just to put the above into perspective, apparently 120db is equal to a jet plane at take off and anything over 80db is considered dangerous!

The day seemed to flash by in a blur; I seemed to be all over the place. I found myself giving out raffle tickets one moment, judging the concours competition with Alan Toomey the next and then talking to the various traders straight after including Neil from TVRcarparts.com, Malcolm from LCC, Steve Heath, Tim Lamont, the guys from Tower View; Dave and Mark & Keri from Works Motorsport etc.

I also had a spell with Dickymint 'persuading' the remaining traders who had not handed their raffle prizes over to us to do so, or we would get them in a Welsh headlock! ;-) I had a brilliant time. Just talking 'Wedge' with genuinely enthusiastic people can be very heart warming and not to mention enlightening.

One high spot of the afternoon was watching Malcolm from LCC and the love of his life in the car park; no, not his missus but his passion for very fast, high performance model cars. This guy could blast his model car (which had a scale speed of over 500 miles per hour) along the car park and spin it on a dime, donut burnouts, power slides the lot - I want one badly!

Other highlights of the afternoon were ogling Jeff Statham's immaculate yellow SEAC TVR racer, standing in Awe at the RT racing prepared Tasmin bodied Tuscan Wedge 'Thorpedo' complete with Tasmanian devil on the front. Alternatively you could just walk around al look at all the Wedge eye candy on show.

Another absolutely inspired idea in my opinion was the 'Wedge Support Vehicle'. It is a V8 powered ex-ambulance manned by Michelle and Paul; they were both busy handing out teas, coffees, beers and the BBWF commemorative polo shirts to any thirsty Wedgers that happened to be passing by. There were no prices everything was free you were only asked to make a donation to the costs if you felt like it. At the end of the day Paul promptly handed the money raised during the day over to Jeff Morgan to boost his charity money total - What a top bloke.

It did not have all the 'bling' or roll bars or super polished engine bay or refurbished wheels etc it was just a nice car in original condition. Alan handed him his special trophy made from left over bits from his own SEAC! - Unusual but nice, something for the mantelpiece.

My Welsh chums and I later made our way to the bar to have a sit down, relax and a quick pint before the BBQ began.

The winner is….

The evening kicked off with the BBQ that the hotel put on for us. It was good to see everybody winding down and enjoying the food, beer and company, everybody except Richard Hurd that is! He is obviously not accustomed to talking in public and was definitely not looking forward to comparing the free BBWF prize draw raffle and manage Jeff Morgans big prize draw.

After the BBQ had finished I announced to everybody at the event that 'Dickymint (Richard) had something important to say……' 'Thank you for all coming, 'err I would like to start drawing the raffle prizes so if I could please have all your attention' Dicky said with a crimson face. An impartial 'prize ticket puller' person was volunteered from the crowd and went about the business of pulling out the winning tickets one by one.

The first prize out of the box was for Jeff's big charity prize. 'And the winner is…….Alan Morris, is Alan Morris here?', unfortunately Alan had long since gone home. Jeff had the bright idea of contacting him on his mobile phone to give him the good news.

His raffle ticket number confirmed Jeff congratulated him on his big win.

BBWF 2005 Cystic Fibrosis Trust Charity Raffle Winner

1. TVRcarparts.com & Mark Adams - Programmable ECU & Rolling road time - Alan Morris

With the big prize won it was now time to pull the rest of the winners names out of the hat. The winners came up to receive their prizes thick and fast. Some of the traders were still at the hotel and were roped into giving the prizes to the winner directly.

BBWF 2005 Traders Raffle Winners

1. Toyo - Fleece and Polo - Martin Reader
2. Pistonheads - Jacket - David Jones
3. Tower View Racing Services - Rose jointed drop Link kit - Steven Aslett
4. Chips Away Top Glaze - John Pritchett
5. Tools-n-Stuff - Socket Set - Dean Russell
6. Chips Away Top Glaze - A Morris
7. Pistonheads - Jacket - Neil Hyde
8. Absolutely Shocks - Pair of Shocks - Paul Sanders
9. TVRCC - £20 regalia voucher - Colin Elliot
10. Steve Heath - Wedge Bible - Brian Crewes
11. Polishing Company - Polish kit - Mark Johnson
12. Absolutely Shocks Powerflex poly bush set - Dave Simms
13. Shinynuts - Full set of shiny nuts for Wedge - Tony Mckenna
14. ACT Performance Products - £50 Voucher - Kevin Tolley
15. London Carriage Craft - 50% off - Nick Tribute
16. Steve Heath - Wedge Bible - Paul Bulger
17. TVRCC £20 Voucher & Alan Toomey's trophy - Clive Richmond (Concours Winner)
18. Surrey Rolling Road - Power Run - 'Pistolar' (Loudest Wedge)
19. Pistonheads - Hat - Ian Sayer (Most Helpful Wedger)
20. TVRCC - 'Wooly sheep' - Roger Tattersall (Character of the Day)
21. Toyo Fleece & TVRCC - 'Wooly sheep' - Paul Holland and Michelle (Support for the Day)

After many hours of drinking, talking and sharing of stories Elaine and I staggered into bed at around 2am, with the sound of rumbling V8's STILL roaring in the car park courtesy of the Dutch boys doing yet another burnout! The last man standing apparently called it a day at 5.30am, unfortunately not beating last years 6.00am BBWF record - a good attempt though!

'Listen to your Mates' - the trip home!

Funny thing is next morning we awoke to the sound of V8's still roaring in the car park 'probably the Dutch still at it' I thought. But it turned out to be much later than we had thought ie. Morning time! So we hurriedly made our way down to breakfast. We had to get our skates on as it was nearly chucking out of the hotel as well.

After breakfast we packed our bags just as the hotel cleaner was getting to our room, we paid our bill and made our way to the hotel car park, which was by now rapidly emptying of Wedge cars as the various convoys made their way home. I couldn't help but notice the 30meter long burnout tyre marks on the straight bit, you 'gotta hand it to the Dutch they sure know how to do burnouts, tyres must be that much cheaper in Holland.

The Welsh contingents were almost ready to go, all packed up and waiting for us to arrive from the hotel. After quickly planning our route back it was time to go. Got in the car and with a turn of the key, click nothing, tried again and still nothing. 'Oh no what's wrong now?' I thought must be the bloody immobiliser playing up again - as it had happened once before and at the time it did seem point to that as being the problem.

Tried again and nothing. The petrol pump was running, the LED's had stopped flashing on the immobiliser, everything should work. Dickymint chirped in 'I bet its a wire off the starter solenoid' he said.

Some 'mechanic types' also chirped in 'nope sounds like an immobiliser issue to me'. I must admit that it had happened before about a month ago but had cleared itself mysteriously (as some issues with TVR's do) so I never really got the bottom of it. So out comes the multimeter(s), tests the battery, coil and every other wire in the entire car. Changes the ECU for Jeff Morgans, still nothing.

Pull apart the loom, fusebox, ignition wires, coils, immobiliser brain, immobiliser loom, half the dash and about everything else in the car. Shite! Still cannot find the problem. Four fully-grown blokes clambering all over the car with multimeters and screwdrivers and still the problem evades us.

Tried bump starting the car several times and..........still nothing. The car park is now almost empty, even the Wedge Support Vehicle has gone.

After about an hour of fiddling, probing, pulling, testing and prodding, still nothing things are getting desperate.
Elaine then chirps up 'How many grown men does it take to fix a TVR? - Four! and still no luck'. 'All it takes is ONE woman with the forethought to bring the AA card' she said in a really smug sort of way.

The AA were duly called and arrived in a short order. The AA guy then asks me 'What have we tried so far?' Not wanting to sound completely simple I say in an all knowing cocky sort of way 'we have power to the coil, we got 12.6v at the battery, we have tested and changed the ECU, we have tested almost every wire in the loom, every fuse, we have pulled out and tested every relay, we have power to the fuel pump and there is even petrol in it!'

The guy looks under the car and says 'Yeah you seem to have covered all the bases but what about this wire hanging off the starter solenoid!' I'll get me coat!!!! Boy did I feel embarrassed, a fact that Dicky has not let me forget.

The guy put the wire back on and the car started straight away. Nice one Dicky.

And apart from the fantastic run back, and nice meal in a country pub on the way back that ended our second Big Bad Wedge Fest. All our friends, Elaine and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and although for me (and the other guys) it was a huge amount of work and stress it was worth it. By the time we got back home I was again skint, sunburnt and knackered which is a sure way of telling if we had a good time or not.

I would like to personally thank all of the traders who gave so generously, the rest of the organisational team, everybody who helped out before, during and after and everybody who made the effort to attend - thank you for making the event the success it was - Oh and everybody who stayed behind to help me out with the wiring issue.

I look forward to next year's, see you there.

Mike Bressington

(reproduced with kind permission of Mike from his most excellent www.tvrwedgepages.co.uk)