Isle of Man Megameet 6 – No Limits!
What began as an innocent suggestion from S2K Nut some time in 2009 became another Megameet! This was to be the second S2KUK meet to be organised and held in the Isle of Man. The previous one was in 2007 and attracted over 30 cars.
The great attraction of the Isle of Man for a meet is that a compact route can be followed that includes great combinations of fast open stretches, twisting country roads and, best of all, no speed limits on many roads outside villages and towns.
With 2009’s Euromeet clearly still a source of inspiration, there was welcome diversity provided by Belgian, Dutch, French and even Irish attendees, boosting numbers to 50 cars.
As ever in the Island, the unpredictable weather could have a big impact and we were to experience a variety over the weekend, but on Friday evening all was fine, as the ferries brought the visitors and drivers made the short blast to the hotel.
For those who’d visited the Island before, they were soon off to reacquaint themselves with the ‘Mountain Road’ or otherwise explore and for the rest, especially the continentals after journeying across the English Channel, through England and across the Irish Sea, it was off to the bar!
The main events of the weekend would take place on Saturday, for that was when we had our organised ‘drive’, planned to cover 150 miles of the Island’s less busy roads. In the evening was our charity auction, followed by karaoke (thank you Sazzy and Quoi? for the floorshow). The photos and videos on the forum are proof of the driving we did and the hilarious evening’s… entertainment.
Saturday’s weather turned out brilliantly and we were topless in my car all day. The highlight was a fabulous post lunch blast on fast roads over the Island’s hills. The scenery tempted some to stop for photos and our groups got pretty disjointed during the afternoon. The most unfortunate were some Dutch drivers who found themselves in the Manx equivalent of the Bermuda triangle, two of whom ran out of petrol on their third time around a 12 mile block!
And I have a big announcement to make, because the driving on this meet was record breaking. I’ve been to all the Megameets and Euromeet last year and only on this one did we have no ‘incidents’. On our narrow roads, with a bunch of cars with steering wheels on the wrong side, that’s fantastic driving by everybody!
Saturday night’s auction and raffle proved once again that the S2000 community of drivers, board members and suppliers is a fantastic, generous bunch by raising well over £4,000 for charity. The highlight of the auction was the supercharger with complete installation donated by TTS Performance that raised nearly £3000. Proceeds are being split between Macmillan Cancer Support and the Joey Dunlop Foundation. blue monster, you did us proud!
A bleary eyed Sunday eventually arrived and if you were put off by the mist outside your hotel window, you missed plenty of sunshine just 20 miles away at the kart track. After an hour of racing, well done to leftfootbraking’s team. Of course, we let him win out of sympathy for his broken clutch the previous day and that his S was going home on a flatbed. I’m glad we’re not competitive!
We did manage some sunshine for part of our lap of the world-famous 38 mile TT road racing course, but unfortunately for our visitors it was a case of ‘mist on the mountain’ (a familiar phrase to anyone who lives here!) for the final third of the lap, as Saturday’s fine weather completely deserted us. Of course, that all means everyone has a good reason to pay another visit!
To round off festivities, we’d organised a barbecue, sadly, under cover (note to self, install a chimney in my gazebo to save me from the smoke) but I heard of no incidents of food poisoning, so that’s a result in my book.
As it always does at a Megameet, the good nature, friendliness and generosity of everyone never ceases to amaze me and makes it such a pleasure just to be there and be part of the organising team. So “Thank you” to all attendees, especially those who had travelled so far to make this a truly international event, and to the other organisers for everything they did in making it a massive success (AquilaEagle, blue monster, three legged man, vark999 and Steven).
Will there be another IOM Meet? Don’t let S2K Nut post anything on the board to that effect or we might just have to see what happens!!
Based on an original write up by Mans Best
S2000 Forums-> Isle of Man – MEGAMEET 6 – 2010, 16-18th July 2010
NOTE: S2KI welcomes the opinions of its members on the S2000 and on all topics related to the S. Should you feel the creative urge to pen a few words then by all means do so and PM Energetic, Aashish2 or Onehots2k OR send us links to what you would like us to write about and we will feature you (or your community) on the S2KI Home Page.