Grinwithoutacat.com

Neil wasn’t able to make it this year (something about a first communion and family requirements) so one of the stops was his house. I’m CERTAIN that 80+ honking Minis driving by your house will add to the party atmosphere.

We stopped briefly (and then much longer when the car wouldn’t start) and I grabbed a few photos.

Mini Marcos – Back End

Mini Blackboard

For all you Americans, think of “NAMA” as something like a combination of the SEC, FDIC and FED and TARP program. Sink a bank? NAMA is going to be taking a look at the spiffy cars in your garage.

The x-ed out Minis on the side are from passing Liam’s 850. Oddly, they only ended up with 4 or 5 of these and I personally watched at least one attempted pass that seemed to take a WHOLE lot of effort given what this machine is powered by.

And that’s it for the moment. We spent about 30 minutes getting our car running again (vapor lock) and then headed out.

Departure time is basically the crack of dawn – even this far north. We were supposed to arrive at 5:30 and leave between 6:00 and 6:30. Everything including the weather cooperated and Billy and I rolled out in the back third of the pack about 6:15 am. Not bad, considering that there were nearly 90 cars going this year!

Mini Insanity

This is the beast I arrived in last night. Turbocharged, painted flat black (mostly) and totally crazy. Also VERY fast – even without the boost being turned up all the way

Morning at the Barley Cove Hotel

5:00 am and you can already see the sun starting to rise. We stayed at the Barley Cove Hotel (http://www.barleycovebeachhotel.com) for the second year in a row and, as usual, they did a great job.

Morning at Mizen Head

For once we had GREAT weather and some fantastic views.

Replacement Mini

Here’s the replacement Mini. This one is an 850cc Automatic, which means we won’t be running at the front of the pack. Hopefully we also won’t be at the back of the pack.

Yep – 2 pedals only!

100% BMW Free

As I’m sure ALL of you know, I have the “new” version of the MINI, which is basically a baby BMW (and, therefore, called a BINI by all of the drivers of the real thing). The originals are VERY different and their owners take pride in the lack of German anything

Ready to Go

And we’re off – next stop, well, breakfast!

This is the route we took from Mizen Head (south) to Malin Head (north). Just under 430 miles all in – and about 14 hours with fuel and food stops.

View MTM 2009 Route in a larger map

We spent the night at the Barley Cove Hotel (http://www.barleycovebeachhotel.com) had a bit of dinner and, of course, a few pints before going to bed. When? Sometime around midnight of course!

Since we had a LONG way to go and wanted to arrive in Malin Head before dark we departed early from Mizen Head. To be exact, we left at about 6:45 am, which meant we had to leave the hotel at 5:30 in order to start getting lined up at 6:00. UGH!

Here are some photos from the gathering in the parking lot at Mizen Head. I didn’t get a lot because the weather was rather ugly – windy and spitting rain. This would continue for about 3 hours, though our wipers only lasted for two of those. If you drive fast enough in a Mini the water mostly blows off of the windshield.