A small group of cars, covered in grime, gathered in the corner of a parking lot. This is what we’d been waiting for!

This was not a large gathering, nor was the weather particularly amazing, but this was significant because for some of us at least it was the first real car meet of the year! At last we were able to get together on a quiet weekend morning for some long-overdue catching up; many of us chat regularly during the off-season, play games online, or at the very least we all know what we’re up to thanks to social media, but this was the chance to actually see each other in person (and pet some doggos) for the first time in a long time.

It was also the opportunity to see some of the cars’ new mods for the first time – Jon recently fit some stupid-rare gauges to his Mini, Mel’s Fiesta ST is now sporting a larger turbo (I want to see the Jellybean put up against Sriracha for a drag race…), and Arabis could show off the yellow Lamin-X on its fog lights (amazing, I know). Justine meanwhile was driving a borrowed Mk3.5, but this season you’ll see her new FR-S as it starts to come out to these little events here and there.

Lockdowns or not, many of us will typically go most of a winter season without meeting up in person so it’s always exciting when the group chats fire up with the talk of getting together for the first time after “hibernation”. With this first get-together under our belts, I can’t wait for more as we get ever-closer to our proper car season. I hope you enjoy the photos!

-Bill