We had great weather, the turn out was a little down with about a dozen on Friday night, though we still had fun, barbi, beer the usual stuff. Saturday saw about 18 cars, and on Sunday we had 26.

The DOC concours was judged a little differently this time, by Nigel 'Detail' Dean no less and photographed for Which Kit magazine. The interesting thing I thought was he picked the same cars that often get the trophies, i.e. we're not biased

The notable theme for this year I'm afraid though was complaints. The club area was a shambles totally unorganised, so a good job we were there on Friday to pick a spot. The facilities were dire and the Sunday track action, well, it wasn't till late afternoon before people were actually allowed a decent vantage point to watch the cars, and when some of us went for our usual Sunday drive over half were refused access due to being to noisy. What this boiled down to was noise restrictions which are quite tight, which is fair enough as most tracks have limits, but the individual performing the static test was a rank amateur, executing the test incorrectly and failing car after car. When you queued for half an hour to get a ticket, fought you way to the track, they were using the same road as an exit this year, this is annoying to say the least. The chap even failed a factory TVR, which are restricted to noise limits way below those imposed at Donnington. A total farce which annoyed a lot of people, not just us.

I have to say I noticed a generally lower turn out on Saturday, better on Sunday, but there were fewer traders and with the charging of kit drivers to get in, the poor organisation, security becoming awkward and more issues surrounding the track use I'm starting to wonder how much longer this show can survive. Lets face it, most people go to Donington, particularly on the Sunday for the track action, and as it's certainly seen as one of the bigger shows to buy those last bits for the up coming winter builds/rebuilds. I hope to be proved wrong, but I feel this show needs to buck up its ideas and quick. Gripes aside we had a pretty decent weekend even if it wasn't quite the finish to the year we'd anticipated.