ProbeFest 2010
Hi y'all ! I'm back !
Despite my earlier post about everything that went wrong last week, there is also some good news to report.
Last Wednesday I was on my way to "ProbeFest", which is the name for the largest meeting of Ford Probe drivers in the United Kingdom, courtesy of UKPOC. At such a meeting it is highly desirable to attend driving a vehicle carrying the Ford Probe nomenclature. Which in turn offers some explanation for my "disappointment" in my previous post.
Anyway, I had the car towed to my regular autoshop, and to make a long story short my parents, bless them, offered to let me take their car instead. So 24h later than initially planned I took the ferry from Rotterdam towards Hull. The boat ride was really a good idea, I'm definitely doing that again (hopefully next year). Had my own cabin, with my own bathroom, shower etc. Some decent entertainment on board, all in all I arrived in Hull the next morning around 8 am local time, relaxed and well rested. From there it was about 90 mins drive to the Fest.
( Route )
So I arrived at the Fest grounds on Friday morning, around 10 am and it was quite busy already. It was nice to finally see the people I had previously only known as an alias on an internet forum. Over the weekend I got to talk to so many of them, I didn't know I had it in me !
In total, over that weekend there were a massive 95 Ford Probes present at the fest, with a maximum of about 82 simultaneously on Sunday afternoon ! That has got to be a European record... ( It was obviously a record for the UK alone, with people attending from Devonshire to Aberdeenshire. )
It was also a real family event, with spouses, children and pets all coming along for the weekend. There was this one couple who brought their 2 year old daughter Amber along, so adorable ( in a very ADHD-on-sugar-rush kind of way :D )
Being a Probe Owners Club, part of the crew consisted of tech gurus. To my amazement, some of the most advanced procedures were executed, right there on the camping grounds. One of the Probes was towed to the fest after breaking down just a few miles before arrival. A cambelt had snapped, and took a tensioner with it. The bolt which connected the tensioner to the engine block was snapped off LEVEL WITH THE BLOCK ! And the Techs just drilled it in, drove a screw in it, and extracted it, just like that ! After that, the replacing of the tensioner and the cambelt was a piece of cake, relatively speaking. Mind you, this is a job which would have given most well equipped workshops a pretty hard time, and these guys just did it in the middle of a field, with no bridge or professional equipment !
Also, there were waterpumps replaced, suspension struts revised, springs replaced, rocker covers painted and several other mechanical tasks achieved. Suffice to say, I was thoroughly impressed !
Th only real downside was the weather. It was sunny ! - Which meant I got sunburnt. But that's par for the course for me. So now I'm back home, glow-in-the-dark red, and my skin is peeling like crazy. I'm starting to feel like Goldmember, only without the gold member.
Despite the overabundance of sun, the Sunday evening was characterized by the more traditional English rain. For 8 hours straight. Ah well, at least we had fun, just chatting, drinking, watching Amber splashing around in puddles, completely mesmerized...
And monday it was time to go back home. I was finished packing pretty early, so I helped others out as well as helping some of the crew break down the marquees they had used for the kitchen and the events.
I had a pretty good time, it ended way too quickly.
Oh yeah, before I go, here's some photos I took.
En voor de Nederlanders is hier een gesprekje op het ProbeClub forum.
Despite my earlier post about everything that went wrong last week, there is also some good news to report.
Last Wednesday I was on my way to "ProbeFest", which is the name for the largest meeting of Ford Probe drivers in the United Kingdom, courtesy of UKPOC. At such a meeting it is highly desirable to attend driving a vehicle carrying the Ford Probe nomenclature. Which in turn offers some explanation for my "disappointment" in my previous post.
Anyway, I had the car towed to my regular autoshop, and to make a long story short my parents, bless them, offered to let me take their car instead. So 24h later than initially planned I took the ferry from Rotterdam towards Hull. The boat ride was really a good idea, I'm definitely doing that again (hopefully next year). Had my own cabin, with my own bathroom, shower etc. Some decent entertainment on board, all in all I arrived in Hull the next morning around 8 am local time, relaxed and well rested. From there it was about 90 mins drive to the Fest.
( Route )
So I arrived at the Fest grounds on Friday morning, around 10 am and it was quite busy already. It was nice to finally see the people I had previously only known as an alias on an internet forum. Over the weekend I got to talk to so many of them, I didn't know I had it in me !
In total, over that weekend there were a massive 95 Ford Probes present at the fest, with a maximum of about 82 simultaneously on Sunday afternoon ! That has got to be a European record... ( It was obviously a record for the UK alone, with people attending from Devonshire to Aberdeenshire. )
It was also a real family event, with spouses, children and pets all coming along for the weekend. There was this one couple who brought their 2 year old daughter Amber along, so adorable ( in a very ADHD-on-sugar-rush kind of way :D )
Being a Probe Owners Club, part of the crew consisted of tech gurus. To my amazement, some of the most advanced procedures were executed, right there on the camping grounds. One of the Probes was towed to the fest after breaking down just a few miles before arrival. A cambelt had snapped, and took a tensioner with it. The bolt which connected the tensioner to the engine block was snapped off LEVEL WITH THE BLOCK ! And the Techs just drilled it in, drove a screw in it, and extracted it, just like that ! After that, the replacing of the tensioner and the cambelt was a piece of cake, relatively speaking. Mind you, this is a job which would have given most well equipped workshops a pretty hard time, and these guys just did it in the middle of a field, with no bridge or professional equipment !
Also, there were waterpumps replaced, suspension struts revised, springs replaced, rocker covers painted and several other mechanical tasks achieved. Suffice to say, I was thoroughly impressed !
Th only real downside was the weather. It was sunny ! - Which meant I got sunburnt. But that's par for the course for me. So now I'm back home, glow-in-the-dark red, and my skin is peeling like crazy. I'm starting to feel like Goldmember, only without the gold member.
Despite the overabundance of sun, the Sunday evening was characterized by the more traditional English rain. For 8 hours straight. Ah well, at least we had fun, just chatting, drinking, watching Amber splashing around in puddles, completely mesmerized...
And monday it was time to go back home. I was finished packing pretty early, so I helped others out as well as helping some of the crew break down the marquees they had used for the kitchen and the events.
I had a pretty good time, it ended way too quickly.
Oh yeah, before I go, here's some photos I took.
En voor de Nederlanders is hier een gesprekje op het ProbeClub forum.