The ER Spring Run
The first Eastern Region run of 2008, a bit later in the year than usual, took place on Sunday 9 March and turned out rather well. Despite the dire weather forecast for rain and wind it stayed dry and calm with intermittent sunshine which was very nice, and certainly unexpected. Arriving more than 30 minutes before the appointed departure time I was surprise to see that about a dozen MX-5s had already assembled at Beacon Hill Services. By the 10.00am departure we were up to 19 cars, picked another 1 up on the run, as we headed out to take the twisty route to Snape Maltings some 42 miles away. For much of the drive we had fairly clear roads without too many hold ups but a Volvo pulling a large trailer and then a big group of cyclists, who obviously need to read their highway code, slowed down the front of the convoy for a short while. Fortunately one of my favourite section of Suffolk Road was clear, the B1078 from Tunstall towards Orford. A fast section of road through Tunstall Forest with sweeping bends and gradients, it’s the nearest thing we have to the Nürburgring, honestly!
I did warn everyone about the vicious speed humps at Snape Maltings but was more than surprised when even I managed to creep over them in my extra low Roadster without so much as a scrape! Snape Malting is a great place to stop, having done that several times on Eastern Region runs now, we get a whole field to park in and a well staffed coffee shop who always cope well with the sudden influx of customers.
The run part 2, took us down to Aldeburgh and along the sea front to Thorpeness before heading back inland. At Leiston the route took a departure from all previous Eastern Region runs and headed West towards Saxmundham and Framlingham. This is another great section of B road with some excellent twisty bits, just the sort of thing our cars were designed for.
The final destination was a return back to Beacon Hill Services where several of us thought it might be good fun to go around again!
Thanks to everyone who came, we had several new faces on this run, who hopefully we will see a lot more of in the future.