MESS 30th Anniversary, Silverstone 26-28 July 2019 After much discussion at the monthly MESS meetings throughout 2018, we decided to hold the Middlebridge 30th Anniversary at the Silverstone Classic. (Boy was it the right decision). As soon as we tended our application Silverstone and their media partners were in touch with us. Working together the Middlebridge marque gained massive media coverage via the classic press, net, social media, radio and TV.

We were invited to the Silverstone media day where we did a drove lap of the Grand Prix Circuit while being professionally filmed. We could not have dreamed of such marketing. In return we did all we could to give them a display befitting their efforts.

In the end we had 27 Middlebridge GTE's on display, not only that but one was HRH's the Princess Royal's MB No 5. We also had the Middlebridge Reynard as driven by Mark Blundell on display and in her original Cadbury's colour scheme. May I take this opportunity to thank Matt and Peter Bromage for the loan of the car, We wanted the Reynard to lead us round the circuit on our pre-arranged anniversary lap but unfortunately it had a clutch issue and had to sit it out. Another first for me, I actually did a live commentary and talk about the Middlebridge marque over the tannoy system and heard by the masses. now that was nerve wracking.

Silverstone allocated the 'MESS' a premium pitch between Ferrari and Porsche on the hard standing. This is important at Silverstone as we discovered on the Saturday when the rain came down. Luckily our Marquee ensured that we could all stay dry and enjoy the whole event.

We were kept very busy with visitors during the event and were delighted when Khoji, Dennis Nursey and John McCauley all turned up. Incredibly they were re-united with ex- employees from both Middlebridge Scimitar and Middlebridge Racing. I had really hoped for 30 cars for the 30th but as mentioned earlier we would have had 29 cars but some last minute problems for Pete Humphries (MB 27) and Simon Hall (MB 23) meant they had to pull out. We were delighted to gain Roger and Eileen Browns MB 72 and Peter & Heather Bowdens MB 73 and look forward to seeing them again at events in the future.

Bizarely Will managed the 625 mile trip from the Highlands to Northampton and broke down in the hotel car park, the 4th emergency service managed to get the car going but it cut out again at Silverstone, luckily our electrical wizard Peter Freeman was to hand and soon diagnosed the coil as the fault, not only that he also had a spare in his boot! Talking of Peter he managed to get an incredible 42.2957mpg + on his return to the North East. Now there's not many GTE's that can hit the 40+ marque. Surely a record me thinks.

May I just take this opportunity to thank everyone for making the 30th Anniversary event such a success.

Regards Mick G