Having its regular slot, the Mini Mad Merseyside crew hosted its Lakes Tour 2004 in glorious summer weather. A huge turnout assembled at the Ullswater lakeside camp, and took part in some warm up events prior to the Sunday run itself.

On the Saturday, some of the minis came for a rolling road shoot-out at the Performance Centre, and we took the time to catch up with some now familiar faces from the Mini Mad club. Pictured is Simon Farrow's Mini 1293 Special, and Simon Lyon's 1275GT. Others also came on the Monday after the event, including Andrew Miller's Mini Clubman.

The run itself followed a slightly different course this year, passing through the more north western parts of the Lakes. Skirting Cadbeck, the route descended into Bassenthwaite Lake and veered north west again to Loweswater. We then went down Ennerdale and to the coast at Calder Bridge (near Sellafield).

The return leg then took us over the customary route via Hard Knot and Wrynose pass to Windermere and back to Penrith via Kikstone pass and Ullswater. It was quite a mammoth run, but the weather was exceptional, which made the whole run very pleasurable.

Both the mini van and the S-Works took part, together with one of our green RSPs. We followed a band led by Mr & Mrs McKenzie from Gretna, and who also owns an S-Works and a surprisingly nippy Mini Sprite. Also in the band were Tom Kidd in his Tahiti, and his brother and Matt in the RSP.

As usual, a fantastic run, which was well organised and again lucky with the weather (June is typically a sunny month up here). We look forward to taking part again in 2005.