After many late nights preparing, we were ready for our first big show. The recovery lorry was booked to take the Boneshaker and Mick's Camaro to Farming World in Faversham and Jeff had dropped the caravan (Mitchville HQ) off on the Thursday night, so all that was left was pack the van and get ourselves down there!

We arrived at about 4 in the afternoon on Friday and got allocated our plot at the top of the field. After a few arguments about how to build our new dragster tent we finally got base camp looking good. While setting up we were also fielding questions about the Boneshaker as it was generating quite a lot of interest. This was it's first outing - a lot of people had heard of it but not so many had seen it!

So once we got ourselves set up it was time to open the bevvys and get the barbeque fired up. We were absolutely exhausted but knew we were in for a good weekend!

Saturday was a really relaxed club affair; a lot of the guys went off on the cruise but after setting up it was nice to kick back and relax. The morning saw the guys from Mad'R's Racing arrive with their slingshot dragster "Shy Talker", followed by Laurie Craig and the "Outrage" Big-Block Beetle. The dragway had certainly just turned up in Faversham! Lots of banter and jokes ensued between the groups, all pulling together and looking forward to the Sunday public show.

Well Sunday morning arrived and we fell out of our beds after a bit of a heavy night in the bar. With only an hour until the public arrived it was all systems go! Lee and Lesley Tubby pulled up with their '46 Ford we flamed earlier in the year and by half 11 Rob had arrived with his "Mitchville Black" V8 Capri. The show field was beginning to fill up with all sorts of motors so every so often we grabbed a few minutes to look around. It was obvious that the show was going to be a roaring success - even the rain held off for us!

After seeing a lot of friends old and new, it was time to start packing up, a task that seemed to take an age and certainly kept us busy all day Monday as well. With many farewells and exchanges in phone numbers and addresses, it was time to be on our way back to Sheppey. On the way home there was time to reflect on just how good the weekend had been. This has got to be one of the most friendly and relaxed show weekends on the calendar. We're booked in to be there in '09 and can't wait!

After the success of the Custom and Classic in June, we decided to put on a Summer Open Day for people to come and have a look round our workshop. With the sun out (a rare occurrence in 2008!) the turn out was good. Mick Payne brought the Artful dodger up to test fire  before the Mopar Euronats at the end of the month, and John Turner's Barracuda was fired up for the first time after it's rebuild. Still in primer, Simon had his work cut out after the open day to get it painted and ready for the track.

With a big turn out by our Old Skool Ford friends, the afternoon went really well with the barbeque going and an appearance by Tony and Stuart from the BHRA with their Pop's made the day complete.

Another good day was had by all and plans were already being made for our birthday party in November... 

To celebrate we had arranged a few little surprises: Nigel Turner came down with his Super Pro ET rail to do some fire ups, John Turner came down with the Greenfish Racing crowd to fire up the Barracuda and do some burnouts, and even Rob obliged with some rubber-laying from his Capri. The stinking bishop was in the worskhop with the music going, the cafe was open for burgers, all-day breakfasts and teas and coffees (everyone got a complimentary one when they arrived).

Fireworks courtesy of Chris went off about 9 too many "oohs" and "ahhs", along with sparklers and then further noise from the cars. The weather was damp and miserable but this didn't seem to dampen spirts as the beers were opened and merriment went on long into the night.

We can't think of a better way of celebrating our 1st anniversary than with our friends. Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far - it's made it all worthwhile for us and to be honest we couldn't have done it without you! Here's to another year at Mitchville Autobodies!