Rali'r Ddraig Meddiw

(Drunken Dragon Rally)

Part 1 - Go west young (?) man

Rali'r Ddraig Feddw (Drunken Dragon Rally) 14th-16th June 1992.

This is the first part of a triple report from Phil the Spill covering the Drunken Dragon, Simmer Dim and Shitting Bricks rallies in 1992. Now read on...

                   

- Phil the Spill

As I recall Friday started out slightly overcast. This was no surprise as it always rains when I go to Welsh rallies. What was surprising was that the nearer I got to the site, the hotter it got. The last part of the journey was done jacketless (horrors!).

I wasn't quite the first person there, but certainly among the first ten. The one advantage of this is that you can choose exactly where you want to put your tent, not too near the disco, not too far from the loos, that sort of thing.

Not much happened on Friday, the disco didn't really liven up until the pub chucked out around midnight, so it didn't bother to shut down until about 2am, by which time it had played some records at least five times. (The DJ claimed it was due to requests, I think was lack of records.) There were also some Dutch 'rave' records brought along by the Dutch branch of the organising club (Welsh Coast MCC) - very strange!

On Saturday morning I was woken up early due to the tent doing a good imitation of an oven, it was sunny again - definitely not my usual holiday weather.

Chris & Chris wouldn't be turning up until afternoon, so, since I had nothing to do, and I had been elected navigator for the next stage, I thought it would be a good idea to check out a minor road that I had found which should help us on Sunday on the push north. It was a very twisty and very hilly bit of single-track road with only a slight excess of gravel (just to make it interesting), and no cars in sight - I loved it! Another enjoyable blat back along the road - I only got lost twice - and back to the rally site, where the bar staff were hosing down a lorry load of Newky Brown bottles to stop them exploding in the heat.

Chris & Chris eventually did turn up; they were expecting bad weather as well, Christine (Squeeky) had at least three layers of clothes on.

The afternoon silly games, for some reason, did not occur until 7pm, but that just meant people were just a little bit drunker than usual, which made the games funnier, especially the increasingly popular dizzy stick.

Back to the disco - unfortunately the guy hadn't got any more records, so it was a relief when the band came on (good solid blues, too!). The evening games, involving eating, drinking, & partial nudity, which normally take place around 10ish, finally happened after 3am! This meant most people had gone to bed or collapsed in a drunken heap and didn't care about them. Even I gave up half way through and went to bed, via the food tent.

Sunday morning, if anything, was even hotter than Saturday. I couldn't face the queue for breakfast, so I set about packing, (I always hate this bit of the rally).

We discovered that the raffle, which we all had tickets for, wasn't going to be held until the afternoon. I have seen some laid back clubs in my time, but really! So we left our tickets with Squeeky's brother - one of the 'organisers' - and went on our merry way, therefore beginning...

 

Part 2 - Northern Exposure

Click the above link to continue Phil's Magnus Opus with his Simmer Dim report.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley