Had a good time too, great to actually meet some people from here in real life!
just wish i'd come on saturday and not on sunday as i did! by the time i got there things had started to slow down a little..
After setting of an hour late, and a 2 hour drive. we spend another half hour trying to carefully manouvre the Lex through the crowds without crushing someone's toes, got stuck at the Skyline corner behind a pile of garbage which took us 10 mins to negotiate, and if it wasnt for my girlfriend spotting the Lexus banners I doubt we'd have found it!
I was actually a man on a mission trying to find Insider, even though I had no contact number, no idea what he looked like, nor what car he was in! obviously my girlfriend was impressed with my organisational skills at that moment in time expressing some serious doubt as to me finding him!
Obviously me being an optimist I said all would be fine, and as soon as we arrived at the Lexus pitch I set of to find him. Or anyone else...
I had somewhat overlooked the fact that maybe not everyone would be sitting next to their car with their name tags on waiting for newbies like me to come and ask them
questions all weekend long..
Luckily I spotted the familiar hairdo of Ryan (Rhaines) staggering accross the pitch, so I introduced myself and asked him if he knew Insider. he confirmed he was there and that he was " a tall bloke", which obviously dramatically increased my knowledge of the man! Sadly there appeared to be rather a lot of people that fit that description so I figured I'll just see what happens and I set off to have a look at the other cars. I then had the pleasure of engaging in conversation with fellow newbie John with whom I had a nice chat concerning Lexi, volvo and DVD navigation systems, and he pointed out Zee and Loz to me
I approached both gentleman who proudly showed me their cars ( still dont quite get how Zee managed to drive 3 cars to the show..??
)
Anyway, they were able to point Insider's car out to me so I now knew he was still at the show, and they kindly promised to let him know i was there in case they spotted him
I returned to my car and had a wander around the Lexus pitch again, admiring the IS 430 (what a great sound!!
) and the Monster, and the nice line-up of Soarers on show.
by the time i wandered back to my car my girlfriend had tracked down Mr Insider, so we did our bussiness, and we had a wander around the rest of the site to look at all the other cars
(
her favourite car.. 
)anyway, when we had done the round we wandered back to the car, drove off and after 30 mins of so of rather slow progress we still hadnt got very far, and to make matters worse, the brake pads fell of the car!!!
this was not exactly what I needed, breaking down in the middle of the Exodus out of JAE!!
i managed to pull to the side, phoned the RAC, they came to the rescue, I had to wait for a tow-truck, they couldnt find one big enough for the car (
), then they couldnt find a driver that had enough time on his schedule to get it all the way home, so they gave me a courtesy car. So I drove in with a Lexus and out with a Ford Focus!
ah well atleast it brakes properly...
anyway, hopefully i can get it fixed today and all will be fine. Atleast the JAE 2003 was, for me, an experience not to be forgotten, and I'll certainly be back next time!
...on Saturday!
Many thnx to Rhaines, Loz and Zee for the assistance, Insider for the hardware and John for the conversation!
(Apart from the barbie on Saturday which was excellent - thanks to Pee.j and Matt W for their skills, and NickE from TOC for the loan of his BBQ)
and who can forget the awards. 
)