NSCC AGM WTF?

Saturday just gone saw the annual drivers' meeting for the National Street Car Challenge. Last year's discussion got a bit heated over several issues, so would this be the same again? Would there be the beer-fuelled bun-fight we've become accustomed to? Would there be hair and teeth flying in all directions? No. Quite the opposite.

Last year, I'm sure we filled that room three-quarters full. This year, we barely half filled it, and it doesn't half come to something when Kelly is complaining that she can't hear over the noise of some Glaswegian pensioners giggling in the next room. Although to be fair they were doing some shrieking in there - were they having an Ann Summers party, or was Biff showing them his camera-phone "self-portraits"?

So where was everyone? Every year, there were people who'd come along to the drivers' meeting and I wouldn't see them again for the rest of the year. Even those guys stayed away. Is it just that everyone's skint? For God's sake, give us a clue...

Anyway, on to the meeting. We had some proposals to put forward that we just knew would cause a riot. We were thinking of having chicken wire at the front of the stage, Blues Brothers-style, to deflect the barrage of empty glasses. Full ones would be too much to hope for, I suppose.

And the objections didn't come. We suggested allowing slicks to be used at race meetings on any car that had already fulfilled the qualifying criteria of one show event, one race event and two cruises. Most people agreed. We suggested opening the entry rules to allow 'retro' front-wheel drive cars over 25 years old like MkI Fiestas and Golfs, Minis and older Jap stuff to join in. People said "Why the age limit? Let everyone join." We suggested that every car should have an MoT certificate to compete, even if it's pre-1960. We got a brief round of applause. All the contentious rules that have previously been like lighting the blue touch paper went through on the nod.

What? Who the bloody hell are you lot, and what have you done with the NSCC competitors?! The guys who could start a 15 minute argument if you said "Good evening" to them. Have the bar staff at the Manhattan put Valium in the beer? Well, they should put SOMETHING in the beer, preferably something that makes it taste like beer and not that cold tea, cat piss and custard concoction that breweries like to call SmoothFlow. Or maybe that's it - maybe the Manhattan switched to alcohol-free beer to keep things sweet? Although that certainly would raise a few questions about how Gasket got into that state...

So what's going on? Is it that everyone's finally realised that we can't afford to be narrow minded any more, and that in order for the series (and the scene) to survive, we're going to have to bin a few preconceptions and broaden our horizons a little bit? Or have people just given up? Stopped caring one way or the other? Or, rather, is the NSCC going to shrug its shoulders and accept that change is inevitable, or are we going to embrace it as an opportunity to spread the word, get some new faces and new blood into the scene, and, somehow, no matter how impractical it sounds, give ourselves a damn good kick up the arse? Watch www.nscc.info for rule changes and other such rot.

Oh, and congratulations to John Peace, the newly-crowned NSCC champion of 2012. A worthy winner, a well-deserved title, and one of the nicest blokes you could wish to meet. Good health, John.