Welcome to an ILL

The Ill-Eagles were out in force on this sunny May day. Having terrorised the Sunday drivers all the way round Edinburgh bypass, we took up prime position in the East Fortune ground. The photo selection includes David Wood's blue Firebird, Dave's silver 'Vette and rear end shots of Peter Neil's '57 Fairlane lined up with Chris and Jim's motors. There were many other club cars there, but our photographer went walkabout and discovered a few other yanks in the showground, notably a beautiful '59 Caddy just imported from LA by David Lindsay of Edinburgh - those fins are 20th century art!. Also found was Ian Kilpatrick from Dunfermline's classic T-bird, a 1960 Olds Ninety Eight and a near vintage black Plymouth Rumble coupe. A great day out! It bodes well for Summer 2002. Keep on turning up, folks!"

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Tipped off about this new monthly cruise meet (1pm, 1st Sunday in the month), our 3 intrepid members Derek, Barry and Mike set off from Fife only to be snagged up on the M8 due to an earlier crash. Ditto for their associate, Keith Robertson of Fife County Cruisers. As a result when they arrived, all the boys and girls of the West were leaving for a cruise to Ayr! Our photographer managed to capture this yellow 'vette with the black Transam making off in the background. Another of the 'vette this time with a white Caddy Convertible sloping off. Damn! Ah well, feast your eyes on Keith's red Corvette, plus our Trio's chariots all in a row.

Remember the fuel protests of September 2000? Well amidst the gas drought the Selkirk show was in danger of collapsing. Chris and Mike, with determination, duly queued up for their quotas of petrol before gingerly stealing South expecting to find a half empty field. In the end it wasn't quite as bad as that - but the Yank gas guzzlers were conspicuous by their absence. Here you can see the little Ill-Eagle stand plus the only 2 other Yanks in the show that year - a very attractive black and white Belair plus a petrol blue Camaro. Ironic really!

Here is a collection of photos from Summer 2001 at Ill-Eagle's new regular cruise meets at KFC Kirkcaldy (every 2nd Sunday of the month April-Sept). This has become a very popular meet thanks to relentless promotion by Derek Stewart. Can you spot the club cars, folks?

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Scotland's own Country Music Festival in year 2000. Free entry and free meals if you brought your Yank! And so a few Yanks rolled in and lined up - quite literally in one long straight line. Starting from the red 3rd & 4th generation Transam sisters right through to the novelty chopped Caddy. But can you spot the Ill-Eagle club cars in the line up?

According to York Dragway, we are now the Ill-Eagle racing club. Four cars went down to race up the strip. There was David (and Gail) with his pink Trans-Am, Chris with his Dodge, Peter with his Firebird and Steve with his pick-up.

Peter started the journey first, coming from Tain to meet up with David and Gail, who were going to tow their car on an a-frame behind their camper van. The problems started at the first bend in the road, when the car decided to try to go in the opposite direction to the van. So David had to sit in the car and steer it around every junction, roundabout etc all the way to York.

In Edinburgh, Chris joined the convoy and things went ok until we left York and headed out towards where we thought the dragstrip was. A few wrong turns and an extra car to our convoy (two guys from Liverpool who had been lost for an hour and had spotted another American car so tagged on with us !) and we arrived after 11pm. Peter had started driving around 12noon. Steve by this time was also on his way and caught up with us around 2.30 am

On Saturday morning, Peter decided not to try to race as he had an oil leak, or so he thought. David and Steve raced up the track all day, having a great time. Poor Chris ended up doing the slowest run of the day as his fuel pump packed in on his first run. he then spent the rest of the day trying to fix it, and then trying to beg, borrow or steal a new one.

Sunday saw David taking the back seats and the passenger seat and anything else he could out of the Trans-Am to try to get 100mph down the strip. Chris finally got his Dodge running and got a few runs in.

The trophy for the weekend was presented to Chris for persevering with his fuel pump.

Now you would think that that was the end of it. Peter shot off home as he had the furthest to travel. As we neared Edinburgh, Steve went off home. Then Gail's van refused to start after stopping to fill up with fuel, it wouldn't even jump start and had to get pushed to bump start it. Then coming round the Edinburgh bypass all its lights went, and this is 11.30pm , so with Chris in front and David behind we all limped to Chris's house for the night. What we didn't realise was that Peter had not got home, but was broken down in Perth, with water gushing out of his radiator. So next morning, he had to be rescued and escorted home, stopping every 15 miles to fill up with water.

You could say it was an eventful trip !!!!! The mad thing is we are already planning to do it again next year, minus all the break downs.

A small coup for the club is we now boast PAUL HUDSON and MONEY HUNGRY as club members after David badgered and shamed Paul into parting with a Tenner!!!!! So watch this site for a MONEY HUNGRY page next year when Paul gets the car going with an Alcohol motor under the bonnet.

We got together with the Dundee AAC and met at St Andrews West Beach for a barbie. There was a really good turn out of cars. The weather was kind to us and although there was a fair wind, it was hot and sunny.

The only problem was that the two groups didn't mix all that well, the Dundee crowd didn't realise that our huge barrel of a club barbecue was for their use as well as ours. Mind you Gail still managed to sell our club stickers to a few of them !!!!


	Just a few of the cars on show over the weekend. David is pleased to say that he raced against, and beat the one with its bonnet up