Saturday 10th November 2018:
La Partie de Loto à Scarabée
(Beetle Drive)
Saturday night in Burbage and 50 enthusiastic beetle drivers arrive to do battle, only weapons: pen, paper and dice.
Any pre-match nerves were settled with an excellent avant-tournée hot pot supper prepared by notre équipe de cuisine formidable - Derek and Karen; heartily consumed along with a not inconsiderable quantity of wine and beer, judging by the number of empties at the end of the night! Necessary for additional nerve calming perhaps...?
With all the teams of two fortified by the supper, it was time to let the games begin. Ace beetle master Malcolm Bradbury took the stage to explain the rules, assisted by his sidekick and timekeeper for the night Paul Lewis, who's cheerful enthusiasm more than made up for any shortcomings on split second accuracy...
Monsieur le Scarabée explains the rules
Paul carefully consults his timing analysis and... declares a dead heat for 2nd place.
High anticipation just before the timekeepers starting whistle.
After eight hotly contested rounds, and the creation of a multitude of strangely deformed beetles, mostly missing limbs and even heads, the team of Jane and Perce Calvert emerged triumphant winners with 326 points.
2nd place, for the fastest complete beetle, turned out to be a tie between the winning team and the Thomas team of Alison and Charlotte. Both teams having completed their fastest beetle in precisely 1m 18.53s
according to timekeeper Paul, after carefully consulting his battery of timing equipment. Equipment which - he assures us - is fully calibrated to an accuracy to 0.01 of a second. An astonished Malcolm stated that such a close tie is completely unprecedented in the world of Beetle Drive, and announced a play-off for 2nd place, which was duly won by Alison and Charlotte.
The tension is electric in the seconds before the play off for 2nd place.
Many thanks to Karen Done for the smooth organisation of a very enjoyable and successful event, and to Malcolm Bradbury for the lively and entertaining contest.
The Friends of Oignies wish to state that no insects were harmed in any way during the making of this production...
More pictures from Saturday evening below:
Derek prepares hotpot for fifty hungry beetle drivers...
Papa Smurf lookalike competion: Paul and Malcolm
'The Management' aka Anne and Sue, on door and raffle duty.
