August 21st 1998

The first thing I heard in the morning was noise made out on the street by a couple of dustman and their lorry. "Regarde les belles Tractions" shouted one to the other. When I peered out the window, it was evident what we were in for in Belgium: Rain! The 60km drive through the drizzle was quite nice though, with the wipers going "geek - geek" and a drop of water (from the untight air duct) onto my right foot's ankle every minute or so.

Then, all of a sudden, everything was full with Citroëns! They came from the remotest places it seemed, Poland, Scotland, the States, just to mention a few I saw. After some queueing, we finally got in, and we even found a stretch of parking with mostly Tractions on it - but the whole thing was quite chaotic, really. No splitting up into sections according to the different Citroën models, like at Clermont Ferrand and other former ICCCRs, my friends complained. I felt lucky to have arrived at all. It still drizzled as we made our way to what looked like the central gathering place: A very large white tent next to some water slides (Yes, there were people crazy enough to use them!).

Then came the first drawback: We discovered that we had to convert our legal tender money into "Eurocitros" (EC). Nice gesture, but what was it good for. For buying food and drinks, ok. But in the end, we figured, people surely consumed less as they were wondering if they should go and get a couple more or not. We heard that excess Euro-Citros would not be taken back; thank you. Also, there was a severe lack of orientation. The maps showed the Chevetogne country park in its original state, and one had to ask round where everything was. Andreas, Christian and Regine still had to get their admission cards (a lengthy process, I heard), then came the distribution of the plastic bags, containing the rally plaquette, some folders and goodies and a bottle of beer, then we had to get the stickers with the personal number to put them on the plaquettes....

We eventually made our way to the spare parts market area, and I got me an old instructions manual, a t-shirt etc. After the ordeal of registering, we were quite relaxed as we slowly got to know the geography and organisation of Chevetogne. By about 8pm, we got to our hotel... or almost, since my car started behaving weird. It sputtered and moaned. Christian, our club's mechanic, was so kind as to have a look at it. My fuel tank lid was not allowing enough air back in, so my gas pump was having difficulties performing properly. Christian had a suck at the tube, spit out a mouthful and fixed it for the time being. That heroic deed called for a proper drink from the hotel bar!

Dinner in Han-sur-Lesse, the next village down the road, was excellent and quite rustic: everything was large and swam in butter. We met two other long-time Club members, Chrigel and Peter, and spent a very enjoyable evening together. (Never mind my other car being a Golf, Peter; never mind bringing you a german Pils in Belgium, Andreas).

Caspar Türler, August 1998

The entrance to Chevetogne




Trees in the Form of 2CV's




The camp site




Entering the site; this was the weather we had.... for the weekend




To challenge the Lomax?




In the Parts tent




The 22CV Band