Quote:
Originally Posted by DeMoNPauL
Ask Matt C what the likes of Jerry flint,Leda and many more i could mention put into building the MG community.
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There seems to be a lot of negativity towards XPF at the moment and in many respects i can understand why - Ross picks up on my major reason and that is there's too many young kids thinking they know it all and bringing their limited knowledge and inflated attitudes along. All that does is wind-up the older guard who helped make it the giant it is now.
Some background info on XPF. In late 2001 a gentleman i am proud to call a friend called Jerry Flint went to a BTCC race and met up with another gent callen Kev Neal (cousin of Matt Neal) and along with a few others decided to turn what was Jerrys basic blog about running his Rover 75 into a website dedicated to the new breed of MG's : The Zed range. Regional meets were organised and soon the members came flooding in. An online gallery was created which to this day is one of the nets largest car-based gallerys - an achievement in itself. I was one of the very early members and helped with regional meets and BTCC events, often getting convoys of 75+ cars.
I then started working for MG's works BTCC team on the merchandise/display stand. This gave further relationships between MG and XPF with Jerry and me often visiting the factory. In 2004 we sponsored not only Jason Hughes maiden season in a ZS but also WSR who were now running 2 ZS's independantly with no MG backing. We then ran a raffle to help WSR's race programme even further. Jerry personaly went out and bought a brand new MG TF for the raffle prize - sheer dedication to the marque. The raffle was a huge success and we gave WSR thousands. (this is why you will find a lot of BTCC supporters who used to support the MG's now support WSR's 2 orange BMW's !)
Then in 2005 when the sad news of Longbridge closing it's doors reached us we immediatly reacted. The owners of Leda suspension, Beverley and Andy Miles made it their mission to show and give support to MGR's hard and loyal workers by organising a convoy to Longbridge. A few of us negotiated with the local authorities for Police assistatance (which we got - including a junction of the M42 being shut to allow us through !) and we even had BBC, ITV and Sky news involved. The rally was a huge success, we had hundreds of cars in convoy and raised thousands once again.
Following this, feeling and morale was low on XPF and Jerry decided he wanted to step down. By this time XPF was a business in it's own right and needed someone to step in, not only with money but with a hosting package and knowledge of running a site. A few of us tried to get a rescue package together but it failed and eventualy it was Steve Childs who stepped in.
It was here that many of us felt let down as we felt that he bought his own army of moderators in, wiping us out with complete disregard for the years of hard work we had put in.
In the meantime Beverley and Andy Miles formed a new website, Brit-cars.com and Jerry formed his own going back to his motorsport routes, Sportscar-racing.com. All the old guard from XPF ended up as members of either one or both - i'm on both, admin on Sports-car as well as a moderator on Jerrys other MG website.
Some of us still frequent XPF but it doesn't seem the same. We try to add our knowledge and input but it's rarely appreciated and then the fact that RSM is allowed to roam free is an insult to us who did our best to make sure he would never scam another MGR owner again. I'm glad there are still big supporters of XPF and i still have respect for it and great memories of what we achieved. I spend most of my time here and on Sportscar-racing.com but i would like to add that i think it's wrong for those who don't know about XPF, it's background and what was achieved to go knocking it and slagging it off. It may be run in a vastly different way to how we used to know it but it's still the largest independantly run MG website in the world and the wealth of collective knowledge there is unrivalled and unchallenged by any other MGR website.
Sorry for the length of this post and for hijacking Bobs thread !
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