And in a flash, three years went by! You might well wonder where I’ve been. In fact I’ve been alerted to actually finish this post by a comment that arrived and pointed out to me that I hadn’t really finished things off.
The short version is that in 2020 I didn’t do any racing at all. If you remember that was the year of the initial, and most brutal, lockdowns. We were unsure at the time of Anthea’s status with respect to catching COVID so we stayed away entirely.
In 2021, though, things were a little better and we did 6 races in the year, 3 meetings which were OK although marred at Croft by a reappearance of the issues with idiotic ride height tests that being done by the scrutineers. However, first indications were that the new bodywork functioned well and I felt that if nothing else it looked much, much better than the old version.
I must admit to being really pissed off about the unnecessary ride height tests. (At first I got disqualified and then undisqualified) and in many ways it cemented the decision that I subsequently made at the start of 2022 to give up, at least for the time, motor racing. I’m getting on these days and although the racing itself is OK I was really fed up with the grindstone of packing up, unpacking, racing, packing up, unpacking, preparing, packing up. And so on and on and on.
2021 and 2022 were kind of odd years, I guess you will remember. I actually spent a great deal of time in those years sticking needles in people as one of the volunteer COVID vaccinators. I did something like 800 hours working in the mass vaccination centres which I must admit to finding fascinating and concerning in equal measure.
So, to finish my motorsport journey, at least at the moment, I have now sold the car and pretty much everything else that relates to motor racing including the car trailer, motorhome and a whole lot of spares.
At the time of writing, in December 2023, the car is actually now for sale again for reasons I don’t entirely understand. If you’re interested you can probably find it on racecarsdirect.
At least for a while, my spannering has now gone back into road cars and I’ve bought an oldish Mercedes SL500 (it’s actually the third SL I’ve had) and I’m in the process of returning it to some sort of rude health.
At least for now, I’m still associated with the Sports 1000 formula albeit it in a mostly administrative manner. I’ll carry that on for a while just so that I can keep up with my racing mates.