2023

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.

2020

2019 ended as a bit of a damp squib, whatever that is, and hence we were looking forward to 2020. As everyone knows by now, that turned out to be a very bad idea. I think there’s a good chance the most of 2021 will go the same way as well, especially for those of us that are now marooned in Tier 4. (Hopefully that expression won’t mean much in a few year’s time.)

As you can probably tell, I wrote that a while ago and we’re now in the depths of the mysterious catacombs of lockdown#3. However, there is a glimmer of light in that lots of vaccinations are happening, some of them administered by me!, and perhaps as we get into the summer things will look better.

Continue reading “2020”

2018 review

I guess I ought to stop apologising for being late with these posts, and just accept the fact that I just don’t get around to things quickly enough these days. I’m pretty much retired now (although just starting some new complex systems research) so you’d think I’d have time. Seems to escape me though. And, no, I’m not spending all my time watching daytime TV.

Continue reading “2018 review”

A cacophony of ice and fire

So, time for catching up. As I mentioned, the car was tested a while ago by Anthony Reid and it was featured, along with some other RGB cars, in Autosport a while ago. The review was, in general, pretty favourable towards my car and the formula in general. Anthony is the chap driving the car in the photo on the right.

Continue reading “A cacophony of ice and fire”

The season creeps up on us

It’s almost the start of the race season, as I write. So far, I’ve done the club trackday–which was really an opportunity for the car to be track tested for an upcoming Autosport feature–and most recently a Javelin trackday at Cadwell Park. The latter was a wet day but very useful as it gave me a chance to try out a few aspects of a wet setup. To be honest, the car was really good to drive in the wet.

The photo here was taken by Neil Kirby at Cadwell and I think it’s my new favourite race car photo. Neil’s managed to get in a really interesting place to take the photo. I think this must be between Charlies 1 and 2 but I’m not sure really.