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.

Slowing down

CablesThe car that is. This is the second update in as many weeks, I’ll have you know. This one is really about controlling the car and I’ve now finished running control cables. in this photo, if you look carefully, you can see the gearchange cable (along the top rail) and the clutch and throttle cables (snaking up from the floor). I’m adopting the sort of strategy that you see in proper race cars and trying to avoid drilling any holes in the chassis by the copious use of tie-wraps. The chassis is such a nice thing that it’d be a shame to start drilling holes in it. Continue reading “Slowing down”

Fit the Fifth

Expired CV joint-002…in which our intrepid hero sets out on his fifth quest to slay some unperceived dragon, albeit starting by avoiding a trip to Pembrey in the land of the dragons.

Back in the real world I took the J15’s bodywork off to have a look at the damage as a consequence of the CV joint. As you can see a goodly quantity of CV joint grease was scattered about and I found a single one of the balls out of this tripode joint skittering about on top of the floor pan. The rest of them must have escaped captivity in Snetterton.

Continue reading “Fit the Fifth”

Here we go again

Storage boxesThe first race of the season is now just a few days away and it’s going to be a really busy day. We’ve got two races in a day and, because Donington operate what seems to me to be a completely unacceptable testing regime, there’s no testing on the friday before the race. My view is that the club shouldn’t give the circuit our monies if they aren’t prepared to accommodate us for testing but I don’t hold much sway and so I’m going into two races on a new circuit (we’re on the GP circuit) pretty much blind.

The one slight saving grace is that the club have managed to get a test session into the start of the programme. This means that I’ve got two practice sessions and two races to fit in on the day, which is going to be a bit pressed, to say the least.

Continue reading “Here we go again”

New season coming rushing up

Fullscreen-capture-12022013-231258Finally,  I seem to be making a bit of progress on the car. Mind you, precious little of this progress has translated to this website. I have, though, been doing stuff on two other sites. The new 750 website was produced with a good deal of help from me and I’ve also been putting together a new site for RGB to go with the existing forum. Note that even if you’re not an RGBer you can now invest in some RGB teamwear to make you feel more a part of the action. Perhaps, though, the RGB umbrellas will be a better choice if we have the same sort of summer as we had last year.

Continue reading “New season coming rushing up”

Painfully levers himself back into the saddle

Bride's Pool, Hong Kong

It seems quite likely that you’ve all been wondering where I’ve gone. In a nutshell, a lot of things have been happening one of which has just about stopped all work in the garage. More of that in a mo’ though.

After the Birkett, which I think was where I left you all, we went to Hong Kong for a week with Tom which was great. Just so you realise that there’s rather more to Hong Kong than all those photos you usually see here’s a rather different one.

Continue reading “Painfully levers himself back into the saddle”