After spending the entire day today unloading and drying everything in our camper from awnings, clothes, ourselves, cooking things, tools, the race car itself and warming back up to a regular temperature, we've just put Arthur to bed and cracked open a bottle to reflect on what seemed a hard weekend but in actual fact has turned out quite warming to the cockles.
For those of you who don't know we race a 1963 Cortina GT in Historic Saloon car racing, and due to the sale of the series we raced with last year, we have been forced into a different (and more expensive) race series this year. To say we have stepped up to the big time is an understatement. We raced this weekend with the big boys.
We turned up on Saturday at Brands Hatch and there were people with 50ft articulated lorries, with awnings off the side bigger than my house. 3 or 4 £100k cars parked inside with a full working garage bigger than your local MOT station. AND! a separate 50ft motorhome about 5 star standard with slide out bedrooms and sofas and flat screen tv's etc. etc. etc. and not to mention NO children - not one - Arthur was the only little person around!!
So in we trundle with our home converted Ford Transit, with our car towing nicely behind us, to some very strange looks from people. We parked up, unloaded, set up and went off to have a cuppa in the hospitality suite (again bigger than my house and its a marquee for gods sake!!) no-one talked to us, they even tried to stop us going in until they realised we had competitors wrist bands...
Anyhow - sorry to bore you - but I'm really proud. Zef qualified 17th and finished 11th out of 34. Our little old car, well she aint so slow after all. We beat 3 (YES THREE) Lotus cortinas (they have bigger and faster engines than us) who are prepared by some of the smartest historic engineers around...we beat 4 Alfa's and 1 BMW (well he broke down...) amongst others....
We built and maintain our car, its historically correct and has no trick gearbox, nor engine, we do it all ourselves, and Joe drives it fantastically...and we beat some of them who cheat...
There is a small amount of justice in the world....
For those of you who don't know we race a 1963 Cortina GT in Historic Saloon car racing, and due to the sale of the series we raced with last year, we have been forced into a different (and more expensive) race series this year. To say we have stepped up to the big time is an understatement. We raced this weekend with the big boys.
We turned up on Saturday at Brands Hatch and there were people with 50ft articulated lorries, with awnings off the side bigger than my house. 3 or 4 £100k cars parked inside with a full working garage bigger than your local MOT station. AND! a separate 50ft motorhome about 5 star standard with slide out bedrooms and sofas and flat screen tv's etc. etc. etc. and not to mention NO children - not one - Arthur was the only little person around!!
So in we trundle with our home converted Ford Transit, with our car towing nicely behind us, to some very strange looks from people. We parked up, unloaded, set up and went off to have a cuppa in the hospitality suite (again bigger than my house and its a marquee for gods sake!!) no-one talked to us, they even tried to stop us going in until they realised we had competitors wrist bands...
Anyhow - sorry to bore you - but I'm really proud. Zef qualified 17th and finished 11th out of 34. Our little old car, well she aint so slow after all. We beat 3 (YES THREE) Lotus cortinas (they have bigger and faster engines than us) who are prepared by some of the smartest historic engineers around...we beat 4 Alfa's and 1 BMW (well he broke down...) amongst others....
We built and maintain our car, its historically correct and has no trick gearbox, nor engine, we do it all ourselves, and Joe drives it fantastically...and we beat some of them who cheat...
There is a small amount of justice in the world....