Well, this week has certainly been an eventful one!
Since this is a drifting blog that is where I had better start! Sadly the drift practise footage that I promised you last week never happened. Once again my a-frame failed me on the way to Arena. This time it was slightly more severe! As I was heading along Southend Road in Billericay one of the chains on my a-frame slipped through it’s lock on the ratchet dropping half the frame into the road and making the drift car weave to the right towards onto the other side of the road (thankfully there was no on-coming traffic!). I quickly jumped onto my brake and pulled over to the side of the road, a little too quickly for the trailing drift perhaps which shot over the top of the a-frame and into the back of my road car! Thankfully no damage was done to the almighty Panzer so I took to work trying to untangle the drift car from its frame. It took roughly 20 minutes, on the side of a busy road in the middle of Billericay, how many people do you reckon stopped to help? Zero! Of Course!
After nearly writing off my road car I decided that this wasn’t the way to go about moving a drift car. Between the crash on track and a few other mechanical failures I decided that luck wasn’t on my side on this case and that it was time for me to quit. I was getting more stress out of the sport than enjoyment. I must admit I kinda hit a low patch. My BMW was sold that night and I planned to scrap the W202. I also had my RC stuff up for sale as well. I was convinced that all my friends would consider me a failure for giving up with full size drifting. I wanted to turn my back on something that I had worked so hard towards over the past few years. I needed a break and deactivated my facebook for about 6 hours, before Mr Carl Reynolds, who I will call ‘the snitch’ forever more phoned the hospital to tell them I was planning something stupid. I must admit I wasn’t overly impressed but it made me reactivate my facebook and start thinking about what I was going to do next. One thing I did know was that retched W202 had to go! It went to Ron at Rayleigh Tyres who is a good friend of mine and has helped me get started with drifting, he saw the area in which I have to work and met some of my lovely stuck up neighbours. He said that it wasn’t the ideal place for doing what I was trying to which made me feel like much less of an idiot.
Outside of drifting some interesting things have also been happening. A chap I went to school with, Oliver, is leaving to start training for the Royal Marines. My school friends were holding a bit of a get together for him at my local pub. Nothing overly out of the ordinary happened there and I’m far enough into my recovery to stay for a few hours in a crowded pub but afterwards we went to get food which I was able to eat in semi-public. Eating out is still a big achievement for me but I’ve been making leaps and bounds with my food confidence of late 🙂 One step closer to going back to Formula Drift!
I also dropped Oliver home because he had work the next day and the others wanted to go to a club. We had a falling out a few years ago which contributed largely to my eating disorder and depression because I couldn’t handle things properly (lol) for the first time since then we had the opportunity to properly sit and talk through what happened and apologise for the parts which we played. It felt like a weight off my shoulders that’s for sure!
So in summary; if you see someone struggling with something, mentally or physically, do offer them your assistance. Your help might be more appreciated than you think! Also, if you are struggling with something then don’t be afraid to ask for assistance. You are all surrounded by loving, caring people whether you like it or not. Even those you think did you wrong can still care.
After that essay I had better let you go! Enjoy your week and I will speak to you next Monday!
