Chaps and Chapettes,
2016 has been a busy year for me and has seen this blog properly get on it’s feet. I’ve had the pleasure to be able to bring you coverage of lots of car events and have been able to write about a lot things.
Lets start at the beginning. For me the motorsport season starts at Autosport Show. It’s always nice to see current Formula 1 cars and LMP1 series cars up close and personal. A real privilege that will never get old!
I think Autosport this year was really the start of my obsession with oval racing. The finest stock cars, hotrods and BriSCA F1 and F2 were on display here. The level of workmanship that goes into these cars is really staggering!
My inner snob also enjoy’s Autosport as I always go to look around the Coys auction. Coys of Kensington always bring a variety of race cars and road going cars to auction off at the show.
My biggest highlight for February would have to be the Team S1 day at Santa Pod DWYB. Kris Morris organised a load of us Essex yobbos to go up to Santa Pod to shred tyres for the day. It was a super chilled out day and it was nice to see some of the guys I only normally see drifting at King of the Ring attack a different track. I spent most of the day with my good friend Warren Runnicles who was driving his PS13 convertible which was sadly written off in a road accident later in the year.
I also got to meet the chaps from Essex Rotary for the first time. To the best of my knowledge this was Ryan’s first proper day out in the car. He has come on leaps and bounds now and has become a competent drifter. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2017 brings for him.
I also got to cross the border into Kent a few times this year. Firstly was to go to a very very very wet day at Lydden Hill for the British Drift Championship. I got a lap around the pits before deciding I was too cold and joined Carl Reynolds and his girlfriend in the car to watch the main event with the heater on haha!
It was pretty crazy to see local driver Danny Grundy compete at BDC too. If memory serves he finished on the podium in Semi-Pro and got to compete in Pro the following day where he finished quite high in the table. I’m sure I will be corrected if I’m wrong haha!
In the summer I also got to go to the Masters event at Brands Hatch. Masters is a race weekend for historic Formula 1 cars, Formula Ford cars, sports cars and touring cars. They also have a huge static car show featuring cars from the top marquees, the Mercedes stand only had two cars on it though which kinda sucked :/
It was an amazing day though! If you ever get the opportunity to hear a Formula 1 car, of any generation running you have to take it! Especially the V10s from the early 1990s!
My favourite place for historic motorsport this year has got to be Brooklands though. The museum is absolutely incredible and the motorsport section of it is like a time warp. The aero museum and bus museum are also really interesting too. I can’t recommend the place enough.
Back on our side of the Dartford crossing I managed to attend most of the King of the Ring events. King of the Ring has come on massively this year. The use of the track, especially with the 1.5 lap track at the final round was superb. Commentating has improved too, the event seems to run much smoother and of course the driving has improved. KOTR is not anything like what it was when I started going in 2011 which is a good thing. I’ll support local drifting in all it’s forms but KOTR has really become a professional event. All the organisers should be proud of what they have built there.
I finally managed to get to a banger meet at Arena for the first time in about 10 years! Firecracker allowed me to see unlimited bangers in action as well as 2.0 stock cars and Reliant Robins which were hilarious.
I also got to watch some racing in my sleepy middle class town Billericay! The inaugural Billericay Soap Box Derby was a huge success! Teams built a wide variety of vehicles to get down the hill. Some going for comedic value and others were out to win! It was a good laugh and it was really nice to see the people of Billericay getting involved in racing.
I must admit I haven’t really focused as much on the mental health side of this blog as much as I should have this year.
I would like to thank Sarah Wheatley, Natassa Pericleous, Stephanie Tutty and Joe Wallace for helping me create the “Living With” series.
This coming year I plan to review some mental health related apps and try to make some more tips and tricks blog posts. I’d like to continue the “Living with” series too, I just need to find some willing volunteers!
I’d also like to say thanks to my Halford’s family for putting up with my ups and downs and general lunacy. You guys have pushed me to do things that I really didn’t think I was comfortable doing this year. I did push a bit too hard but I’m allowing myself that. You guys rock and deserve your own special blog post in the new year!
In terms of my own projects I have made good progress with my weird old bus Panzer. It now has a full leather interior and most of the cooling system has been replaced after a a couple of “small incidents” haha!
I also got to welcome a Designo edition W202 to the family! a C240 Sport with blue and black leather interior. She is a rare beast and I’m looking forward to restoring it in time.
I also decided to let go of my drift car Quasimodo. I needed my garage/workshop space back and to be perfectly honest my heart had fallen out of the project and it was never going to get finished. Maybe in the new year another track or drift car will come along. It’ll probably be another W202 C-Class but we shall see haha!
RC also went out the window this year. With the collapse of Rayleigh RC there has been no where local to drift. I might try a different discipline out next year, maybe GT12 or short course trucks, who knows!
It’s been a good year for slot cars. My Omnibus has been my most challenging build to date and took the majority of the year to complete haha! I have something that will be even more impressive to build in 2017 though!
I might also build myself a little drag car to complete in the 2017/18 series of the Mr D Slot Drag Racing events. We shall see.
Anyway, thanks for a great year! I hope you all have a wonderful new year and I will speak to you all soon!
