Ten of the Best - 27th July

One huge advantage of having family living right next door to an old airfield is being able to sneak on to see events for free! Today we managed to dodge the £20 gate fee to have a look round the Ten of The Best show. Some of the cars there were pretty awesome!

Ten of the Best is a performance road car event, aimed at finding the best all round car in Europe. Handling, top speed, and the 1/4 mile drag strip are used to determine the results. Check out http://www.totb.co.uk/home/ for more information about it and to take a look at the results and the galleries.

Rick does some work for one of the exhibitors at the show, RE Motorsport. The RE Motorsport stand was designed by Rick and the car stickers were created by Rick too. One of RE Motorsports customers, Simon Walker, has the Lotus Exige in the picture and he took part in the event. It turns out that Simon is actually a tenant at the place where I work. Small world!

There were some amazing cars competing, on show, and in and around the car park. What with the glorious sunshine too it was a fantastic event with lots of noise, burnout smells and fast action.

Bug Jam 22 - 19/20 July

This weekend, Rick and I went down to Santa Pod in our VW camper for Bug Jam 22. This is a huge VW festival where loads of people turn up for the day or weekend in their VW's of any sort to exhibit, race, buy, sell, get drunk, etc, etc. If you ever get the opportunity to go then you must do it, it's fantastic.

The journey down to Santa Pod was a test in itself for us. Our faithful 1972 Bay runs around all over the place during the week as Rick's main means of transport but it's never done more than about 20 miles in one go, let alone 170 miles! We stook to 60mph and stopped half way down on Saturday morning to let the camper have a breather before continuing on our 4 hour journey. We made it without any problems.

The whole Bug Jam experience was fantastic. It was amazing to see so many VW campers and beetles all in one place. There must have been thousands. The numerous camp sites were crammed full of the old VW's and it was great to be parked up amongst them in our own camper. Ours is no way the smartest camper in the world, Rick's only done a little bit to it to make sure it's road worthy and that we can sleep in it, but it really didn't matter at Bug Jam. There were vehicles of all state of repair and restoration, from pristine £30k jobs to rusty old £300 jobs that we have no idea how they passed their MOT! This was only the 2nd time we'd camped in our camper and it fet much better than the first. I think we've got our heads round what works and what doesn't when trying to live from such a small space all weekend!

On the drag strip there were races of 'run what you brung' as well as specific demonstrations from a VW jet car and 2 other Jet Cars that reached speeds of up to 260mph in just 6 seconds!! The heat from their jet flames could be felt as they passed by at some 100 yards or more away from us.

The live arena provided demonstrations from the likes of Terry Grant (stunt artist), Monstor Trucks, Motorbike display teams, and lots more. Round the rest of the site were stalls selling new and used camper parts, clothing, gifts, etc and also an auto jumble and Auto-Trader sale section.

At night time the 4 music arena's provided music of all types with at least 3 different bands or DJ's playing throughout the night in each. It was a great atmosphere, and very calm considering most people had been drinking since well before lunch time!

Before leaving on Sunday we walked around the Auto Glym show and shine display where the vehicles on display were just amazing. There was pretty much every VW vehicle you could think of in various states of repair, colour schemes, interior fit-outs, and numerous different conversions.

The 60mph journey home took us just under 4 hours again after a short break to rest the engine. And might i just add that we didn't see a single camper broken down at the side of the road all the way there or all the way back!

Bas Round 3 - Scunthorpe

I've just sat down after a well deserved long hot shower and big fat chinese take-away! This weekend provided some great racing at a very well run event.

I intended to go to the field after work on Friday but seen as my sister-in-law and her hubby were in York, having just arrived back from a year long round the world trip, i took the afternoon off to catch up with them. It was great to see and catch up with them after their year away and so i wasn't in a particular hurry to get to the field any earlier than originally planned.

The weather was a little unkind to us for the start of the weekend - rain on Friday afternoon, through the night and early during Saturday made for a muddy start but, all the same, a great track to race on. The Scunthorpe club have this great relaxed but extremely organised approach to their meetings. The members pull together and push through the negative factors and always put on a great show.

I took 2 wins on Saturday but wouldn't say my driving was anything special. It was good and i enjoyed my races but just felt i wasn't quite on the level that i left Cwmdu on. Maybe that was just pshycological. Maybe it was just as fast and good as Cwmdu, but the big smooth track and great set-up of the car just made it all feel a little easier. We played with the suspension settings on the car this weekend and it really made a difference, it felt great.

Sunday was much better weather-wise. The sun came out and the track was superb albeit slightly lacking racing lines come the end of the finals. There only seemed to be a really grippy race line right in tight and so probably wouldn't have allowed for much passing. Fortunately a flying start and absence of Sandra Jones allowed me to take the lead from the start and achieve a good win.

Straight after my final my brother went in the mens champ of champs and straight after that i went in the ladies champ of champs - my poor car!! We both came 2nd in the champ of champs to the class 8. Mark drove far better than me and was so unlucky to just get pipped to the post by Lee Waldron. In my race it took me ages to pass the 4 and then the 2 as they don't leave an inch up the inside and there was no grip round the outside of them - by the time i eventually got passed the 2, Clare Horner had tried the outside move and it worked so she was well away. All good fun though and £100 prize money for 2nd was much appreciated even if it does go into dads pocket and not mine!

One final thing to mention about the weekend is my brothers excellent driving and results to show for it. What he suffered in his own class 8 (blown engine) he made up for in the class 5. He had 2 1sts and a 2nd in the heats and led all 3 attempts of the final to eventually take the win. Excellent driving in a car that was trully on form this weekend!

New Stickers

I said in an earlier post that the stickers on the side of the car were ruined and i'd pulled them off. Today i nipped to my mum and dads in my dinner hour and put some new ones on.

The numbers are compulsory, we must have them and they must be a certain spec of size, colour, etc. Just to freshen things up a bit we put some different stickers on too; a bit more advertising on the side for our engine builder, Exon Race Engines and a Vision Plus sticker on the bonnet.

Vision Plus is run by Lynn Cooper who races mens class 9. Lynn has a great range of racewear and accessories that she brings to all big race meetings and also sells on line at http://www.visionplusuk.com/

An Inspirational Drive

I don't know about you but i thought Lewis Hamilton drove an amazing race yesterday at Silverstone. Under the track and weather conditions he kept his cool and outdrove the competition by far.

I am well and trully inspired by Lewis's drive and his buzz from winning his home Grand Prix. It reminded me of the buzz that i feel when i have a great drive and a great achievement. I can't wait now to get on the track and do some racing this weekend at Scunthorpe BAS 3. Hope the weather pics up though, I need a dry meeting to have some proper full-on racing!

What i've been getting up to in June

What does a grasser do when they're not grassin? Well here's what i've been doing...

Instead of going to MAP on the first weekend in June, Rick and I went up to Glasgow to visit his Gran who is not very well. It was a lovely weekend with Rick's mum and Aunties and Uncles all back together in Glasgow for the first time in about 20 years. Many of the family are now living in Australia and Uncle Jim is in Germany. We hope to go over to Australia in the near future to stay with the family out there, it's a place i've always wanted to go and from the family photo's it looks every bit as amazing as i thought.

There was lots of paintwork to touch up on the car after the North of Englands so i did that ready for the Cwmdu BAS. There is now more hand-painted white paint on the wheel arches then there is original spray paint! If you look closely there's also lots of nice orange dribbles down the inside of the car where the paint has run through the holes in the bodywork!
We only usually run a shell for 1 season and then over winter dad will re-shell the car or at least re-panel it if he hasn't time to do a complete new shell. This winter however, dad was ill with cancer and so we have kept the same shell for a second season. It's looking a bit worse for wear now and, following a nudge in the door at Cwmdu, the doors panels and numbers are a bit of a state. I decided to pull the door numbers off last weekend and so after dad has straightened the door nicely i'll put some fresh stickers on for Scunthorpe BAS.

Last sunday we went to Dalby Forest, a local forest and visitor centre, with lots of friends from Church and had a great BBQ. Dalby Forest is a fantastic place for bike riding, adventure sports, chilling out, and even has the odd rally there. (pic above is the forest)

Bus Rennovation stage 1

The first job was to strip out all of the seats and sell them on ebay - an opportunity to make a little money back! The picture to the left shows the upstairs area with seats removed.

Dad has also now cut out the back section (right) to plan the layout for taking 2 cars. This really determines how the rest of the living area can fit. While planning this back car area dad is also enjoying the rain (must be the only one!) as it's allowing him to find the roof leaks and make the bus water tight before building in it. I'll keep you posted on further developments or maybe i should start a bus conversion blog?!

Check out my Flickr site for more Bus conversion pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicjesse/sets/72157605953030998/

Our new bus

Sleeping accomodation at racing can vary from back of your car, tent or caravan, to a great big motorhome or even a bus. The Grice family have a bus.

We had a couple of standard 52 seater coaches when we first moved up from the caravan but since about 2002 we've had a Volvo B10M High level coach, much like the one in the image. The coach is converted, by dads own good hands, into a motorhome/living area at the front and a car carrier at the back. Mark's car drives onto a ramp which lifts up on hydraulic rams to allow for mine and dads car to fit underneath it. From that point forward, in the living quarters, is bathroom with shower, double bed, bunk beds, kitchen area, 2 sofas and viewing seats. It realy is prefect for the job - no towing, no expensive carpets and upholstery to get mucky, and plenty of room in the luggage lockers for tools and tyres!

A couple of months ago dad bought a new coach (the one in the pic) which is very similar to the current one. It's still a Volvo B10M but its about a foot taller and the upper deck comes all the way to the front, over the drivers compartment allowing for a further 5ft of living space. In our current bus the top deck stops just behind the driver and the drivers area is all open to the bus (if you can imagine that)!

The coach is as it would be on the road and so dad will now start rennovating it.