An Irish Adventure

We set off for the English port of Holyhead on Wednesday morning with the sun shining all the way. Our ferry sailed on schedule at 3pm and the crossing was relitively smooth and fast, docking in Don Louaghaire (just south of Dublin Docks) at 5pm. The sun was still with us in Dublin but we went through a few showers on the journey up North to Belfast.

The track at Maghberry had clearly suffered from lots of rain over the last few days and weeks so we were relieved to have all the old airfield concrete to park up on. This was probably a life saver for this weekend! Fortunately, with just 260 drivers, the concrete hard ground was enough to accomodate everyone with very few chosing to venture onto the grassy areas.

Thursday and Friday were both decent days. Rick and I went out on our bikes on both days and did a few miles around the country roads. There were lots of hills though and i have to admit that i ended up pushing my bike up them a couple of times! Meanwhile the Down Autograss track crew worked hard on the track all day on Friday and created a great looking race circuit.

On Friday night the rain came and boy did it come! In fact it didn't stop until late on Saturday night. On Saturday morning we were all relieved to here the start time had been postponed until 10am, and after the rain didn't stop we were even more relieved to hear of a further delay until 12pm. At 12, with the rain still beating down, all the drivers took a vote to cancel Saturdays racing and start the meeting on Sunday at 8am no matter what.

For the rest of the afternoon the world of autograss hit the local pub and i don't think the pub knew what had hit it! Needless to say there were some sorry states by early evening and a wise move made by most to come back to the field at around 8pm for the beer shed disco.

A promt 8am start on Sunday saw the first heats over by 11am, the second heats over by 2pm and the third heats by about 4.30. Time may have been tight for those catching the 9pm ferry but I think it was a wise deicision by the BAS committee to give everyone a 3rd heat and we did indeed still have time to run the finals. The track turned out incredibly well considering Saturdays rain, the slope of it allowing the water to run off albeit creating a very muddy pits!

We made the decision to set off to Dublin on Sunday night even though our ferry wasn't utill 11.30am Monday. With all the local weather warnings and stories of roads closed and ferries cancelled, we just couldn't risk leaving it too late. So we parked up just North of Dublin for the night and set off again at 8am for the ferry. We set sail a little late at 11.50am and took slightly longer to arrive back in Holyhead but with the company of Shuke and the Price clan we couldn't complain about a boring journey.

So it was a long, expensive weekend, for weather that we could have got back in England but it was an experience, and an adventure that was well worth it. Even with only 260 drivers no-one ever expected us to complete 3 heats and finals plus champ of champs in just 1 day after all the rain on Saturday, but Down Autograss and all of the other clubs helpers pulled it off and did grassin proud.

Mens Nationals 2008

I feel like it's a bit late to be writing about the mens nationals considering it was 5 days ago but i've just been too busy to write anything before now. That's no excuse really considering MY BROTHER IS A NATIONAL CHAMP and i should be shouting it from the roof every day!!

The nationals hosted by the Wiltshire league at Stroud was as well organised as we all expected. They've hosted enough nationals on their spectacular venue now to know excatly what is required of them and once again they didn't fail to come up to scratch.

My brother got off to a fantastic start on day 1 with 2 wins in his own class 8 and 2 wins in our dads class 5. He was on form and the cars were just amazing. It was a fantastic buzz at the end of Saturday and everyone i spoke to was congratulating Mark on a successful day and putting their money on him for at least 1 win in the finals. Was that good or bad luck? He's joked about it before saying 'I don't know which car i'll race in the champ of champs if I win both finals' but all joking aside, I have to admit for the first time i actualy thought it was just possible he could win in both classes.

Both feeling a bit rough on Sunday morning (self inflicted), Diane and I were on form in Pits Control. Plenty of banter on the PA to liven things up a bit and to humour our hangovers! The racing was again fast and clean and we were ready to start finals at 1.30.

With Mark as one of the favourites to win class 5 I was seriously nervous as the race began. The usual carniage in the first corner caused by Ryan Griffiths was to be expected but fortunately Mark kept his head and made-up for this set-back by coming through to 2nd in about 1 lap! Waiting on Antony Jacksons rear bumber he made his move when Antony slipped up slightly and through Mark went. Now all Antony could do was sit and wait for Mark to do the same but fotunately he never and Mark took a fanatstic win from Antony and Dan Lewis in 3rd. I was nearly in tears at various points throughout the race. I've been in Marks position and i knew exactly what it was like for him during the race, i was just willing him to stay calm and keep up his winning driving. The cheers and congratulations from the crowds and all of our racing mates were fantastic, a well and truly deserved win to a well liked, nice guy.

The family are all really proud of him but i have to feel a little bit sorry for my dad who has tried for this title for tens of years and still not won it! Mark then goes and borrows his car for the year and is winning the BAS and claimed his first National title!

Top qualifier in class 8 Mark managed to achieve 5th in the final after major understear in the first corner. Still, he had a good battle and got as high as 3rd at one point, and he is very pleased with his performance and the performance of his car. Roll on BAS 4 in Ireland next week and then all pressure on me for the Ladies Nationals!

T-shirts for racing

With my husband being in the design and sign industry it's great for getting freebies in the way of stickers and print. The latest phase for me is printing t-shirts! Rick has the facility to print the actualy lettering and logo's for t-shirts and his brother has a heat press to press the print onto the t-shirts. My role is to order the t-shirts and bring all the processes together!


Earlier in the year we did a couple of t-shirts for me, my dad and my brother and this week i've done a couple more for us and also some for the Almond family. Check out the cute little pink ones that i've done for Shelby and Erina to wear this weekend at the nationals.

The t-shirts are great for wearing at racing. They're fairly cheap so it doesn't matter if they get mucky and worn and the design can be updated easily every time new ones are printed.

Now that Rick has a big new vinyl printer and cutter we might be able to do actual photo-prints on t-shirts instead of just 1-colour lettering and sillhoute logo's. We're also probably going to get our own press so that we can keep all of the work in one place and i can do the whole job myself rather than getting Rick and Dan to help. I'll be a t-shirt printing expert in no time!

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/