Back into life... Ooh and motorsport too :)

You really don't realise how much you are affected by the stress of being told you may have only a short time to live until the person that told you that changes their mind and tells you that possibly everything is fine. It's like night and day. Every aspect of my life is changed by it. I can once again make plans and relax.

I'd even put off building the new garage to store the race car because of fears that I might not be around to have one to store. I'd carefully reduced the size of my stock orders from overseas because I didn't know if I'd be alive to sell the items if I got in too much stock.  The uncertainty taints every aspect of your life.

Anyway, I have decided that I'm well and that's that. The doctor may have said things could go either way, but to me I'm in remission and those couple of nodes that he was concerned about are just odd looking nodes. End of story.

So what have I changed since the last post ? Sarah and I are off on a few days holiday, our first in a long while. We are staying at a Lodge in Taranaki that offers accommodation in private chalets situated along the shores of Lake Rotorangi. Will be ultra relaxing!

The race car is back together and just needs to be sign written to be complete.
I raced it last weekend at Shelly Bay. I'd told Sarah that I was going to ease myself back into motorsport and take it easy as I haven't raced in nearly a year.
The road was in terrible shape, the worst I've seen it in the fifteen years since I first competed there. Loose gravel on the corners was making for a very scary course and three cars were completely written off as a result. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt. 

Here's video of the worst of the crashes. Victor Yuen, my co-driver from last year's Targa, spun out on the loose surface and careered off the road onto the rocks and into the sea upside down.




I took it easy for the practice and first timed runs. For the second run I used high boost and tried to come to grips with the road. Because of all the loose stones on the road a lot of people were taking a low racing line through some of the corners which resulted in the stones being swept up high onto the racing line that I would usually take. It was very scary to find myself committed at 160kph to a high racing line only to find it covered in gravel.. the resulting slides certainly made for a scary drive!

I managed to post a time that put me in front, however it was a full six seconds slower than I've done in the past. For my third run I took a passenger and that proved to be my downfall.
As I sat on the line I asked him how much he weighed, "just over 90kg" was his reply. "Hmm.. the last time I had a passenger that heavy I kept spinning out!" I told him.

The run was going well, I'd managed to find some good racing lines and grip didn't seem to be a problem. Then as I approached the Lighthouse at around 180kph I lost concentration, I braked too late and the added weight of the passenger had made slowing for the tight second gear corner all that much harder. The wheels locked, unlocked, locked again...  I turned in and hoped like hell we wouldn't go off the road and into the sea. The Evo spun 90 degrees to the road and slid around the corner in a wide drift (but was really just an out-of-control screw-up) before coming to a complete stop. Luckily unscathed.

We then drove to the finish line, the run wasted. I'd blown it by over-driving the car.

The end result was that I finished in second place behind Tony Burrows who had managed to better my second run time and not make any mistakes. I'll never know what my time would have been had I not spun-out, stopped and toured to the finish, but the total elapsed time was just 4 seconds off the winning time. Still.. not bad for a very Rusty-Racer.

Next event is Port Road on Oct 24th, then it's Admiral Road Hillclimb on November 7th.

Work has been busy as usual. Lots of little jobs and a couple of big ones..

This little Alfa GTV race car has been one of the more interesting jobs. I fabricated a new exhaust system, upgraded the fuel lines and installed a hydraulic hand-brake. Ultimately the car is being prepared for Road, Race and Targa use.

..and finally no blog post would be complete without a mention of the dreaded Prednisone steroids. I'm weening off them slowly, now down to 18mg a day. Some of the side effects are diminishing, such as the back pain which is now of no real concern. ..Just another 18 months and I'll be free of the dreaded drug!!   ;)