Buses, Stock Cars and Break-ins!

Firstly let me apologise for the ‘time lapse’ between blogs.   With the car being almost done there hasn’t been much to say and as I’m absolutely flat out at work I’ve barely had time to breathe let alone sit down and type, but with everything about to kick back off again I’ll be doing regular updates once more.

Everything is almost ready now and I currently have a workshop that resembles a wheel factory with all the ones we’ve put together and repaired stacked up in piles around the edges.  Once the tyres are fitted and after a few checks on the scales the car will be ready to roll.  The next challenge will be getting the lorry out from its winter resting place and getting everything loaded back into it.  It could do with a wash too!

It’s got to the stage now where I want to get going again, we’ve put a lot of hours in over the winter and I’m excited about driving the car.    All being well I’ll be heading off to practice night at Ipswich on Saturday.   The following weekend is Gavin’s stag do and the one after is straight back into racing with the first round at Northampton - if we’ve all survived Edinburgh for the stag weekend that is!
Amongst everything else that’s happening I snuck off up to Scotland to stay with John for a few days. Being a notorious tight arse I decided to take the cheap route and head up there on the bus.  Big mistake . . .  twelve very cramped and uncomfortable hours later in which I became almost fluent in several foreign languages I arrived in Edinburgh!   John was borrowing a 1300 Stock Car and racing at Lochgelly on the Sunday so as well as a couple of epic nights out there was some racing involved too.

The car John was using was the ex-Mungo and Joe Palmer Nova that was famously rolled down the straight at Ipswich a couple of years ago - it still has the scars on the roof to prove it!   He was borrowing it from a friend and “just going out to enjoy himself” . . .  how many times have we all said that?   The plan was already flawed before we left though.   We headed out to Glasgow on the Saturday night and got back at about 3am only to find John had lost the door key!    After an attempted break in with a shovel and various other garden implements we gave it up as a bad job and headed off to sleep at his Dad’s house and return in the morning with the right tools for the task.

Having never seen the track before I have to say I was impressed.  It’s small - maybe the size of Birmingham with two covered stands and a good hard-standing pit area.  Spedeworth’s main man Les gave me the full tour and considering the whole place was wasteland only three years ago it certainly is a big transformation into a great little track.   It’s a bit bleak up there though and I spent all day freezing cold.

This was the first time John had driven a front wheel drive car since his Ministox days some ten years ago, so he went out for practice not really sure what to expect.   He was going well considering it was a car he had never driven before until a puncture started to slow things down.   He had to start off the back for all the races and finished the first race with no trouble except the car seemed a bit flat and off the pace a little.   He was doing much better in the second race - until the car cut out with a couple of laps to go and refused to start again.   It was one of those situations when there could have been so many things wrong with it and I don’t think I have ever seen so many people working on one car at the same time.   Literally as the other cars were lining up for the final it fired up again and with a last minute rush John was able to go out.   This was definitely the best race of the day with the car behaving and John getting stuck in and finishing tenth.   What started as a ‘one off’ bit of fun is already seeing him planning a return at the next meeting!

On the way back we swung in to have a look at all the work going on at Cowdenbeath.   This is the one track I still really want to race at and I’m determined to get up there this year and have a go. There is a new steel plate being run around the edge of the track and although there’s still a lot to do before the racing begins in a couple of weeks it’s certainly going to be pretty impressive when it’s finished.

All in all I had a brilliant weekend away including a freezing day racing and some unforgettable laughs along the way, all of which made the terrible journey worthwhile.

My friend Mel has set up and is running a Mikey Godfrey racing Facebook page - it’s got over 300 likes in the first two weeks so if you’re on Facebook please check it out: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mikey-Godfrey-Racing/107066669418993#!/pages/Mikey-Godfrey-Racing/107066669418993?sk=wall&filter=1

Thanks as ever for reading this and hopefully I’ll see some of you on Saturday.

Until next time

Mikey.

The Waiting Game

This is a bit of a weird time of year for me.   After the rush of Christmas and the Autosport show, and with six weeks to go until the racing starts again, things have slowed down on the racing front.   It’s given me chance to do some of the jobs I’ve been putting off for the last year though so I really shouldn’t moan too much!   The car’s sitting in the workshop exactly as it returned from Autosport and although we do have a few jobs to do it really is nothing too serious and a week at most will see it ready to hit the tracks again.   There are several things we want to try before the season gets under way and as I spent the last few meetings struggling with the brakes I plan to go out testing a couple of times and see if I can’t iron this out.   I seem to brake too early into the bends and it would be great if I could get enough confidence with the braking system to be able to attack the bends and go in a lot deeper before I brake.

Whilst things have slowed down I’ve decided to have bit of a clear out so keep watching eBay and Facebook as I’ll be putting all sorts of racing related stuff up for sale over the next few weeks.  With both racing and the nature of my job I seem to acquire all sorts of stuff and just when I think I’ve sorted everything out I find another shed full of hidden treasure!

I was determined over the winter to sort all my wheels out into sets and repair all the damaged ones.    It’s a job I hate doing but would rather do it now whilst I have the time to spare.   I absolutely love Compomotive Turbos and even though they are old now they are easily my favourite Hot Rod wheel.   I’ve been collecting centres ever since I started Hot Rods and last week I had them all shot-blasted and powder-coated a nice shiny white.   These coupled up with some new outer rims and I can bolt them back together and have them looking as good as new.    I’m also determined to get some spares sorted out and everything organised so when the time comes for the first meeting everything is ready to go.

I’m sorry it’s been a bit longer than usual between blogs and that this one is only very short but I have a few ideas for the coming weeks and with some testing, a trip to Scotland and a certain Hot Rod racer’s ‘stag do’ all on the horizon, I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say before the racing kicks off again.

Thanks as ever for reading.

Mikey.