a damp, rainy bleary start to the day. it’s been drizzling for several hours and the air is so cold it looks not too promising for racing today. It seems that the one meeting tha people thought would be dry is in danger of being a washout just like most of the others this year (later in the day i did text jimby to see if i could entice him into making a spreadsheet showing rain, racing and overall runs per weather pattern from the season – nothing yet but i’ll post it if it appears…)

breakfast – in a suitably comfortable style sat in the wedge of doom and then onto a little bit of twiddling . ollie sorted out the valve timing on the bay bus and i fed him minced pies. seemed like a good deal at the time….

while you’re here and christmas is coming i’ve give you the recipe for your own home made minced pies.

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? you will need:
a big sack. a pudding bowl . some icing sugar . a nearby bakery.

go to the local nearby bakery and buy all the old pies they have and place in the sack you prepared earlier.

return home and place the pies you bought earlier into the pudding bowl.

mince the pies thoroughly. turn out onto a plate and sprinkle with icing sugar to taste.
–minced pies !

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any how eventually the track gets dried and evryone is called into the fireup lane. i roll down with ollie and see him into the staging area and watch him slither off the line on a very cold track and run a slow 19s second pass. well off his dial in.
i stop and take a few picture s of conor in the RACESHACK proclass trekker. i saw conor and simon building this at big bang in 2003 when i did my first ever race and have seen them running through sportsman and into respectable & consistent pro times. The powerplant and engineering has evolved and now runs a STOCK VW CRANK 1915cc motor with a garret turbo holley carb and a BIG shot of nitrous through their own custom progressive controller. the little puppy from last year has grown up into a bit of an animal… it makes well over 300bhp at the back wheels using (let me say this again!) a STOCK VW CRANK!…

any how i take pictures and wish them well and toddle off up through the pits to see how Ollie got on.

then suddenly the racing stops and there’s something going on on the tannoy. everyone is peering up the track at something. I wander over to the trackside wire to see. I can’t make out what’s going on and the teletubby that pretends to be a commentator isn’t telling either. The emergency crew are there and it looks like someone has broken just past the finish gantry. or they’ve crashed.
luckily captain botch is also on the tower and on the mic with dipsy & lala and what is coming into my ears slowly rolls into my brain. Conor has crashed, well past the gantry which means a 100mph + impact.

i feel cold
i feel sick

i want to run up there and help, do something. but there’s no point. conors crew are there. the emergency crew are there. i’d just be in the way.

so i stand there at the chainlink fence straining to see, feeling sick and helpless. i look at the faces around me and realise that it’s just another car that’s crashed. people feel bad but it’s still entertainment.

i remember talking to my friend Captain marriott at santa pod a few years before when lee hit the wall in his pro car and rolled it into the field…
i remember the look on Andys face as we stood and waited to find out if Lee was ok.
thankfully on that occasion Lee walked away with a badly sprained wrist (if i remember correctly) but the car disintegrated, the roof chop came apart, the cage punched its way through the floor, the seat wrenched itself out of its mounts and the battery came loose and rolled about inside the cab with Lee…

spot the differences between these two pictures,
although they were taken only 5 minutes apart there are no less than SEVENTEEN subtle changes.
can you find them all ?

suddenly the news comes through that conor is out of the car and he’s ok…
i feel a bit better but i’ve still got the bitter taste of bile in my mouth. I feel like i won’t believe it until i’ve seen him walking and talking with my own eyes.

i wander back to the pits and see Simon manouvering a trailer and help out getting the trailer up to the scrutineering area to stick the dead trekker on…
conor is fine though a little hazy… staring in disbeliev as the huge fork lift truck dumps the trekker unceremoniously onto the trailer.

he gets the timing ticket for the run, 12.3s @ 119mph. and he won. Conor tells me he lost the back end near the line shifting into fourth and went through the timing beam sideways. He tried to hang on but when he knew it was all over cooked and heading for the wall he let go the wheel, tucked himself in and braced for impact… brave man.

A 120 mph impact and he walked away. Lucky man. though looking at the cage that der botcheinvolks put into the trekker – it’s so stiff that its barely moved and preserved the floor and whole cab of the trekker. possibly the only Procar to survive a top end crash. The front end is a bit mashed, the battery got crushed and exploded (gel batteries suddenly seem a good idea) and the front beam is bent by about 30degrees. Sadly both of the erco racing wheels on the back are toast….

back in the pits we wait for the rain to stop. it drizzles, it rains, it stops, it clears and it clouds over again but all is no good. the ground is so cold that there’s really no hope of getting any racing in.
and so ends flame and thunder…

and OLLIE FINISHES THE SEASON FIFTH OVER ALL!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!

ollie told me he won’t be racing next year, just this one season…
but he might apply for a license and just do one or two, maybe just a few… 😉