At Snetterton a couple of fellow competitors had a chat with me about the future of my car, with reference to family and friends looking to enter the championship. One such person was John Bunce, who we’d been camped near. John shares a MK chassis’d car with his mate Anthony May. 2009 was their first season as well and they had encountered a few issues with their box-fresh car and had also struggled for grunt (and revs) from the motor. There’s no denying that it looks really good though in bright yellow.
John had another good mate who was looking to join the series after dabbling with Formula cars for a number of years. Hailing from only an hour or so down the M4 they were quite keen to see the car. I still had the issue of the failed gearbox/selector to deal with. I contemplated swapping the gearbox myself as I had a spare. However, the fact that I didn’t know if it was serviceable and the usual pressures of MBA work meant that I decided to outsource the work. I had a think about who could do the work and remembered that there was a RWD Escort aficionado in the form of http://www.bobdowen.co.uk/ just 20 minutes from home. I gave Bob a call and arranged to drop the car and spare gearbox down to him the following Saturday morning. He removed, stripped, inspected and reassembled the gearbox, effectively making one really good unit from two. The cause of my gear change problems was found to be a snapped selector pin. The cost was pretty reasonable and aside from needing to readjust the clutch cable, everything was perfect. Just moving the car around the yard and into the garage the gearshift felt better than ever.
John and his (hair-dressing) mate Kev were still keen to see the car. They were also interested in the trailer which was a bonus and asked me to bring the trailer over to the car (it was stored elsewhere) in anticipation of a sale - Excellent. I cleaned the car and organised the spares into three sections: bits that should go with the car; bits to scrap and; odds-and-sods that I was keen to keep. When the following Saturday came around, having chatted about all things motorsport-related and a good look around the car, a deal was struck, I had a figure in mind, and having sold the car and trailer to Kev and my wheel straps to John I was bang-on target. I’d made nothing but had come out of it ok. Only the costly gearbox rebuild meant that my ownership period resulted in a net outflow of funds, and even then it was marginal.
Ciao
This obviously doesn’t include the cost of actually racing which was never going to be as cheap as fishing, golf or salsa classes.
I was of course sad to see the car go and had toyed with the idea of keeping it. However, I knew that I didn’t have the room to store everything while travelling so it was the only practicable solution. I hope Kev goes well in it. While I’ve met some great people racing, I imagine that competing against ‘proper’ mates-since-school must be brilliant. It should be an exciting season for Kev, John and Anthony.
What about me? Well, the problem is that I’m totally obsessed with all things automobile and now racing so I was already thinking about keeping an eye-out for a few bargains which could be used on a future project. As it was, I was soon accumulating more stuff than originally anticipated…
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