Sunday 4 December 2016

An unexpected race

 I got a call from my son last week, he had a day out at a race track coming up as a birthday present to himself, he wondered if I'd like to join him. I was in full 'doing nothing' mode in Spain so jumped on a cheap flight back to UK and spent the weekend at his house. Great fun, got to play with the grandson, my daughter came down as well so it was a proper little family get together.
Saturday morning we drove out to the venue, it was an old airfield out near Bicester in Oxfordshire, lovely rural surroundings, The weather was fairly kind for early December, cold but dry. My son had decided to drive an old Porsche as he's thinking of trading down from his modern one; when we checked in it turned out that it was possible to drive other old classics, so I decided to have a go in an E-type Jaguar and a Ford Mustang GT350, two of the iconic cars from my youth. We had an induction where it was stressed that although we'd be out on the track together, there was to be no 'racing'. I just looked at my son, and his expression told me we were in for trouble.....
Mad porsche driving son catching fast at the chicane


Concentrating hard
Laughing out loud at the ridiculously agile Caterham

Laughing out loud at the ridiculously wayward Mustang

Just for the record - the Jag had steering so heavy that Arnie would have had trouble getting it to steer around corners, but it did have a certain charm and a reasonable turn of speed., the Mustang steering wheel didnt seem to be connected to the front wheels and was incredibly light so the car just zigzagged around the course on its own! My son informed me that the Caterham drove like a go-cart and was a ton of fun, the Porsche was perfect and he's going to buy one soon, Allegedly. All together a great day out, and a great weekend.








3 comments:

  1. A perfect excuse for an impromptu family gathering.

    How fun to rail those cars around the track for a few minutes/hours. I bet you were both grinning for hours after.

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  2. Yes T. we had a great time for all the family. And now I dont have to think about buying one of those cars as they were both rubbish!

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  3. As good as any reason to have a family gathering. I like the idea, but except for the Porsche I'd rather like to go with some vintage bike on this track.

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