Having fun is it, winning is great but not all the story.....I had the best time of my life racing from 1980>1990, everyone was friendly, talkative and helpful, on one occasion I was surprised when a FC driver came over to my lowly door slammer and asked what I had under the bonnet...jeez, I don’t know exactly what we did to it but it did sound awesome, gave me Goosebumps every time I fired it up, was only a 340 but sounded totally different to the other motors, he knew what he was listening to no doubt.
I have 2 major memories that stand out from back then, one was when we had a rare evening H-up shoot-out which I won a massive £250 at, I learnt then that being a nice guy and not using my N20 didn’t cut it, I took the entrants down the pub that night on my winnings. The other was at another evening International Heads up race we had once a year called “Gary’s Picnic”. I got drawn against the guy who b/halved my car who was running in the 8’s with an opel Manta with a BBC and me in the ’69 Cuda on only 11.00’s at the time. But I thought I had a chance as he was having a mysterious misfire problem he couldn’t solve, so in went the big N20 jets. We both leave together, I got the jump and I remember looking over at the stripe and seeing him go past me like a rocket, thought I’d lost for sure.
All of a sudden I hear a bang and the hood flew up, a bit scary as it was pitch black and I had no lights, anyhow next thing I got about 10 people all around me smiling and ready to tow me back to the pits....I got the win light, and was told the crowd erupted down at the start line........10 minutes of frantic fibreglass work fixed the hood and we found another top hose, I was ready for the next round, which I lost to a fast Swede. Its moments like that, that are the best, win or loose.....fond memories of great times.......