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    Archive for December, 2007

    So You Want to be an F1 Driver - Round 1

    Monday, December 24th, 2007

    I did my five laps on Tuesday.

    For those that don’t know, this is a pseudo annual competition for wannabe racing drivers. It is televised after the event.

    I missed the competition the first year, but I saw it on TV and have entered since then. First time, I only got through the first round. Last time got through to round 4.

    Basically, the first competition’s first prize was a drive in an F1 car (albeit a 70’s one), and a contract with the management company who were looking after Jenson Button at the time.

    I’ll be writing here about my progress in this year’s competition.

    So, Round 1. There is a choice of tracks at which we have to post five laps. It’s either the fastest of the five, or the average of the five laps that is sent off to the competition promoter. They will then decide who goes on to round two.

    I’m not saying which track I went to, or what my time was until after the date that the times have to be submitted. So, come back later to see how I got on.

    You can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking on the orange icon, and you will be notified of updates to this site.

    Wish me luck.

    Freak incident - RAC saves the day

    Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
    We went away for a few days over the weekend.  With the baby now, we can’t fit all our stuff in one car when we go away so we take both cars.  On the first day we drove straight to Bletchley Park (home of the WWII code breaking team, Enigma and all that).  It was very cold.
     
    When we had finished for the day, Blanche went back to the cars first with Imogen, and I followed a few minutes later.  While Blanche and Imogen were warming up in her car, I got the child car seat out of my boot and put it sideways in the front passenger seat, ready to put Imogen in it later.  I got in the driver’s side to start the engine, warm up the car, and set up my sat nav for the trip to the Travelodge.  As I said, my car is small so there wasn’t much room in the front with the car seat sideways, so I shoved it right up against the passenger door.
     
    Once the sat nav was set up I got out and slammed the door to go round and put Imogen in her car seat, but as I slammed the door, all the doors locked.  The car seat had been leaning against the passenger window, and as I slammed the driver’s door, the car seat had slid down the door, pushed the door handle in, and activated the central locking!  Now I’m outside the locked car, the engine is running, we’re 90 minutes (each way) from our spare keys at home, and Bletchley Park is about to close.
     
    RAC saved the day!  I called RAC and they made it a priority as the car was running and we have a baby.  About 15 minutes later they arrived.  It took just three minutes to break into the car.  Talk about fantastic service!  We can go years without needing a breakdown service, but every time we do need it, it’s well worth the subscription.  Just make sure you play one breakdown service off against the other when the price goes up at renewal.
     
    For future trips, I’ll have a spare key to Blanche’s car, and she’ll have my spare key.