Eunos Chump

Monkeyboy and I went along to this today, my friend Adrian was racing his Imp in the classic touring car series.  It looks like summer, but it was bitterly cold. Tiff Needell was there, racing the Formula Ford he won in a magazine competition in 1972.  Without that bit of luck he'd have never had a career in motor racing, as he was skint.  I didn't know that!  This isn't his car though.  The white/red Cortina on the right of this picture was rolled on the 1st lap of the race.  The driver was fine, car much less so.  I don't know how you fix that kind of damage without a new shell, unless you're really, really handy with the P38.  Knock-on effect from the race being red-flagged (due to the Cortina off), was this Anglia getting nerfed by an Alfa Romeo.    The race was won by a very oversteery Mustang that sounded beautiful, and had much fire spitting out of it's exhausts.  Adrian failed to win, and is therefore no longer my friend

The weather has buggered up my planned trip to Wales (so I'm tiling the kitchen instead), but here's the Drift attached to my helmet, prepped for exciting action*: It's hardly noticeable when on, unlike the one below...

My camera turned up yesterday, it's a fantastic toy.  I've given it a test today, using the suction-cup mount attached to the fairing of the VFR, and here for your pleasure is 2 minutes of uneventful bimbling about (best viewed at 720p):

I've given in and ordered a Drift HD helmet camera , so I can capture all those unexpected wheelies, poor filtering decisions and incidents of speeding in proper 1080P resolution.  I did consider the cheaper 720 version, but there is actually quite a difference in image quality, and it would constantly niggle me. Bought it from Action Cameras who are very good; when I informed them that a certain large, tax-dodging organisation was undercutting them, they switched the BARON10 discount code back on for me.  That's some quality service, recommended.

I was all ready to buy this at the weekend, but somebody has beaten me to it: Kawasaki VN800 Classic.  I was going to pick it up then ride straight to the Infinity warehouse and get me some tassled leather chaps.  Next stop, the Blue Oyster bar. I keep thinking about getting a Drift helmet camera, I don't really understand why.  Does the world need a Baron VonGrumble with a monotone Norfolk accent?

I had a days advanced riding training with Rapid Training on Sunday.  My instructor, Alan, is a retired police class 1 rider, so it's fair to say he certainly knows his stuff.  The emphasis was on observation and planning, and it was a real eye opener; by moving my obs much further down the road, I was astonished by how much extra time it gave to evaluate and make decisions.  It immediately paid benefits, I was smoother, more relaxed, yet faster; all very rewarding. He also got me to move the bike around the road much more freely, to maximise vision.  Quite a bit of time was spent on using the vanishing point; I've read plenty about that, but couldn't really use it effectively.  By actually walking a bend we'd previously ridden, it became clear and by the end of the day I was able to corner much more smoothly and confidently.  We were travelling at a fair old lick by the end of the day, but despite this it always felt very safe and controlled; there was no heavy brak