Johnny Herbert Karting Challenge 2008...

Raising money for the Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance

  

For those that are interested - The super fast dude in the blue suite and white helmet is me... Photo taken by Sally and played with by me.

Yet another great day! Each year we arrive in London with no hope of winning - whatsoever. But that just isn’t the point of this event. Held this year at The Raceway, Docklands. Quite literally next to the Thames barrier, in the midsts of urban decay is this little gem of an indoor track. With an interior decor to rival most 3-4 star hotels (track area excluded of course).

    

Team Forum is who I drive for at the event. A disparate bunch from across the country who get together once a year to help raise some money for a great cause and during the course of doing so, have one hell of a good time.

The only real negative has always been the obsessive nature of the commentators needing to listen to their own voices, all day and at excruciating volumes. But, after many years experience of the event - we all come prepared with copious amounts of serious painkillers to take away the pain. Not caused by the stresses and strains of racing, but from the piercing and head splitting waffle coming over the PA.

That said - they do a great job - just wish it was a little quieter and perhaps not so frequent.

In the past we have had drivers and celebrities of all sorts. Including Jenson Button, Robbie Williams, the ITV F1 crew and a whole heap of drivers from all disciplines of motor-sport and their celebrity mates. Personally, I don’t really care about celebrity. Never have and reckon I never will. People are just people after all... What appeals to me is going wheel to wheel with legends of the sport. To have been overtaken by Jenson Button, only to take him on the next corner was one of the highlights of my track time... 

Admitadely he got be back at the following corner - But that’s not the point ;-)

This year I had the pleasure of having quite a long dice with Johnny Herbert - where we swapped places a number of times over many laps. Then Ricardo Patrese, possibly one of the all time F1 greats. And the main battle of the day, for me, was with 5 times Le Mans winner and ALMS champion Emanuele Pirro from Italy. Over  about 15 laps we had a great time. A little bumping, the odd shunt, but nothing that wasn’t just bloody good racing. So much so did I enjoy it, I had to make sure I hunted him down before the day was done to shake his hand. Probably the best dice and most fun I have had on the track!

Sadly, as the day came to a close and we had a quick go in an F1 simulator (is the steering really that hard in one of those things!? New found admiration if it is!), came the sinking feeling of dread. Not that the day was over - there will be another one next year, more the drive back home out of London...

Sunday nights in november, the traffic leaving the city has to be seen to be believed. It makes even the most tortuous of rush hours pale in comparison.

I have it on pretty reasonable authority (who will never be named) that this is a legacy of our old friend Ken.

In his day it seems it was deemed that as there was no congestion charges at the weekend, that the only way to hurt you as one of those disgusting individuals who dared drive a car on his hallowed turf and as someone who had driven in to the capitol at a weekend, was to make you wish you had never driven there in the first place - by making your life as miserable, stressful and as purely like hell as possible. Which, if the trains ever bothered to operate at the weekends, I could half understand. But they don’t, so it was obviously just an exercise in cruelty. Well done!

All routes out of the city on a sunday evening are effectively blocked by the traffic lights, leading to congestion you would not believe could be possible on the evening of the sabbath. They are phased such that any traffic coming in to the city is almost unimpeded, whereas for leaving town, at each set of lights, you will be lucky if two vehicles get through before the next 5 minute wait, where, if you are one of the lucky ones to get through, you are rewarded by joining another 30 minute queue to wait to pass the next set of lights.

So a journey that took 1 hour and 20 minutes to travel to the event, will take 5 hours to return from. And god help you if had drank too much water, or even worse, tea during the course of the day!

The final proof of the conspiracy falls into place when you reach the motorway. The volume of traffic disappears in seconds once those bloody lights no longer have a death grip hold on you. You truly do wonder where all those cars actually went!?

    

   

So in the interest of helping to bring back sanity and a modicum of common sense to the world...

Boris... Ken (might want to update your website mate) is well gone - please fix that idiots mistakes! To try to reduce congestion by creating ‘congestion hell’ whilst not ensuring any alternative is available, is not only cruel - It’s just plain bloody stupid! And unbelievably unfair on the poor residents lining the gridlocked roads. At least when traffic is moving, so too does the pollution. But when it’s all stood still like that on a cold winters night, you guessed it - so are the fumes.

There - I’ve had my rant and the cathartic effect of doing so has worked. I can now look back on the day and remember it as the thoroughly enjoyable day that it was, without the haunting of the buggeration, that was trip back home.

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