I have been racing with you guys for a few months now and it is really interesting reading some of your backgrounds and putting faces to the names, so here goes with my story...........
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Like many others here, my first interest is on two wheels. From fifteen years old I competed in off-road motorcycle trials, motocross and enduros, sometimes lining up with some of the worlds top riders, even if I wasn’t in their league! But too many broken bones and family commitments had me hanging up the boots at the age of 40.
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Anyone who has been into bikes will tell you that once bitten they are in your blood and I later got into long distance touring. Travelling to most European countries on my KTM Adventure 950 and more recently a BMW 1200 GS Adventure was great fun, especially in the Austrian Alps. Heading off from home for two weeks with nothing but the Channel Tunnel booked and a tent on the back is a truly exciting experience. On one tour I went to as many European motor racing circuits as I could and think I managed 14 before I headed home. With my partner's family living in Hungary and Slovakia I had a good place to stop of and have visited the Slovakiaring for the WTCC, a great track to drive in SIm racing as well.
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In my working life, I completed an apprenticeship in motor vehicle technology and worked in a busy garage for many years, before becoming a Consultant Engineer, inspecting and assessing damaged vehicles and machines of all types and sizes from water pumps to combine harvesters, reporting to insurance companies, solicitors and courts.
From an early age I would follow motor racing on TV and can remember seeing the likes of Stirling Moss, Jim Clark and Graham Hill speed around some of the great circuits. As soon as I could drive I would go to as many of the UK circuits as I could and living 40 minutes from Snetterton and 90 minutes from Brands Hatch, I would spend many weekends hanging around the pits.
In 2007 I was involved in a project that saw the first diesel car entered into the BTCC. The BMW 120d was built from a kit designed primary for the VLN series and while the enthusiasm was there, the budget soon got eaten up and while it was one hell of an experience, the car was never really competitive. and the SEAT factory team came in with a diesel the next year with a mega budget.
As a team co-ordinator, I was on the pit wall, in the drivers briefings, rubbing shoulders with some of the greats of the BTCC.
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The car was involved in one of the biggest crashes ever in the BTCC at Brands Hatch. You can just see it at the back of this crash.
On a smaller scale one of my sons got into radio control car racing and I ran a local club for 10 years which raced 10th scale electric touring cars. I also was a commentator and race director at a national level series. These cars are amazing and were as technical as the real thing with fully adjustable suspension, compression, rebound ,tyres compounds, warmers, etc. Their scale speed could reach well over 900kmph !
Take a look at this video -
As for Sim racing, well my eldest son had large slot racing set when he was 3 months old (OK ,I admit it, it was for me really!) and as soon as the Playstation came along we spent may hours on Colin Mcrae rally and TOCA touring car games. In early 2019 I looked at what was out there after all these years and like many, started off with a G29 clamped to my desk with the laptop struggling to keep up and the pedals sliding around under the desk while my office seat went in the other direction!
. Dirt Rally and Raceroom were the first sims that I got into at that time.
Being mechanically minded,several incarnations of the rig have come and gone over the last two years including a Playseat bolted to a wooden frame and various prototype set ups. Redundancy and the sale of the KTM freed up some cash and I have now built this monster to keep me entertained. Most of the hardware was purchased second hand before the pandemic struck in 2019 from a guy who was selling up all his kit. I upgraded the PC to cope with the games I have now.
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This one is actually mounted on a bed in a spare room. The ‘rollcage’ is actually an old garden trampoline that I fabricated and welded; OK it does not really serve much purpose but it does add to the immersion and stiffens things up a bit. I have added cooling fans and side netting (home made).
Seeing many of your rigs and reading your stories of makes me realize how lucky I am to have the space to build a dedicated rig like this but it still don’t make me any faster, but it does add to the sense of occasion when you climb into it.
In the two years I have been Sim racing, I did quite a bit of racing on the Raceroom ranked servers and while the racing there is much better than open public servers, this AC club is much more personal and like real racing, you get to know other drivers and who you can go side by side with. I thought I might be a bit too old to keep up here but Ernie shows what can be done and is something to aspire too! Its good to race with you guys.
So that's me, 63, two grown up sons, one grandson, taken early retirement and enjoying life, living with my partner in the East of England (and space for triple screens maybe???- Perhaps I need to take a look at the thread on how to tell the other half
). I'll send a few more of the rig in the next post.
..This is my rig to date..
work in progress as always and a couple of my other toys i like to play with...
last but not least my brusier lol..
