25th September, 2001 - Launch of Maverick Motorsport Internation!
Well, this is it! From 1 October Maverick Motorsport International (which incorporates Circuit Stars and ClassicRacingCars.com) officially starts trading and I'm both excited and scared! Excited because at last a lifelong dream is coming true: that I work full time in my 'first love', motorsport, in my own business. Excited also to know that many charities and good causes will benefit from the activity track days that Circuit Stars will organise and promote and the people attending them will have fun whilst putting something back, even if it does rain!! Excited because Maverick's Single Seater Experience will give people who want to begin racing, or just have a taste of what it involves, the opportunity to do that at a sensible price - something that I needed last year to prepare me for this, my first season's racing, but I couldn't find unless I was OK about paying zillions for the priviledge (which I wasn't!!)!- and with ex-WilliamsF1, race coach, Steve Worrad, to provide race-winning tuition and guidance as well as race support and race preparation, we can help people develop and have fun with their racing, both here and on in Europe. Excited because ClassicRacingCars.com provides the ONLY website (unless you know otherwise in which case we would love to hear about it!) dedicated to sourcing, buying and selling racing cars, parts and memorabilia of all genre and at a very reasonable cost. Scary, because it takes a great leap of faith (and a shedload of dosh and late nights!) to begin a new business but I ran a business for 15 years successfully (setting up and developing businesses up to £20m turnover) and I have the experience and knowledge of my 'A Good Cause' days too, so I feel I am in with a jolly good chance. And, yes, of course this is an advert! I want to give my new baby the best possible chance to succeed which means sales. People can't buy unless they know what you're selling and how to get it so this should help that process! So, your support would be appreciated and if you, your club or your company or the charity/cause you support are thinking of ways of raising thousands of pounds for charitable causes, or you want to drive a single seater or flog the pig that broke down one time too many this season, please contact me. Email or mobile (07973 292164) is best and the office/workshop number will be 01730 812327. Chichester College's Graphic Design Unit are designing our corporate identity as a Course Project so when we have decided on the winning design, sometime in December, we will be able to attach any bumf on a cool letterhead! Thanks for reading this far and keep in touch!!! Regards Jenny Baker-Carr

24th September, 2001 - If you haven't driven Donnington before, you're in for a blast!! It's a real 911 track and very quick. Make sure you don't use the brakes on the slowing down lap and space yourself out so you're not caught in the traffic jam going into the (sloping) pits and then HAVE to use the brakes to stop rolling into the car in front!! If you get there early, grab a garage!! Their overtaking rule is usually on the left which is good for the faster cars as they tell you to pull over right AFTER the corner and therefore a faster car doesn't lose the line -very sensible. Apart from Don, be interested to know who the instructors are. Talk to Don about tyres and slip angles etc., I've never met such a 'scientific' driver before!! They also don't tend to use cones, so an early instructor session is very useful. The upside is that without cones you flow a lot smoother through the corners without trying to join the dots.......and end up doing a threepenny bit aiming at the cones. Look at the brick arches past Old Hairpin -the old track went THROUGH them!! Regards Melvin

24th September, 2001 - Me + red peril enjoying speed and sunshine at the recent Bentwaters trackday. On the same web site (second link) are pictures of other Porsches there on the day, including some of a shady character called David Sims (only joking Dave...). There also one of me having just completed a 360 degree pirouette - oooops! All good fun and highly recommended venue for anyone who wants a good value trackday experience. http://www.jonhoneyball.com/bentwaters/porchesweb/pages/DSC_0041.htm
http://www.jonhoneyball.com/bentwaters/porchesweb/
Paul Rogers MSc, TKC