Preparations for the 2014 season continued this week, as I made some plans to get my car certified for mass and power at my local rolling road, Novatech in Slough. I dropped in to Novatech earlier this week and had a chat with Bernie and Andy, a friendly & experienced father and son team. They have plenty of experience with all sorts of race cars, the Vauxhall / Cosworth XE, and MBE ignition systems as fitted to my car. All good on that front. 

Why am I bothering with all this certification lark? Well, last years 750 MC Sport Specials championship regulations, state in relation to Class C "The principle of this class is to limit the power to weight ratio to 340bhp/tonne. The competitor must supply a weight certificate, (car driver and drivers’ equipment) and power certificate with the completed registration form before the first race." 

With a standard road car, it ought to be quite easy to work this out, but my car is far from a standard road car, and there are quite a few stumbling blocks in this seemingly easy to understand statement when it comes to working out how powerful & heavy my car is! 

First of all, these are last years regulations, so this years ones may change. Mental note made. 
Secondly, the regulations make the classic error of referring to a "power to weight ratio", but then they quote a maximum limit that uses units of measurement for Power (bhp) and Mass (Tonne), not Weight. Weight, according to Isaac Newton's 2nd Law of Motion that says Force = Mass multiplied by Acceleration. So the weight of an object with a mass of 1 kilogramme on earth where gravity can be measured at 9.80665 metres per second squared, is therefore 9.80665 Newtons. It is amazing how often you see this basic mistake made, mixing up units of weight and mass. 
Thirdly, the 340bhp/tonne limit combines imperial power and metric units of mass. A metric tonne is 1000 kilos, equivalent to 2205 pounds while an imperial ton is 2240 pounds. Another mental note made. 
Fourth, Power is referred to in bhp, or Brake Horse Power. At least they have stated the correct units this time! But what they have not stated is whether the bhp measurement is taken at the engine crankshaft (the number published by a car manufacturer or in a car magazine), or if they mean the bhp measurement taken from the driven wheels. Due to frictional losses, there is a difference which can vary substantially between vehicles, depending on the design and type of gearbox, differential, bearings, ancillary drives, and oils used; the difference between crank bhp and wheel bhp can be anywhere between 8% and 40%. It is impossible to estimate accurately. At least the 750MC rule writers did quote the units of power as bhp, as if they had not then there are a whole load of other pitfalls in interpreting which kind of Horsepower depending on if you are using imperial or metric units! I will assume that the rulemakers mean crankshaft bhp for the time being. 
Finally, I must not forget to include my race overalls, boots, underwear, gloves, and crash helmet when I work out how "massive" I am!

With all these pitfalls in mind, I have reported the rule writers to the Society of Pedants! 

Having only ever competed in series with very liberal rules (road legal tyres and an exhaust silencer present) I have never had to know the precise mass and power and never really cared about knowing either, the elapsed time and terminal speed of a quarter mile run were all the proof I needed. But before Novatech do the measurements, I thought it would be interesting to use some mathematics to estimate both figures, as then when I do go and measure the numbers we can see how close the mathematical estimates are. 

To calculate Rear Wheel Horse Power (RWHP): 
RWHP = ((mph/234)Cubed) x Mass in Pounds (lbs)

Same formula rearranged to calculate mph at the end of quarter mile:
mph = (Cube Root of (RWHP / mass in lbs)) x 234

To calculate the theoretical 1/4 mile Elapsed Time (ET):
ET = Cube Root of (Mass in lbs /RWHP) x 5.825

To calculate the theoretical Terminal Speed at end of a quarter mile: 
Terminal Speed = Wheel Speed / 336.13 x Tyre Diameter (Inches)

The best 1/4 mile pass I ever managed in my Sylva was a low 12 at around 108mph. I am about 15 and a half stone, or about 98.5 kg. Based on known figures for other Furys I estimate mine at about 620kgs, so including me that's about 718.5kgs. When I plug in my quarter mile time and mph numbers to the above formulae they tell me that if the estimated mass is true, then the car must be making around 165bhp at the wheels, which if I make a guess at 25% frictional loss, translates to about 205bhp at the flywheel. This is rather disappointing if I am honest since the engine is supposed to be running QED cams alleged to produce 240bhp. But when I plug the gear ratios and tyre sizes into my gear ratio calculator the speeds in each gear it comes out at feel about right, and of course I have a timeslip with measured ET & mph. 

So my estimates are about 205bhp at the crank and 718.5 kgs, from which I calculate a power to mass ratio of 286 bhp/tonne, too far inside the 340bhp/tonne limit to be competitive but plenty to be a lot of fun. If it was making 240bhp, then I would be right on the limit at 339bhp/tonne. 

Anyhow, before I can get the car over to Bernie & Andy for certification (and to see if they can find any missing horses), I need to sort out the brakes. The brake pedal was like pressing on stone, with absolutely zero movement - I wasn't sure whether the bias valve was just way out of adjustment or whether the brake calipers, Wilwood 4 Pots, had seized up somewhat; everything else in the braking system seemed to be in good order. The brake bias was well out of adjustment, so i corrected it, but the pedal was still absolutely solid.

Having done a quick Google search for some advice on how to free them up, I came across a couple of good articles, one on how to do it using a grease gun trick and another great article on disassembling and rebuilding the calipers. But without a grease gun or a compressed air line to hand, I decided to simply use some muscle so got it the car again and pressed the brake pedal as hard as I could and they finally released! 

And so today, I had a quick test drive in the Sylva for the first time in about 3 years! It ripped up through the gears and is quite windy with no lid on!! Still, that little reward of adrenaline is what keeps you going through a project like this. I even gave it a wash. 

Today is my birthday and this morning I gave myself the best present of all - firing up the Sylva for the first time in well over a year.

Sorry about the dodgy mobile phone footage! But great to hear the bark of the Webers again. Happy birthday to me...

Having received the MSA Go Racing pack just before Xmas, I read through the "Blue Book" to cross reference the general safety & noise regulations that I will have to adhere to in order to be eligible for the 750MC Sport Specials series.

My fireproof overalls and Arai GP5 helmet are still in date, but I will definitely need a new safety harness, as the Luke belts expired in 2008, and I will also need a 2.25 litre plumbed in fire extinguisher, as the hand held unit currently fitted is not sufficient for the Sport Specials regs. My Demon Tweeks catalogue has some Sparco Clubman belts for about 140 quid and a Clubman Fire Extinguisher kit for about 130 so I will order them in the new year. The other piece of hardware I need is a timing transponder.

On the noise front, the MSA definition of a Sports Car which applies to the Sylva means that I will have to silence it down to 105 decibels at 0.5 metres and 93 decibels at 2 metres. The last time I took the Sylva to a track it recorded 114db even with an extra Supertrapp fitted (9 times louder than the MSA limits!), so I have to do something to quieten it down.

The silencer can be fully rebuilt, and last year I took it apart and found that the filling material (steel wool) had broken down and disappeared (no wonder it was noisy); I repacked it with new filling and put the silencer back together. Having been quoted between 500 - 1800 notes for a new manifold, I decided to rebuilt my existing 4 into 1 item, which was blowing at several joints and the pipes themselves were a bit rusty on the surface, but otherwise the metalwork was solid.

So today I attacked the pipes with a wire brush to get the worst of surface rust off, then cleaned the metal up with a circular wire brush attachment on the end of my electric drill (which had recently proved a winner at restoring my iron fire grate). After giving it a final going over with emery cloth, I gave the pipes a wipe down with a wet wipe so that I had a clean smooth surface to paint.

Before painting them I used some Gun Gum to carefully seal up the joints, and then let the sealant dry. I gave the pipes a couple of coats of silver ultra high temperature paint, and while the paint dried I took the opportunity with the pipes off the car to give the engine & chassis a good wipe down. Having refitted the manifold, the engine bay "money shot" is now looking rather tidier!

Next job is to get the engine running so that I can test how loud it is with the noise meter app on my phone, and see whether the work has done the trick. No reason why not, as the car has raced before with these parts.

Once I have got the car running again (just a new battery & some fuel) I will need to get it dyno tested and weighed, as I have to get the power to weight ratio independently certified to prove that the car meets the 340 bhp / ton maximum allowed in Class C of the Sport Specials.

So for now that is all until the New Year, when we can look forward to hearing the bark of those Webers again, and this time a bark that is under 105 decibels!

The first step toward going racing having joined a club is to get a racing licence - although I have held a racing licence before it expired too long ago to renew.

So to obtain my National B Race Licence I need to first Buy a "Go Racing" pack from the MSA, Britain's national motorsport governing body, at a cost of around 65 quid plus post & packing. This contains the famous Blue Book of regulations and all the information and forms required to apply for a licence.

I will also need to re-do an ARDS test which I have booked up through Motor Sport Vision at Brands Hatch on Sunday 26th January for the very reasonable cost of 250 quid. There are many choices all around the country and some with more exciting cars than others and you can find details of all the approved ARDS schools on their website.


Something to look forward to in the new year!! Better brush up on my flags...

The 750MC has just announced an update to the 2014 race calendar, changing the dates for the Cadwell Park event to 13th and 14th September 2014, and the Donington Park ev ent in October will now use the National circuit.

Click here for the revised and still provisional 2014 race calendar.




750MC News - 2014 Calendar revised

The 750 Motor Club's Sport Specials Championship caters for genuine ‘production’ Sports Specials, Kit Cars, Caterhams, & Westfields as well as’ one-off’ road-going two-seater specials, all using production car engines with modifications.
Classes are 2000cc Duratec; 1800cc Zetec incorporating Westfield Cup Class and Tiger Zetec's; Roadgoing two-seater specials including one-off Sport Specials/Caterham R300/R400 with power-to-weight ratio up to 340bhp/tonne.
I will be racing in the Roadgoing two seater specials class.
There are 7 Race Weekends, each of which is a "double header" meaning that there are 14 rounds in the 2013 season, of which the best 12 count for the Championship. Come and see us race!

Rounds 1&2 - Brands Hatch Saturday 26th April

Rounds 3&4 - Snetterton 300 Saturday 25th May

Rounds 5&6 - Rockingham Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th July

Rounds 7&8 - Anglesey Coastal Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th July

Rounds 9&10 Silverstone International Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th August

Rounds 11&12 - Cadwell Park Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th September

Rounds 13&14 - Donington Park GP Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th October

The 750 Motor Club was formed in 1939. Find out more about it's long history by clicking here.

Images Copyright 750 MC

Spent yesterday in the garage first of all getting the car out, and then building the ramps for the Sylva to sit on.

Getting it out was easier than I feared. The car was buried underneath all the Veeteor moulds (just visible in the picture on the left) so a massive thanks to John and his son Cristian for coming over to help me lift them out the garage (especially since John had such a hangover!).

A big thanks to Paul as well for helping out with his tow car. Once we had pumped up the left hand tyres which were both flat as pancakes we attached a hefty rope from his Shogun's tow bar to the Sylva's roll bar and some carefully placed blocks it was a cinch to pull the car out without any grounding issues at all.  

The basic idea with building some ramps was to avoid grounding issues caused by the slope in my garage - the dry sump and bellhousing catch on the threshold as the car is very low.

The ramps will also make it easier to work on the car from above and below, and they will also enable me to work on the car by myself inside, in the warm.

Once the car was outside we tried starting her up and it did grumble into life for a few seconds before running out of fuel and then the battery died. I topped it up with more fuel but the battery was too dead by that point.

So I set to work building the ramps out of some sleepers and breeze blocks but soon discovered just how tough oak is to cut! Pauls chainsaw hardly made a dent.

So I simply laid the sleepers down on top of the breeze blocks but that does leave a bit of a step at the front, and so I will have to cut them to fit the slope later, once I have a man with a proper chainsaw to hand!

Anyway, with the ramps out of the way, I can now begin to plan out some servicing & maintenance to prepare the car for a seasons racing. Even though the car was in good working order when I put it into storage it would be rather foolish to go to a track and hope everything is still working.

The first job will be to get the car running so I can move it in and out of the garage easily by myself. After that, I will check the brakes and suspension, and then rebuild the exhaust manifold which is blowing at the joints (recorded 114db last time I took it to a track...). The engine could do with fresh fluids & filters, and I think that the safety harness might also need to be swapped out for a new one as it might be past it's use by date (racing harnesses are dated, as they must be kept fresh in case of stretching & general deterioration and this is something that scrutineers check for).

I hesitate to begin this blog post in case tempt fate...but having spent the past couple of years racing virtually in GT Academy, I have decided that in 2014 I am going to venture back out into the real world and go racing for real again.

It won't be the first time I have taken to the track; I entered a few Centurion Challenge endurance races in 2004 in my Sylva having made my track debut at Croft in a Caterham Supersport. I also competed in the UK Street Racer drag racing series in the Sylva, a Camaro Z/28, and a Corvette Z06 between 2000 and 2008.

However, since the advent of GT Academy, I have been immersed in online racing. Apart from being amazingly good practice, it is certainly a lot safer and cheaper than the real thing, and the prizes aren't bad either! As a simulator Gran Turismo is not perfect, but with a steering wheel and pedals it is still an excellent learning tool for people of any experience level and will certainly help improve your driving skills. 

Going racing is something that people often find rather bewildering, and I hope that by following this blog that novices looking to start racing will find it helpful; more experienced racers might at least be able to laugh at my mistakes!! What I want to share is how I have gone about choosing the championship to run in, and why, and assuming that I avoid any disasters and actually make it to the track, the blog will become a sort of diary of my racing season too. The reason I am beginning this blog now is because the first step before any racing can happen was taken today, with the delivery of a pile of breeze blocks and some railway sleepers. 

Why Go Racing?
I have done quite a few track days in my time but as each event is a one off thing, then unless you go with some friends you there isn't the same sort of camaraderie that you get when travelling around and racing in a championship with and against the same group of people. Also, while track days are great fun they are just as expensive as a race entry fee and sometimes more so. Crash damage and general wear and tear at a track day can cost just as much as racing. Furthermore, on a track day you are not able to time yourself, so you never really know how well you are doing, it is kind of meaningless apart from the fun aspect, and you miss out on the fantastic buzz of a 20 way drag race that you get at the start of each race!! Of course, winning any race is satisfaction in itself, but championship success is recorded in history, and that could mean that you help further your favourite marque, and may even be noticed by a professional team. You won't get that at a track day.

The next thing to do is decide which series to race in, which first of all depends on the car which you will be racing. For me, I had a choice between my Sylva Fury, a Zip-Komet K88 classic kart, and the car I designed myself, the Veeteor LSR. The Veeteor still needs paint, while the Zip kart and the Sylva are both pretty much ready, so it came down to a choice between those two. Although racing a kart is as much fun as any car, I have an urge to race a car so the Sylva it is.

Choosing a Club & Championship
To obtain your racing licence, you need to join an MSA certified club, and so it makes sense to join the club that organises the racing series you wish to enter. After a lot of searching there is only one racing series I can really enter - the 750 Motor Club's Sport Specials championship. As the name suggests, this is a series for sports cars and specials, and is inhabited by an eclectic variety of kit cars and tuned Caterham's. Not for the faint hearted, but as it allows some ingenuity and variety, is club racing at its best.

The series frequents 7 different circuits so you will need to set aside 7 long weekends and convince the other half that this will make a better holiday than any beach!! That done, think about how far it is to get to each circuit and back, how much it will cost in fuel and trailer hire to get to each event, how much fuel and tyres you will use in each race, how much it will cost to stay in a B&B or in a tent, how much food over each weekend will cost. Including the cost of getting a licence, I have figured out that a season should cost in the region of £5,000-£6,000 assuming no major breakages or crash damage. If anyone would like a copy of the spreadsheet I have created to calculate a budget, please email me at [email protected]

The Sport Specials championship is divided into various classes - the 750MC has come up with a maximum power to weight ratio for Class C which my car fits within of 340bhp per ton. This includes the driver and their safety equipment, so with my car's mass being 625kgs and me being about 95kgs, and the car producing 240bhp, it comes in at 338bhp/ton - pretty close to the limit and so the car should be competitive if well prepared and driven.

The Racing Licence
Before any racing can be done, you need to join a club, and get a racing licence. My National B racing licence expired a while ago; if like me you leave it too long, you have to start from the beginning again and apply as if it is your first time. For speed events where you race against the clock (Sprints, Hillclimbs, Drag Racing) you can simply send off some money to the MSA and buy a Go Racing pack (which includes the Blue Rule Book and information on clubs and championships) as well as your licence, but for any kind of circuit racing you need to do an ARDS test first. These days you can do your licence application online which is quicker and easier. I will wait until 2014 to do my ARDS test again as the MSA licence runs for a year from 1st January each year so there is no sense in sending off for it early. You also need a doctors certificate to prove you are in reasonable health. The ARDS test, Doctors Certificate, and Licence fee all cost money; budget on about 65 quid for the Go Racing Pack, 60 for a National B Licence, 50 for a doctors certificate, and 250 for the ARDS test. If you haven't already got a lid and fireproof suit, buy those as well, and pay as much as you value your head & not being burnt to a crisp.

The Race Car
The car I will be running is my Sylva Fury XE, which was originally my only road car and was built in 1996 by Fisher Sportscars, who had bought the rights to build and sell the Fury from Sylva Autokits. The Fury is now marketed by Fury Sportscars. It was great for driving under the barriers in car parks and even ventured to France for the Laon Historique before I started drag racing it. Since then it has been rebuilt and turned into a full race car, having removed it's windscreen and passenger seat and fitted an aeroscreen, fire extinguisher, and full roll cage. My Fury has always run a 2 litre Cosworth XE otherwise known as the Vauxhall "red top", and it's fitted with MBE ignition, a pair of barking Weber 45 DCOEs, SBD airbox, and QED cams for about 240 bhp or 120bhp per litre. Backed up with a Caterham 6 speed gearbox and a English LSD with a ridiculously short 4.4:1 final drive ratio, you need to change gear like Ronnie Sox as it rips through each gear without any drop off in acceleration but tops out at probably about 100mph. That should be fine for most circuits but on circuits with a long straight such as Snetterton it will run into the rev limiter for sure. With a 3.89:1 diff it will do about 140 or so but with slightly less rampant acceleration so maybe I will swap out the crown wheel and pinion at some point. I think the best time on the drag strip it ever recorded was a 12.1 @ about 110mph, which is not too shabby, but it corners even better with the superb Sylva rocker arm suspension and offset engine position that with a driver on board provides excellent corner weight balance.

Now, before any racing can be done, you need to make sure your car works properly, and so I need to give it a good service before I take it on a track. But before I can do that, I need to get it out of my garage, which isn't as easy as it sounds. There is somewhat of a slope in my garage and there is also a ridge on the threshold, which is perfectly placed to catch on the bell housing if I were to try and drive the car out. So before I can get the car out the garage, I need to modify the garage itself!

Hence the railway sleepers and breeze blocks. They will form a ramp so that the car can drive in and out flat which will also allow me to get underneath the car more easily, and given how low it is, will also make it easier to work on the engine bay while standing up. More on the ramp build soon. In the New Year, I will post on the ARDS test, car preparation, and fingers crossed, a season of racing!

Be seeing you.

Wanna know why we are so into Rear Wheel Drive? Here are a few good reasons.

Following the death of my Grandpa Ernie, who started Horrell Motors in 1935, my dad David joined my Uncle Steve to run the sales side of the business, while Steve, an ace auto electrician and all round mechanical guru, looked after the workshop. I was hooked, and spent my time polishing and valeting cars for sale; I was carrying out pre delivery inspections by the time I was 13, and had sold my first car at 16! While the showroom was packed full of dreary British Leyland machinery and subsequently Zastava's, the workshop looked after a far more interesting mix, including C-Type Jaguars, 1920s Rolls Royce Phantoms, when the mechanics weren't tweaking their Holbay Hunter GLS's, Chevy Camaros, Jeep Cherokees, and RS2000 droop snoot Escort vans, that is. The business was taken over by Peak Performance in 1989 and so my own destiny in the world of cars took a different direction.

I passed my driving test first time aged 17 and a couple of months, and promised myself that I should only ever own and drive Rear Wheel Drive cars, a mantra I have held onto ever since. My first car was a Triumph Spitfire that my dad bought for me aged 13, which we sadly never got to drive as the chassis was rotten! I bought another one when I was 16, but the first car I owned having passed my test was a Ford Capri mk2 1.6S, which I bought from a neighbour for 500 quid. A 1968 Triumph Vitesse Mk1 hardtop followed the Capri, which its creamy straight 6, lovely Michelotti body, tight turning circle, and snap oversteer. At 18 I bought a Ford Cortina mk1, complete with Rover V8, cherry bombs, flip front, full cage, cobra buckets, and Jag mk2 axle, with a welded up diff for smoky burnouts.

After my obsession with British Sports Cars I got into kit cars, thanks to a neighbour's boyfriend who had a gorgeous sounding Dutton B Plus, with a Vitesse straight Six on open Copper exhaust pipes that you could hear over a mile away. He replaced the Dutton with a 1700 X Flow powered Sylva Leader, which I eventually bought from him. While I had been to Santa Pod with the Cortina, the Sylva was the car in which I took my first motorsport steps, getting to the final of the 1993 Cars and Car Conversions magazine Converted Car of the Year competition, which was held at Curborough sprint course in the Midlands. While I have always been a fan of Caterhams (and still am) I love the Sylva marque and how it's founder Jeremy Phillips never copies, but always comes up with original, simple and effective designs. Indeed, Caterham are said to have started their now very well established one make series because they got so fed up with being beaten by these pesky Sylva Phoenix Clubmans in the national kit car championships!

While the Leader, based on Viva double wishbone suspension and associated underpinnings, was a superb handling car, it wasn't the prettiest looking thing and it was when I took the Leader to a CCC Castle Combe track day that I fell in love with the beautiful shape of the Sylva Fury and knew I had to have one and fulfilled that dream in 1996. I still own my Fury, which is powered by a stout Cosworth XE red top, and backed with a 6 speed Caterham gearbox. It has previously served as my road car and competed in the UK Street racer series, before being turned into a full time race car and pressed into battle in the Centurion Challenge. I plan to race it in the 2014 750MC Sport Specials series so watch this space as I will add updates to the blog in due course.

Thanks to the Horrell Motors mechanics and riding shotgun in their Camaros to Chelsea Cruise in the 1980s, as well as growing up in Eastcote where both Street Machine and Performance Car magazines were based, I have always had a huge interest in muscle cars and hot rods. I was always destined to own some V8 muscle, and my first yank was a cheapo Pontiac Grand Prix from 1979, with a 305. Having drifted it to its death on Maidstone Police skid pan, my next yank was a 425ci 1965 Buick Riviera which was previously owned by Budgie, the drummer from Siouxie and the Banshees. Unfortunately the body was not in top shape so I sold the Buick and a mk2 Ford Escort RS2000 I was running (with the compulsory 2.1 litre motor and twin Weber DCOEs) and replaced them both with a very well modified 1993 Camaro Z28, with a 400bhp LT1, 6-speed manual, loud Flowmasters and well sorted track day suspension. The exhausts sounded so good that it Sega Rally recorded it for their V8 sound effects. Having added a 150 shot of nitrous, I campaigned this in the UK Street Series running low 12s, but it was at it's best on a smooth race track. After the Camaro, I ran a Corvette Z06 bought new in 2006, with a fabulous 7 litre LS7 motor. This is simply an awesome machine, the road going homologation for the most successful GT race car of the 2000s, (Corvettes recorded 5 wins at Le Mans, numerous national series wins and are still competitive enough to be the current 2013 ADAC GT3 Champion).

With the Z06 I finished 4th overall in the 2007 UK Street racer Series, recording a best of 11.7s @ 125mph; the car also featured in EVO magazine's "Fast Club" test in March 2006. With only 200 miles on the clock, it wasn't fully run in when John Barker figured it for them, and when I managed to get it to Bruntingthorpe in 2008 for American Car Worlds "Fuel Crisis" article I bettered their time and recorded 3.8 seconds 0-60mph and 8.1 seconds for 0-100mph. The most impressive trick was it's ability to sip fuel - on one 400 mile round trip it averaged an astonishing 40mpg.

The Z06 has now sadly departed, but my fleet is still all RWD - a lowered, but otherwise original MX5 mk1 in BRG with Rays rims & a lovely Nardi wheel providing day to day low speed RWD thrills, with the Sylva Fury waiting to be prepared for 2014. My own design, the Veeteor LSR still lurks in the workshop awaiting final touches and no doubt I will blog on progress with that in due course. Completing the fleet is a 1981 Zip Komet K88 100cc rotary valve kart which I must get onto a track in 2014!

As for my background as a motoring hack most recently I wrote and edited Circuits magazine and Motor Sport Circuit Guide website in 2010; there I researched the worlds racing circuits and interviewed around 30 owners and CEOs of racing circuits which was a fascinating education.
In the 200s I spent the best part of a decade as a staff writer for specialist titles such as Street  Machine and American Car World magazines, and was contributing editor for the excellent Sylva Sportscar Registers club mag, The Dwindling Dot. My earliest experience with motorsport magazines was through Cobra, the seminal Brabham F1 supporters club magazine, written and published pre-internet on a photocopier by some teenage friends and neighbours in the 1980s, to whom I proudly donated my treasured Skid Solo cartoon strips which they transformed into the notorious "Skid Mark". Fabulous memories!

With Rear Wheel Drive I hope to combine some of this passion and my strange personal tastes in silly motors while also sharing the latest news, events, and information for discerning RWD enthusiasts.

Feel free to drop me a line and tell me about your own RWD infection, and be sure to include pictures!

Cheers for now
The Editor
[email protected]