Don't dream it, do it - My Lotus 51a - 51a/FF/60
This is what it looks like in that magic moment when the 50 year old dream of a 9 year old boy comes true.
So how did 50 years of separate little events culminate in this special moment in time for me?
50 years ago I saw the movie "Grand Prix" and decided I wanted to be a Grand Prix driver - so I got a job in a bank - not too dissimilar
On July 2nd 1967 (the eve of my 10th birthday - OK a tenuous link here as I was at NAS Yeovilton "Air Day" that day as dad was based there then) the very first Formula Ford race was held at Brands Hatch.
48 years ago in 1968 my dad took me to a fair in Taunton and I sat in a Lotus 18 simulator. Most of my few minutes in the Sim were spent lurching from one crash to the next while the guy running it tried to grab the steering wheel to guide me and I for my part held the throttle down as far as I could push it, it was the only pedal I could reach and press easily and the only one they explained "just press down there to make it go" we're the instructions I expect.
44 years ago when we moved to Australia and my dad had trouble getting a job, he tried to bribe me to go back to the UK by offering to pay for me to go to Jim Russels racing school. 51a/FF/60 was delivered new to Jim Russell's school in 1968 the same year I sat in the 18.
3 weeks ago my Dad died and left me a small sum of money, then I spotted this in a Lotus club magazine that I had not got round to reading as my dad had been so ill.
It's easy to put together links like this for most things I guess but I like to think that this was all "meant to be", 50 years of small seemingly unconnected incidents culminating in me climbing back into the cockpit of a Lotus open wheeler, but this time it's MY open wheeler. So my dad could in some small way be a part of this occasion I wore his watch and a T- shirt that I had bought him ready for his birthday this coming November depicting his 892 Squadron logo on the back and the words "Phantom Phixer" (his job as a ground engineer on RR Spey powered F4's) on the front, he never got to wear it himself, but it meant something to me to involve him in some way. I hope he knows I am certainly one very happy small boy again now.
Cheers from a VERY HAPPY 59 year old nine year old boy
