The Forum > General Discussion > Christmas - What fantastic memories do each of us have of Christmas ?
Christmas - What fantastic memories do each of us have of Christmas ?
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I started in sports cars, but decided it did not make sense to have a lot of expensive damageable body work on a race car.
I bought a Lotus 20, formula junior open wheeler, then moved to a Brabham formula 2.
My team were pretty good mechanically, so it didn't break, & as I didn't run into things it was not as expensive as it could have been. We upgraded an old car & built the engine for it ourselves.
It was twice voted the most reliable racing car in Oz, by the professional racing mechanics club, a bit of an admission. We three were amateurs, a plastics engineer, a white goods designer, & a sales tax investigator. Not exactly what you would expect. It also won it's class in every race it started for a 20 month period, so prize money actually paid for the tyres, & an oil company gave me all my fuel & lubricants.
I ultimately was given a Formula 1 drive by a top team, & took second in our championships, the gold star. I also drove for General Motors, Holden dealers team, & Ford, before going sailing.
To indicate how it was, my second at Bathurst in the original Holden Monaro earned me $50.00. It was not exactly a lucrative activity.
Everything in life comes at a cost. I got to the stage where the time & effort involved in racing was not returned in the pleasure I got from it. Actually I guess the fun went out of it.
I got to the stage where spending 4 or 5 nights most weeks working on a car was no longer much fun, even with good friends for company, so stopped. I had nothing left to prove to myself, & the thought of the south sea islands became irresistible.