Jaguar Tales

You may carry weapons and ammo in your checked luggage, but don't you dare smoke, skateboard or loiter in the terminal. The USA never fails to amaze. January and February 2023 passed all too quickly with no motorsport action at Jacoby Jaguars.   The XKR celebrated its 21st Birthday by having total electrical failure at 70mph in lane 3 on the M25, at night.  Amazingly the engine kept running, but all other electric/electronic systems disappeared:  No lights at all, no gear changes, no indicators, horn, windows etc. Fortunately we were due to exit at the next junction and a few miles later, some electrics reappeared:  Side lights and gearchanges.  As we were heading into London, we had no need of headlamps.  We arrived for (a lovely) dinner at cousin Robert's apartment in Belsize Park.  After an evening of good eating and excellent company (and getting to hold a real Oscar, brought over by a neighbour), Robert kindly lent us his monster Audi RS5 to ...

HC2 - Bicester Heritage - "Left of Q 360" 2022 started with a truly cracking event, HERO's Per Ardua Ad Infinitum with Graham navigating.  This was followed by Dexter's debut HERO event,  Hero Challenge One , where we missed a top ten finish by one small error.  See full reports in Blog Parts 15, 16 & 17. There was a largish time gap before the next Hero Challenge event, so I decided that a couple of HRCR events would fill that time admirably. With Dexter unavailable, Graham kindly jumped back into the navigator's seat for the Hughes Rally... Hughes Rally, May 2022 - Kent Inevitably there comes an event when what can go wrong, does.  I met Graham early on the day of the rally.  He had been up much of the previous night trying to plot the route, but it just wasn't working for him.  He was dog tired and just a little irritable! The CoC's (Clerk of the Course) route was particularly devious and made good use of "not as map" (NAM) junctions, int...

  A Dry and Dusty Wales It is March 2022.  Historic Rallying is back with a full timetable, and with a nod to the environment, I'm pleased to say with a Net Zero Carbon agenda on the HERO events. For our upcoming HERO Challenge One, the total estimated carbon emissions for the entire event will be offset through carbon capture programmes.   The programme is called Net Hero...and they are encouraging everyone to further offset their car's day-to-day carbon emissions by contributing to the carbon offset schemes affiliated with Net Hero. Dexter, our youngest son, was persuaded to take the navigator's seat, especially as it meant being taken out of the last day of school in order to travel from Essex to Flintshire in North Wales in time for scrutineering.   The week prior, our children's "learning-to drive-car", an old Ford Focus, finally gave into old age when the seals on the steering rack failed in a big way.  After four and a half years of replacing wo...