Hello!

Bit of a rush job this month, as I’m simultaneously trying to get organised for my long-awaited holiday in Sri Lanka – we fly out next weekend and until about half an hour ago, all we had was flights in and out! When I say long-awaited, I am not ignoring that I had a week in Alice Springs, but that was not exactly restful! Fun, but not restful.

Last weekend was also something of a rushed affair. First off, we had the HSRCA Spring Festival at Wakefield Park, with over 150 interesting and unusual historic race cars all giving it large – and then there was me in the Eleven, gently circulating in 1.24s in regularity!

Unfortunately I had to leave the fun on Saturday to get home in time to be at Kings School on the Sunday for the All British Day, which as always turned out to be a glorious day, albeit with a slightly reduced Lotus turnout. We had given away 33 tickets, but only 20 cars turned up which was a shame.

However, the organisation seemed much smoother, the cars arrived reasonably quickly (although I did hear reports of a bit of a backlog trying to get off the M4) and also got out in good order. In between, there was the usual glorious array of interesting cars to have a look at. I couldn’t find the owner of the Aston Martin DB6 who I am sure would have considered a swap for the Eleven 🙂

Also on that weekend was a round of the Australian Production Cars at SMSP in which Grant Denyer and Tony D’Alberto are campaigning an Exige with great success. The next round coincides with the LOTD at Phillip Island over 2-4th November – if you haven’t driven PI, this is a great chance to do so and have some fun with the other categories too. Contact Emma at Simply Sports Cars to see if there is a spot left – [email protected].

This weekend sees the factory hosting the 70th birthday of Lotus, and they are aiming for a Guinness World Record for the highest number of cars on track at one time – not sure how they got on! We will be aiming for more modest targets at our 70th celebrations, which coincide with the Christmas Party (and AGM!!) on Sunday 2nd December. If you’ve missed the excitement so far, get in touch with Elliott to book your spots and we’ll see you at Lane Cove National Park for a delicious hamper lunch and birthday celebrations, including cake!

And while I’m thinking of fun events, don’t forget that Tom is organising the run to Mount Tomah while we are away – Sunday 7th October – drop him a line to make sure you are booked for lunch – this is a brilliant drive, and a glorious location.

We’ll be back early on Sunday 21st October but probably won’t make the Tyre Kick and Coffee that’s on that morning, so I can’t bribe you with coffee and egg and bacon butties again, but that worked well this month, so thank you to everyone who turned up!

Righto, better get this to Tom before I get into even more trouble than usual! Have fun, keep it safe, upright and on the blackstuff.

Pip pip,
Ashton

‘The Preserve’ is the newsletter of the Council of Motor Clubs. It’s made available to members of CMC-affiliated clubs, and that means you!

The September 2018 edition of The Preserve gives thanks to the incredible efforts of the volunteers who made the Shannons Sydney Classic a success, recaps the event and its results, shares a whole bunch of photos, looks at the Gulf’s Le Mans history and more.

Club Lotus Australia members can head to the members page here to download your copy. If you’re not a member of the club head here, and take a browse around the website to see why you should be!