Hello! Apologies that this is a bit late, as I wanted to include some photos of the excellent gathering we had last weekend to welcome Nigel Halliday to Sydney.

Nigel is the Chairman of the Historic Lotus Register, and a stalwart Lotus diehard. Apart from owning the Lotus Mk4, he is also a keen advocate for all Lotus cars, and obviously has a particular interest in the earlier cars, both race and road, so thank you wholeheartedly to the significant number of you who made the trip to Carss Park last weekend. Seth has some photos up, which you can find at this link.

I’ve just put Nigel and Liz on the plane back to the UK via a few days in Singapore, and they were both most grateful for all the hospitality they had, in particular from the Carss Park contingent, the Canberra crew (thank you Terry, Peter and Neil for making them so welcome) and to Peter and Marge Simms for showing them a good time in the Blue Mountains!

In other news, we are heading quickly towards the next round of the CSCA supersprints at Wakefield Park aka OneRaceway. The entry list is an impressive 104 cars, so that will be a great day – and thank you to all the CLA entrants who have bolstered the numbers significantly.

Although I am not entered as I simply don’t have time to get ready, I will try to get down for some of the day and possibly the evening before for dinner no doubt at the Astor! I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the new layout for those driving it for the first time; I love it! And you shouldn’t have too much trouble bettering my PB so far of 1.10.4!!

The other part of the reason for the delay getting this written is that I got back from the Old Dart on 5th, and went straight into the chaos of work, so I haven’t had a chance to note the fun a small group of us had diving down on 22nd April through Belgium to the Nurburgring, via Spa of course, and thence on to Heidelburg and Starsbourg before hacking back to Calais in time for work on the 28th April. The stop off in Ypres was fascinating – a private collection of 63 incredible cars (I’ll try to provide Seth with a sample of the photos) – and then a fleeting visit to Spa (in the rain) followed by a couple of laps of the ‘Ring (also in the pouring rain, which made it even more fun/scary than usual!) and then a series of fantastic roads down though the Black Forest. Great fun!

Back to things more local, and I am starting to get a bit bored with the wetness all around us here in Sydney, so I hope wherever you are it isn’t quite as damp (and if it is, and you have any tips for stopping everything leather form going grey with mould, I’m all ears!)
Looking ahead a few weeks and months, I am hoping we can have some dry weather for the Shannons Classic at SMSP, and a bit further out for the All British Day at the Hawkesbury Showgrounds. And if anyone would like to organise a weekend away, or a weekend drive, please let me know and I will get right behind it!

I’ve been pondering getting an occasional calendar of weekday evening monthly meetings together. This is nothing more than an idea currently, but could take the shape of shed tours/visits, speakers coming to talk to us (or us going to them?) or anything else that grabs you. If you have any thoughts or ideas, or a shed you wouldn’t mind some of us having a poke around, please drop me a line.
Otherwise, I’ll let you get on with your weekend, and hope to see you out and about soon!

Take care, keep it safe upright and mostly on the blackstuff.

Pip pip,
Ashton