This just in:

Marching onwards (see what I did there?)

Enough of my poor jokes, but we really are charging on. Next Sunday (March 11) is set for the first sprint of the 2018 CSCA series. We are organising the round and to date have just over 100 runners, which is a superb turnout. I suspect that by the time you are reading this it’ll be too late for you to decide to come off the fence, but we’ll have a full report in next month’s CC from our brilliant Motorsport Committee.

The Club Lotus Tour of Tassie got back this week, having by all accounts had an absolute ball. Thank you to Anne and the team for organising it – I am gutted to have missed it this time due to work commitments, but look forward to reading all about it. If you have never driven the roads of Tasmania, you are missing out on one of the great driving experiences of life. Do it next time!

A couple of weeks ago we had a lovely run south to the Gerrigong Lions Show and Shine, with a full complement of ten cars showing up, plus a few ring-ins with members bringing their non-Lotus weekend cars. Great to see such an eclectic turnout, and I hope this event continues to thrive and grow.

The drive there got me thinking that we need more drive days here in New South Wales, so I am going to raise the idea at the first committee meeting, which incidentally will be held on the 24th of March. We need to revisit the trip north to hang out with the LOST fraternity around Newcastle for a start!

February’s Tyre Kick and Coffee had a good turnout, even if yours truly brought a piece of road junk along to muck up the photos. It was lovely to see some new faces turning up, and of course to say hi to the regulars. Please do see if you can drag yourself out of bed on the third Sunday of the month – it’s a lovely event, and for some reason it rarely rains!

On the subject of events, please could I ask you to drop a line to me or any of the Committee with any ideas you have for social, technical or motorsport-related ideas. The more opportunities we give to you to enjoy your car, the more likely we are to get them out of the garage and  enjoyed. Thank you to those who have already passed on ideas, we will be putting them into the mix for this year.

Last week SSC ran an information evening for Targa events this year, and we had a great turnout of interested CLA members. Thank you for coming along and supporting SSC. They put an inordinate amount of effort into building the brand, and provide us with a lot of amazing opportunities to enjoy our cars (Bathurst in February for example). If you aren’t on their mailing list, rectify that now!

Looking ahead, the good folk at HSRCA have kindly invited us to join the Autumn Festival over the weekend of 7-8 April, to celebrate the life of Jim Clark, one of the greatest and most talented drivers in motorsport history. Sadly he died far too young 50 years ago that weekend at Hockenheim, so the HSRCA have developed a schedule to recognise his contribution to motorsport, from his time in Elites at Le Mans through early open wheeler wins in Formula Junior to his hilarious saloon car antics in a Lotus Cortina. Sadly we might not quite persuade his world championship-winning Type 25 to come back from Europe, but I am reliably informed it is going to be participating in the UK celebrations that same weekend.

Please note that as well as historic (30 year plus) cars being eligible for their respective race and regularity sessions, HSRCA has opened the SuperSprint category to cars up to MY 1999 and run-ons, so S1 Elises and even S1 Exiges will be eligible. Please do consider bringing your Lotus out to play, whether its in race, regularity or supersprint. I’m under a good deal of pressure to get the Elite running by then! More details elsewhere, but if you have any questions, please drop a line to the Motorsport Committee on motorsport@clublotus.com.au and they will point you the right way.

I’ve just finished reading Adrian Newey’s autobigraphy called (somewhat understatedly) How to Build a Car. It is lovely reading, both personal and touching, and also technically interesting, as well as being historically informative, given he has been closely involved in the sport since the early ’80s, and has seen (and overseen) many of the fundamental changes to the sport. Well worth a read – I highly recommend it. Just a shame Harvey Postlethwaite persuaded him to join Fittiipaldi, otherwise the Lotus story might have been quite different!

Enough of my random ramblings – please please come along to the HSRCA celebrations on 7-8 April – regularity is great fun for your regular road-going Lotus and very easy to do!

Otherwise I look forward to catching up soon, and in the meantime keep safe upright and on the blackstuff,

Pip pip,
Ashton.

Hello!

I can hardly still say Happy New Year, given we are already into February, but nonetheless I hope 2018 is a lot of fun for you, and we look forward to seeing you out and about during the year. 2018 is already shaping up to be a busy year for most of the people I have spoken to so far, and I am hoping we can make sure to slot in lots of interesting and fun events along the way.

That starts next week, with the remarkable event that Lee and Mark and the team at Simply Sports Cars have organised – a Lotus Only Track Day at Bathurst. There will be over 70 cars there and we will have four 20 minute sessions over the course of Wednesday 7th February. If you fancy seeing 35-40 Lotuses on track at Bathurst at one time (there are two groups), come along and catch up in the pits!

Two weeks later, on Saturday 17th February, we have our first drive day of the year – a run down to Gerringong for the Motor Fest and Car Show. We have ten spots allocated so far, but there is room for more if you are still sitting on the fence. Drop me a line on ashton@clublotus.com.au.

Very shortly after that, on Saturday the 11th March, we have the CLA’s round of the Combined Sports Cars Association supersprints at Wakefield Park, organised by the new Motorsport Committee, for whom I am deeply grateful. I hope lots of you will come along to support the club’s round of this great series. I look forward to seeing you there.

Something tells me that this year will go no slower than last, and that before we know it, we will be gathering for a jolly knees up for our Christmas Lunch. So, let’s not wish the year away, and instead fill it with fun memories, interesting learning opportunities and laughter. If you have an idea for an event, a speaker, or simply want to have a chat, please don’t hesitate to suggest your idea to any of your Committee and we will do our best to make it happen!

On a car-related note, but nothing to do with Lotuses, this year I have to finish building the Healey that Giles and I will be driving from Peking to Paris in June next year. We have it almost ready to run, although there is still a great deal of final details we need to finish. If I am slightly hard to catch, it may be because I am either under the Healey in Giles’ garage, or shaking it down! So without further ado, welcome to 2018, and I very much look forward to a tremendous year and to catching up with a lot of you!

In the meantime, keep it safe, upright, and on the blackstuff.

Pip pip,
Ashton