After my hoon to the Peak District, I took Owen to meet my Mum, Dad and cousin at Ryton Pools. The weather was still gorgeous and I managed to capture these trees reflecting in the lake.
Peak District Hoon
It is that weird time between Christmas and New Years Eve where you don’t know what day it is, I actually enjoy it, as I rarely have time off work with nothing planned. So when I saw that a group from the Pistonheads midlands forum were planning an early morning hoon to the Peak District, I ignored my own rule about not driving the MR2 on salty roads and joined them. Fortunately my Christmas gift from Jen was a chassis cleaner attachment for my pressure washer (I had dropped a hint) so I’ll be able to wash off the salt.
It was a clear, cold morning with a heavy frost and patches of mist/fog. The countryside looked beautiful. I should have been out with my camera but I was enjoying the drive too much! The slippery roads meant that the MR2 could easily keep up with the other cars, which ranged from modified MINIs to a Cayman GT4, which sounded awesome. Andrew’s M3, which I was behind for most the drive also sounded amazing.
We stopped for a cup of tea at Flash Bar Stores, in Flash, the highest village in Britain at 1,519 ft above sea level. Whilst we were inside the sun came out, so we retraced our steps and actually got to see what the scenery looked like over some of the twistier roads.
I did 150 miles in the MR2 and loved every moment of it, now all I need to do is clean it…
Owen Triptych
Owen was lying on our bed whilst Jen was getting ready, I noticed that some lovely winter light was coming in through the window and grabbed my camera. I’m pleased with how these have come out, they will be going into a triptych frame that we got for Christmas.
MR2 Featured On Pistonheads
My MR2 made it into the Pistonheads Carpool!
Following on from my MX-5 making it onto the pages of eve magazine, my MR2 has made it onto the front page of Pistonheads. I’d written the text a while back, but only collated the photos and submitted the article recently, so was surprised when my phone started buzzing with tweets to let me know my car was on Pistonheads.
World Prematurity Day
As today is about raising awareness of premature birth, I thought I’d post an update on how Owen is doing. He was born 6 weeks early, and as you can see from the photo, he was quite skinny. I’m pleased to say that over the last 5 months he has been drinking a lot of milk and is putting on weight. We dug out my old baby book, and at 5 months Owen is already heavier than I was at his age – not bad considering he had a lot of catching up to do!
Owen has also been learning lots of new tricks: he got smiling nailed a while back and has been doing a lot of practice! His latest skill is rolling over, he can roll over on to his front and is having a go at crawling, but isn’t quite there yet. He can also sit up in his highchair and joined us at the table for a family meal for the first time yesterday.
All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the great work of the doctors and nurses who looked after Owen at UCHW. Being born at 34 weeks, he was one of the bigger babies in the special care baby unit, but he still looked tiny compared to full term babies, especially as he was struggling to put on weight. It was hard having to go home each evening, leaving Owen at the hospital, but he was being cared for by the best people. We even managed to pick up some tips from the nursery nurses, which I’m sure helped us when we eventually got Owen home.
Pistonheads Sunday Service at Silverstone
Since Owen was born I haven’t been able to get out in the MR2 much, so when Pistonheads announced another one of their Sunday Service events at Silverstone, I had to go.
Rather than driving straight to Silverstone, a few of us met up between Coventry and Birmingham to drive down together. I’ve joined a few of these convoys previously, but this was much bigger – around 30 cars, ranging from my MR2 all the way up to a Porsche Cayman GT4 and a brace of Italian supercars. We took the scenic route to Silverstone, somehow managing to arrive all together, despite the group splitting up and following different routes. I made a time-lapse of the drive.
At Silverstone I met up with my Dad for breakfast and some tyre kicking, before heading out on track in the MR2. I had driven the National Circuit at Silverstone a few times previously, but I felt like I was faster than before, I expect that this is due to having a few more trackdays under my belt in the MR2. I really enjoyed myself, the driving standard was better than the same event last year, where Jen drove the MR2, and I was surprised to have the track pretty much to myself for the last few laps – perfect.
To finish off a great morning I followed my Dad back to his house – via the cross country route. I has been a long time since we’d both been out together in our sports cars, and driving together through the Cotswolds, with autumn leaves being kicked up by Dad’s Boxster in front of me, was just as enjoyable as convoying with the supercars or taking the MR2 on track earlier that morning. Including driving back to Coventry I did 170 miles in the MR2 and I can’t think of a better way to use 2/3rds of a tank of petrol.
Classic 500
To celebrate our first wedding anniversary Jen and I hired this little Fiat, and spent the day pootling around South Warwickshire in it. Jen has got her own modern 500, and both of us love the 1950s classic, so when I found out that Great Escape Classic Cars have one available to hire, a plan was formed.
The 1966 model is a lot harder to drive than the modern version, especially as this one was LHD. Both brakes and steering are unassisted, the 4 speed gearbox didn’t have synchromesh so double clutching was needed. Top speed was 40mph – you wouldn’t want to go any faster!
We both enjoyed our trip in the little 500, it could have been a case of “never meet your heroes”, but it wasn’t at all. Despite the trickiness to drive we would buy one if we had space for another car, even a really small one.
Gothenburg – Throwback Thursday
I’m back in Gothenburg for work and can see these cranes out of my hotel room window, so thought this photo would be ideal for a #throwbackthursday.
Baby Owen
Owen Robert Craik was born at 23:27 on the 6th June 2016, he wasn’t due until the 12th July, so he was a bit small (2.59kg). He spent a few weeks under the excellent care of the neonatal team at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, with lots of visits from Mummy, Daddy and his grandparents.
He’s now at home, being cheeky and causing mischief at every opportunity – I think he will feature a lot on this blog in the future.
Donington Park Track Day
After drag racing last month I had my first real track session of 2016 last week at a rainy Donington Par with Circuit Days.
Checking the weather forecast the evening before the track day I knew it was going to be wet, so I dug out the old bottle of RainX from the car cleaning box and applied some to the windscreen. The MR2 had recently been treated to a big service at Rogue Motorsport so that was the extent of my trackday prep.
The weather forecast was right, the track pretty wet to start with, a lot of the race cars stayed in the pits so the speed differential between the MR2, which in my hands is usually the slowest car on track, and the faster cars seemed lower than normal. The lack of power probably helped me to stay out of trouble. As I was on my cool down lap after my first session the red flag came out for a radical which was backwards into the pit wall, right by the pit entry. Possibly the worst place to crash as everyone else has to drive past you on the way in from their cancelled session. Later in the morning I had some instruction, which was especially useful for finding the right line in the wet and telling me where I didn’t need to brake.
In the afternoon the rain stopped and the track dried out, the MR2 was still going really well, and after my instruction I felt like I was going faster than the trackday I did at Donington last year. I was able to lap with other cars too which was fun, notably an Austin A30 race car. Just like last time I was there, about 15 minutes before the end of the day the rain started again, last year I pulled into the pits and went home, but with my new-found confidence from the morning, I pulled into the pits, put the roof up and went out for a few more laps! By this point the track was almost empty, but I spent the remainder of the session lapping with a Caterham, swapping places every few laps, probably the best experience I’ve had on track. The car had been moving under me all day, especially at Redgate and Coppice, but on my penultimate lap I had a bit of a tankslapper coming out of McLeans, fortunately the Caterham was well in front at that point and I managed to keep it on the black stuff – I did catch this on video, so hope to share it with you soon!
I was happy with the 185 miles I clocked up on track, I was doing 15 mins on/15 mins off with no trouble from the car. I had a few people come up to me and say how the MR2 is so underrated. After the last month of drag strip, road trips and a track day I really need to treat the MR2 to a good wash!