Here is what I remember of my early years in the sport.....
In around 83 I saw someone at school with a tamiya rough rider and thought it was the coolest thing ever so the following Christmas my parents bought me a holiday buggy which I spent the next few months bashing around the local parks etc. eventually got a bit bored with this and stumbled across a mardave mini stock for sale new in a local shop, me and a mate both bought one and started racing them in our school playground.
About a year of bashing around passed when we found out about Ilkeston model car club (now Broxtowe) which raced on a Friday night, one visit to this wonderous place and I was hooked! On my first night there met Phil booth who was racing 1/12th scale and was only about 5 years on from winning his 1/8th circuit world championship, after this I spent many an hour in his shop and travelling to race meetings with him and Christine, acting as his pit crew occasionally which scared me witless!
My trusty mardave made way for a succession of buggies from Phil booth models including an ayk sidewinder, hotshot, pb mini mustang, rc10, optima, tamiya fox and an original short wheelbase cat.
Of all these cars I think it was the hotshot that gave me the most success, after Phil had put universal joint drive shafts and a one way centre drive shaft on it that is, with a tq and win at Dudley and 2nd overall at the "midlands championships"
At around the age of 17 I got into 1/12th scale as my local club, derby had always been predominantly for this scale and only tolerated buggies lol. I bought an RC12i with a corally conversion kit (all ally bits) and over 2 seasons of BRCA nationals worked my way up from the bottom heat of formula 3 to the top heat of formula 1 (beating a young Dave splashett in the process (if only that could have carried on! Lol)) to be honest my first run in this top heat against drivers like the late Phil davies and Tim dakin really demoralised me as I was being lapped mercilessly and I think I actually left the meeting early, never to race 1/12th again!
A break of 7 or so years ensued, and purely by chance I was passing through Worksop and heard that there were Rc cars being raced in the sports centre there, putting my head round the door the first people I see are Phil and Christine! So one major credit card session later I'm all set up with a schumacher SST and all the gear (god I loved that car)
Took to touring car racing really well and again worked my way up the rankings and got some sponsorship with GM and latterly CML with the Associated TC3. My best result was at the Broxtowe national when I had FTD after heat 9 of round 4 after a very rain affected day, but then the bloody sun came out and I was punted into the b final! (still had a good final though with my one and only win against Jamie booth after years of failure lol)
At this point I became a dad and had to give up racing completely, up until early 2011 when yet again ANOTHER chance meeting with mr booth at ardent raceway (I'd seen it advertised so called in for a look) and a tax rebate convinced me to get a cat SX2 and do a bit of racing "just for fun"
A year on and I'm back doing regionals etc and loving every minute of it with the new technology etc.
Thanks for reading, John jones
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