Welcome to the 2023 show season! It started well with a trip to the Japanese Assemble at the Bicester Airfield.

The zed was then throughly rinsed down and put away until the salt had gone!

During Easter My wife and I went 'up 't 'north (up norff in southern speak) to stay the weekend with @Aff68 and his other half. We took the zed and it was perfect! I was still training for the London Marathon, so Aff and his partner were very accommodating in letting me take over the mornings plans so that I could run to the local parkrun and do it as part of my training ! We then spent the afternoon in Nottingham which was cool!

At the end of April, the club committee decided to make yours truely to the National Events Organiser, shortened to NEO. As a massive Matrix AND Keanu Reeves fan, how could I say no?! 😁 

My first action was to make a long list of car shows planned, to be planned and to investigated. I organised a few for this year and as luck would have it, had my first failure as NEO with my first show: The south east BHP show. After extensive advertising on the forum and the club paying £75 for a club stand and 5 tickets, we couldnt give them away. The evening before, I was the only confirmed member attending and wondered what to do. Swing an' a miss.... After speaking to the commitee I decided to not attend and we would chalk this up to a learning experience. My NEO probation was still safe! I have since learnt that good advertising using the forum, the facebook group and page (which I have access to now) and the twitter page is essential for getting all of you involved. Some of you use the forum and not facebook, some do both, some only do facebook, so I have to bear this in mind when promoting an event.

The next show was the Chiltern Hills Classic Rally, Although I intended to attend this show, work surprised me with a business trip to Newcastle for a week and due to meeting timings, I needed to travel up on the Sunday. However the guys that attended said it was a good show and should be an annual event for the club.

More recently (yesterday) we attended the Bromley Pageant of Motoring. Excellent show, 7 of us represented the club and had a great show!

So what has been going on with the car? Over the winter I planned to paint the UK spec alloys and get them fitted, but took a financial hit over the winter, long story.... (thanks UPS/parcelmonkey)... so that is still on the list. I have managed to source a replica rear spoiler to replace my original foam one which is soaking up water and getting worse, I have a 2nd MAF now and would like to find a Selin to convert to a dual MAF setup. I would also like to get some smaller front plates for the car and some show plates! The auto box is growing on me more and more, Ive had memebers with 400-600bhp comment when driving with me how fast and responsive my car is: They follow me into a corner, concetrate on not writing off their car, exit the apex, look ahead and im already at the next corner! Ive also had many comment from people following me on how quickly and tight the car turns into corners, I assume this is down to a fully fuctioning HICAS system rather than my driving skills! As a result, Im leaning more and more to keeping it in its stock configuration. 

Lastly: Whatever I do to the car, I know it will never change how it makes me feel when I drive it. Happiness. I know it sounds cheesy, but I drive around and see all these angry people driving metal boxes that all look the same and yet I cruise around with a massive smile on the face. That is what owning these cars is about, not how much BHP you have or how much money you spent on it or even how it compares to other peoples cars. You bought your car to enjoy it, get out there and enjoy it!