Hi there!
Tomorrow morning bright and early I am going to be boarding a plane bound for the sunny left coast of America specifically to Buttonwillow raceway. This weekend I am going to be working with the North American Road Racing Association as a race instructor helping the owners in the 'pro' group get the most out of their automobiles. From what I know about NARRA is that it is a tiered track day company where novice drivers can get involved in performance driving. From the entry level it progresses up to a medium group, then an advanced - time attack style group who is entered into a fastest man competition. This concept seems to be popular in England and apparently generates a lot of excitment in this organization as well.
I am especially looking forward to the weekend since a number of my old colleagues are going to be there. My friend Josh Gilbert who went with me as my 'crief chief' on my last trip to California to be on a reality racing TV show which never took place. Additionally I will get to work with my friend Ruth and Kevin who run the organization who have enjoyed their own very interesting career in motorsport. Their speciality is safety and are a wealth of information which they have acrued from around the globe visiting different racing circuits and participating in the different events.
Hope you are all doing well, wishing you the best!
Cheers
Michael
19 February, 2009
11 February, 2009
Now on for something completely different
Dear Friends,
It has been ages! My appologies, especially to those of you in England who are probably wondering if I am still alive or not!
Things have wrapped up at the kart track in Houston. We made a lot of significant improvements in their factility, operations and program, now time to move on.
There is a lot taking place in American motorsport at the moment with the new season kicking off along with significant changes to the landscape of the international motorsport scene. The Grand Am championship started its season in Daytona a few weeks ago, and this week (15 February) will be the most prestigious stock car race in America, the Daytona 500. Internationally Formula 1 has gotten a swift kick upside the regulatory head and all of the teams are scrambeling like made right now to build new cars with the intent of lowering cost and improving the 'show.' The changes are certainly dramatic, we will see how it goes, and how the grid shakes out! I am very excited to see Formula Two unveiled in England this year as the newest feeder series to Formula 1. A brilliant series philosophy which brings costs down to a more reasonable level.
Now I am based in Dallas and have a few things up my sleeve for the 2009 year. I still have no idea when I will be able to get back to England but hopefully I will find out soon!
Hope all of you who occasionally check this are doing well. Would love to hear what you've been up to.
Kindest regards
Michael
It has been ages! My appologies, especially to those of you in England who are probably wondering if I am still alive or not!
Things have wrapped up at the kart track in Houston. We made a lot of significant improvements in their factility, operations and program, now time to move on.
There is a lot taking place in American motorsport at the moment with the new season kicking off along with significant changes to the landscape of the international motorsport scene. The Grand Am championship started its season in Daytona a few weeks ago, and this week (15 February) will be the most prestigious stock car race in America, the Daytona 500. Internationally Formula 1 has gotten a swift kick upside the regulatory head and all of the teams are scrambeling like made right now to build new cars with the intent of lowering cost and improving the 'show.' The changes are certainly dramatic, we will see how it goes, and how the grid shakes out! I am very excited to see Formula Two unveiled in England this year as the newest feeder series to Formula 1. A brilliant series philosophy which brings costs down to a more reasonable level.
Now I am based in Dallas and have a few things up my sleeve for the 2009 year. I still have no idea when I will be able to get back to England but hopefully I will find out soon!
Hope all of you who occasionally check this are doing well. Would love to hear what you've been up to.
Kindest regards
Michael
11 October, 2008
Not sure how I ended up here!!
Dear Friends,
The past few weeks at the Houston MSR have been a bit of a blur. To be honest it has been fantastic, lots of driving (in karts) and the chance to create a racing program to my hearts desire. I have been entrusted with the strategic planning on the MSR Houston karting program for 2009 and beyond. It is a brand new kart circuit so there are not a lot of people set in their ways which gives me a good freedom to change things for the better of racing.
While I have been busy working on the karting project, there have been a lot of cool things happening around me. Last week I traveled to Texas World Speedway which is located in College Station, Texas (for you Brit's reading this, College Station is about as Texas as you can get). I had the change to meet an interesting gentleman who is the global director of a firm which is involved in international business. He also drives a fantastic Porsche GT3 RS which he took me for a tour of the TWS circuit before it promptly broke on the second lap... Only a $1,500 dollar pressure plate in the clutch. The fourth one he's done in the past year!
This week MSR Houston has been hoping. On Wednesday AJ Foyt's Indy car racing team arrived on the scene for a sponsor appreciate day and a test with their new driver, Vietor Miera. There were rumors Vietor might be going to Penske, but as it turns out Foyt was able to grab him. It was great fun to watch the VP's from their sponsor company ABC Supply company (a home building supply firm) having a go in a 700 horse power indy car. I am pretty sure none of them got out of first gear!
On Thursday and Friday the course stayed hot with the arrival of Chip Ganassi's team. After the recent sacking of Dan Wheldon the team is doing some testing with their new driver Dario Franchetti a refuge from the Andretti Green racing team and failed (I suppose) convert to NASCAR world. Franchetti did probably 150 miles over the two days in the car doing short 3-5 lap test intervals.
This evening (Saturday) was absolutely wild!! One of the members of the kart track decided it would be well cool to set up a booth at the local fair. I haven't been to a local fair before, and quite frankly I haven't been to anything like it before! There was the widest assortment of people I have ever seen at one place at one time, however the majority of them leaned towards the cowboy side of things. During the fair they had a concert (country music) and there was a no B.S. rodeo taking place where I got to see a few riders go the whole 8 seconds and one unlucky chap who shunted with the ground after being pitched off his bull. Doesn't look like a good result as I saw a helicopter leaving the premesis.
I hope this message finds you doing very well. The slow trickle of news has been on account of staying so busy on this karting project! It might not be necessarily getting me any closer to Formula 1, but I feel like it is really going to help the program out at MSR and I hope to see it doing a lot of good for them in the future.
Wishing you the best
Michael
The past few weeks at the Houston MSR have been a bit of a blur. To be honest it has been fantastic, lots of driving (in karts) and the chance to create a racing program to my hearts desire. I have been entrusted with the strategic planning on the MSR Houston karting program for 2009 and beyond. It is a brand new kart circuit so there are not a lot of people set in their ways which gives me a good freedom to change things for the better of racing.
While I have been busy working on the karting project, there have been a lot of cool things happening around me. Last week I traveled to Texas World Speedway which is located in College Station, Texas (for you Brit's reading this, College Station is about as Texas as you can get). I had the change to meet an interesting gentleman who is the global director of a firm which is involved in international business. He also drives a fantastic Porsche GT3 RS which he took me for a tour of the TWS circuit before it promptly broke on the second lap... Only a $1,500 dollar pressure plate in the clutch. The fourth one he's done in the past year!
This week MSR Houston has been hoping. On Wednesday AJ Foyt's Indy car racing team arrived on the scene for a sponsor appreciate day and a test with their new driver, Vietor Miera. There were rumors Vietor might be going to Penske, but as it turns out Foyt was able to grab him. It was great fun to watch the VP's from their sponsor company ABC Supply company (a home building supply firm) having a go in a 700 horse power indy car. I am pretty sure none of them got out of first gear!
On Thursday and Friday the course stayed hot with the arrival of Chip Ganassi's team. After the recent sacking of Dan Wheldon the team is doing some testing with their new driver Dario Franchetti a refuge from the Andretti Green racing team and failed (I suppose) convert to NASCAR world. Franchetti did probably 150 miles over the two days in the car doing short 3-5 lap test intervals.
This evening (Saturday) was absolutely wild!! One of the members of the kart track decided it would be well cool to set up a booth at the local fair. I haven't been to a local fair before, and quite frankly I haven't been to anything like it before! There was the widest assortment of people I have ever seen at one place at one time, however the majority of them leaned towards the cowboy side of things. During the fair they had a concert (country music) and there was a no B.S. rodeo taking place where I got to see a few riders go the whole 8 seconds and one unlucky chap who shunted with the ground after being pitched off his bull. Doesn't look like a good result as I saw a helicopter leaving the premesis.
I hope this message finds you doing very well. The slow trickle of news has been on account of staying so busy on this karting project! It might not be necessarily getting me any closer to Formula 1, but I feel like it is really going to help the program out at MSR and I hope to see it doing a lot of good for them in the future.
Wishing you the best
Michael
01 October, 2008
Setting up in Houston
Dear Friends and Family,
On at invitation from the circuit director, I have returned to MSR Houston to continue the work I was doing with their racing program before my travels to and from England.
I drove down to Houston last night and had dinner with my friend, motorsport artist Kevin Paige (www.kevinpaigeart.com). We weren't sure where to go for dinner but stopped at a place called Willie G's Seafood and Steakhouse. We certainly weren't dressed for the occasion but looked cool nonetheless in our racing inspired attire. Most people were wearing button up shirts and ties. On receiving the menu we realized we hadn't budgeted appropriately for the evening either! We managed to make a few thrify selections and ended up having a great meal!
Since I have been in Houston I have found a few reminiants of Hurricane Ike which blew threw here not much more than a few weeks ago. Many places appear that they were not even touched by the storm.
I borrowed a super cool 'tour bus' style motor home and I will be literally living at the track! I am going to be applying for a proper work visa so I can get back to England soon. In the meantime, I think this is a fantastic place to be!
Wishing you the best
Michael
On at invitation from the circuit director, I have returned to MSR Houston to continue the work I was doing with their racing program before my travels to and from England.
I drove down to Houston last night and had dinner with my friend, motorsport artist Kevin Paige (www.kevinpaigeart.com). We weren't sure where to go for dinner but stopped at a place called Willie G's Seafood and Steakhouse. We certainly weren't dressed for the occasion but looked cool nonetheless in our racing inspired attire. Most people were wearing button up shirts and ties. On receiving the menu we realized we hadn't budgeted appropriately for the evening either! We managed to make a few thrify selections and ended up having a great meal!
Since I have been in Houston I have found a few reminiants of Hurricane Ike which blew threw here not much more than a few weeks ago. Many places appear that they were not even touched by the storm.
I borrowed a super cool 'tour bus' style motor home and I will be literally living at the track! I am going to be applying for a proper work visa so I can get back to England soon. In the meantime, I think this is a fantastic place to be!
Wishing you the best
Michael
20 September, 2008
MJDrive: New World Record - Back to Back Cross Atlantic flight - Also: British Government holds down American F1 contingency
Dear Friends,
As many of you know earlier this week I boarded a flight to take me back to England and get back to the effort of getting to Formula 1. Little did I know in this process I would set a new world record: fastest consecutive cross-atlantic flights.
My flight left from Dallas / Fort Worth International airport on Wednesday afternoon at 530 p.m. By my calculations 8 hours later I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrived over British soil and by 9 1/2 hours I had landed at Heathrow airport in London. Once on ground in the brand new, 'ultra modern' terminal five. We painstakingly slowly disembarker our plane and loaded onto a bus which took our flight to immigration/boarder crossing to get our passports stamped. Well, that was the plan atleast.
When I arrived at the immigration this lady who was on a mission to prove something took a look at my passport and immediately launched into 21 questions. Who are you? Why are you here?? What are you planning on doing??? After explaining my name was Michael, I am here on our countries mutually agreed upon tourist visa which allows us to visit the other country for up to six months, and I intend on watching some premiere league football, looking at castles, and enjoying some british weather, the lady decided she wasn't satisfied. She took me out of line and into an office where she repeated the same questions and asking why I was returning again to the country after so recently being here. These questions carried on for half an hour or so before she told me she thought I was lying and that I was in the country to work. (clealy my broad shoulders sold her on the construction worker type).
After a complete tear down and inspection of my bags this increasingly charming lady (not), repeated for the third time the same set of questions trying to get me to tell her I had came to the country for working. By this time four hours had passed and it was nearly noon. My friend Bradley Philpott who had came to the airport to pick me up was, I am sure, getting particularly pissed, especially after turning up at the airport at 8 a.m. to pick me up. With a further no explination the lady left only to return a couple of hours later to announce she had came to the conclusion that I had came to the country to work and I had been booked for a return flight to the United States on the next possible flight.
With no course to refute this decision I was stuck and my only option was to get on the flight back to the states. Thirteen hours of flying later I arrived back at Dallas / Forth Worth airport clenching the new world record for fastest consecutive cross atlantic flights. Now, while I am most pleased to receive an award for being the fastest at anything, you can be assured I am not one bit happy with this situation, and to say that is in fact a massive understatement.
After I got home I slept for about 13 hours. After waking up I spent most of the day thinking about the massive flow of east europeans who are currently overwhelming the british social benefits system and how damn awful fish and chips are. Now that I have spent sufficient time hating that immigration cow, I am going to start focusing my energies back where they belong on getting back to the top of motorsport.
Michael
As many of you know earlier this week I boarded a flight to take me back to England and get back to the effort of getting to Formula 1. Little did I know in this process I would set a new world record: fastest consecutive cross-atlantic flights.
My flight left from Dallas / Fort Worth International airport on Wednesday afternoon at 530 p.m. By my calculations 8 hours later I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrived over British soil and by 9 1/2 hours I had landed at Heathrow airport in London. Once on ground in the brand new, 'ultra modern' terminal five. We painstakingly slowly disembarker our plane and loaded onto a bus which took our flight to immigration/boarder crossing to get our passports stamped. Well, that was the plan atleast.
When I arrived at the immigration this lady who was on a mission to prove something took a look at my passport and immediately launched into 21 questions. Who are you? Why are you here?? What are you planning on doing??? After explaining my name was Michael, I am here on our countries mutually agreed upon tourist visa which allows us to visit the other country for up to six months, and I intend on watching some premiere league football, looking at castles, and enjoying some british weather, the lady decided she wasn't satisfied. She took me out of line and into an office where she repeated the same questions and asking why I was returning again to the country after so recently being here. These questions carried on for half an hour or so before she told me she thought I was lying and that I was in the country to work. (clealy my broad shoulders sold her on the construction worker type).
After a complete tear down and inspection of my bags this increasingly charming lady (not), repeated for the third time the same set of questions trying to get me to tell her I had came to the country for working. By this time four hours had passed and it was nearly noon. My friend Bradley Philpott who had came to the airport to pick me up was, I am sure, getting particularly pissed, especially after turning up at the airport at 8 a.m. to pick me up. With a further no explination the lady left only to return a couple of hours later to announce she had came to the conclusion that I had came to the country to work and I had been booked for a return flight to the United States on the next possible flight.
With no course to refute this decision I was stuck and my only option was to get on the flight back to the states. Thirteen hours of flying later I arrived back at Dallas / Forth Worth airport clenching the new world record for fastest consecutive cross atlantic flights. Now, while I am most pleased to receive an award for being the fastest at anything, you can be assured I am not one bit happy with this situation, and to say that is in fact a massive understatement.
After I got home I slept for about 13 hours. After waking up I spent most of the day thinking about the massive flow of east europeans who are currently overwhelming the british social benefits system and how damn awful fish and chips are. Now that I have spent sufficient time hating that immigration cow, I am going to start focusing my energies back where they belong on getting back to the top of motorsport.
Michael
12 September, 2008
How are things going?
Dear friends and family,
Just wanted to make a quick update to say hello and let everyone know what I have been up to. While I have been away from England I feel like a few of the projects I have been working on - with teams and sponsors have been unattended a bit. However since I left England I have remained fully emersed in motorsport, on account of Al Mitchell, the manager of MSR Houston (www.msrhouston.com) who was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to help out around his circuit while I was in the states.
Since I have been down here I have been helping them get their karting operation up and running. They recently built an incredible eight-tenths of a mile kart circuit and they are looking forward to getting a full rental and competition race program up and running. I have been helping get those things up and running and in the process have gotten to do a bit of driving myself!
MSR Houston is absolutely fantastic and a blast to be around. I can only begin to tell you about the facilities they have set up for the members of the track. My favorite thing on site, which I have not done yet, but agree fully to in principle and plan to try out soon is a shotgun shooting range. My friends in England will not believe it, since guns are prohibited (without a special license). However here in Texas we have lots of guns and naturally a clay targets range at the racing track is a fundamental piece of the puzzle. There is also a work out facility which I have been spending some time in while I haven't been working.
Additionally there is a lake on site for fishing. I must say, I don't think having a lake is that special, because PalmerSport has a lake as well. As you might remember PalmerSport has a special tradition of throwing lucky birthday people into the lake. In the lake they have here in Houston there is a real, live, honest-to-god Aligator. I was able to take a few pictures of it and I will have to upload them to prove it to all of you soon. I thing getting a birthday treat of being thrown in the pond would be less than optimal.
As many of you might have heard the weather is getting a bit dodgy around here. The last I heard there was a level 3, (read: 120 mile per hour wind) hurricane called Ike bearing down on my present local. I haven't ever been in a hurricane before and in fact never in any major disaster for that matter. A lot of people around the coast of Houston have evacuated along with many others throughout the city. Since we are not in an evacuation area we are going to hold up as the hurricane passes. I'm not sure if I will get a chance, but I will try to take a picture to show you what it looks like. We were considering opening up some of the garages (two doors at booth end of building) putting a race car on scales and doing some aerodynamic wind tunnel testing. Sounds a whole heck of a lot cheaper than buying our own wind tunnel!
Hope all of you are doing well. I am enjoying things down here (bar hurricane) and am looking to getting back to Europe soon!
Warmest regards
Michael
Just wanted to make a quick update to say hello and let everyone know what I have been up to. While I have been away from England I feel like a few of the projects I have been working on - with teams and sponsors have been unattended a bit. However since I left England I have remained fully emersed in motorsport, on account of Al Mitchell, the manager of MSR Houston (www.msrhouston.com) who was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to help out around his circuit while I was in the states.
Since I have been down here I have been helping them get their karting operation up and running. They recently built an incredible eight-tenths of a mile kart circuit and they are looking forward to getting a full rental and competition race program up and running. I have been helping get those things up and running and in the process have gotten to do a bit of driving myself!
MSR Houston is absolutely fantastic and a blast to be around. I can only begin to tell you about the facilities they have set up for the members of the track. My favorite thing on site, which I have not done yet, but agree fully to in principle and plan to try out soon is a shotgun shooting range. My friends in England will not believe it, since guns are prohibited (without a special license). However here in Texas we have lots of guns and naturally a clay targets range at the racing track is a fundamental piece of the puzzle. There is also a work out facility which I have been spending some time in while I haven't been working.
Additionally there is a lake on site for fishing. I must say, I don't think having a lake is that special, because PalmerSport has a lake as well. As you might remember PalmerSport has a special tradition of throwing lucky birthday people into the lake. In the lake they have here in Houston there is a real, live, honest-to-god Aligator. I was able to take a few pictures of it and I will have to upload them to prove it to all of you soon. I thing getting a birthday treat of being thrown in the pond would be less than optimal.
As many of you might have heard the weather is getting a bit dodgy around here. The last I heard there was a level 3, (read: 120 mile per hour wind) hurricane called Ike bearing down on my present local. I haven't ever been in a hurricane before and in fact never in any major disaster for that matter. A lot of people around the coast of Houston have evacuated along with many others throughout the city. Since we are not in an evacuation area we are going to hold up as the hurricane passes. I'm not sure if I will get a chance, but I will try to take a picture to show you what it looks like. We were considering opening up some of the garages (two doors at booth end of building) putting a race car on scales and doing some aerodynamic wind tunnel testing. Sounds a whole heck of a lot cheaper than buying our own wind tunnel!
Hope all of you are doing well. I am enjoying things down here (bar hurricane) and am looking to getting back to Europe soon!
Warmest regards
Michael
26 August, 2008
Stateside
Dear Friends and Family,
This week I have made a temporary return stateside, back to Texas.
The reason I have returned is on account of my British visa which expired this week. I am applying for a new visa which will be a long term visa. At this moment I am not excactly sure how long it is going to take for my new long term visa I have applied for, but once it comes through, I will be able to go back to England on a long term basis.
In the mean time I have a few projects in the works which I will be able to announce in short accord!
I arrived back in Texas on Tuesday and I have been 'indulging' in a few of my favorite things from Texas first of which was hot weather, mexican food, and a bit of karting. This past weekend I went to MSR Houston, a new racing circuit in Houston, Texas and drove with the owner of the track on his brand new karting circuit. Unfortunantely I didn't get any photos or videos of the track, but it is a fantastic circuit! The track is .7 tenths of a mile, featuring a variety of low, medium, high speed corners and the ultra American NASCAR turn. The 180' turn is at the end of a straight and features four levels of banking, MEGA!
Hope this message finds you doing well, I am happy to be back in Texas to see my family, but am looking forward to getting back to England as soon as possible and getting back on with my program.
Wishing you the best.
Michael
This week I have made a temporary return stateside, back to Texas.
The reason I have returned is on account of my British visa which expired this week. I am applying for a new visa which will be a long term visa. At this moment I am not excactly sure how long it is going to take for my new long term visa I have applied for, but once it comes through, I will be able to go back to England on a long term basis.
In the mean time I have a few projects in the works which I will be able to announce in short accord!
I arrived back in Texas on Tuesday and I have been 'indulging' in a few of my favorite things from Texas first of which was hot weather, mexican food, and a bit of karting. This past weekend I went to MSR Houston, a new racing circuit in Houston, Texas and drove with the owner of the track on his brand new karting circuit. Unfortunantely I didn't get any photos or videos of the track, but it is a fantastic circuit! The track is .7 tenths of a mile, featuring a variety of low, medium, high speed corners and the ultra American NASCAR turn. The 180' turn is at the end of a straight and features four levels of banking, MEGA!
Hope this message finds you doing well, I am happy to be back in Texas to see my family, but am looking forward to getting back to England as soon as possible and getting back on with my program.
Wishing you the best.
Michael
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