RE: Lord Goes Racing

[WombatinSwansea]

Good on him.

Is it me, or is it the late hour. Somehow today's news is brilliant compared to the crap we've had lately, and that would happen the one day I didn't have time to look!

[Simon Mason]

Luca Brazzi said:

Still have trouble dealing with the number of protests raised by Lord Drayson's Barwell Motorsport team during the BGT this year.

So many teams became so fed up with continual protests. To me it was hardly surprising they resorted to protesting smaller and smaller things considering the frustrations they must have had, being such a well funded outfit and beaten by the Team RPM Vipers.
LB

Granted they were well funded as were many others. The reason Barwell were protesting left right and centre is simple. Because the scrutineers and series organisers were doing nothing to police the series.

Its not big and its not clever and nobody likes to see it but the fact is if the series was policed even to a basic degree it would'nt be required.

[renkadima]

This is an interesting (and recent) article:

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_styl...

Even more so given today's announcement.

[1]

steaming2uk said:

Messrs Drayson and Cocker are an entry for the Britcar night race this coming Saturday, at Brands. Car #11, sponsor Barwell Motorsport, vehicle Aston Martin DBRS9 - GT3, Colour green.

Night Race... It finishes at 6.30pm

[steaming2uk]

1 said:

steaming2uk said:

Messrs Drayson and Cocker are an entry for the Britcar night race this coming Saturday, at Brands. Car #11, sponsor Barwell Motorsport, vehicle Aston Martin DBRS9 - GT3, Colour green.

Night Race... It finishes at 6.30pm

Night = Dark!

i.e. not daylight

P.S. You don't know 2priestsferrari do you?

Edited by steaming2uk on Friday 9th November 14:14

[andy97]

Probably a better racing driver than he was Minister for Defence Procurement. I know that this is a car/ motorsport website but there can't be many higher honours than being asked to serve your country as a Minister of State and yet Drayson was obviously just playing at it. He had the best of both worlds - a highly responsible job and the means to pursue a fantastic hobby, but he decided not serve his country any longer in order to pursue dubious self glory. The fact is that had he stayed in post he would have been remembered as a Minister who had the chance to make a difference and was quite a good amateur racing driver, but now he'll be probably be remembered as a relatively poor full time racing driver who was once on the National stage for, errr, something else but talked about making the difference but never saw it through.

Edited by andy97 on Friday 9th November 21:00

[SimonY]

I think that good is stretching it a bit...

Edited by SimonY on Friday 9th November 21:52

[Henry-F]

I suspect Paul`s descision to retire from his post had more to do with the frustration of banging his head against political walls than it did his desire to go racing.

In work terms he went from driving a 7 series BMW to driving a steam roller. Eventually he became frustrated, probably because he cared too much and actually gave a shit so decided to leave the job in the hands of people happier dragging their heels and playing political games that pan out over decades rather than months.

I don`t know the bloke from Adam but we raced against him & the Barwell team on Saturday (when they won the race outright) and they all seemed decent enough.

Mark Lemmer & the Barwell boys also had a bit of a result winning class 4 in a Honda driven by the noble leader himself along with relative novice and Barwell spanner man Mike Brown (the quicker driver of the two!).

As they always say at the end, "Just my humble opinion of course".

As ever, keep smiling.

Henry

[andy97]

TBH I probably did the guy a diservice. I understand from MoD rumours that he resigned suddenly because of his ongoing frustration at the military procurement system and in particular because of a row with the Army over the result of the "Future Rapid Effects System (FRES)" procurement programme - that's replacement Armoured Cars, I think, to you and me. If that's true, I just wish that he'd explained the real reason instead of hiding behind the full time racing driver guff; a resignation of a Minister because he belives the system is pants may have helped get the system changed for the better. Naive, aren't I?

Edited by andy97 on Wednesday 28th November 10:30