Chances are you'll have heard of
Mission Motorsport
, also known as The Forces' Motorsport Charity and run under the mantra Race, Retrain, Recover. Set up five years ago this week by a small team assembled by Jim Cameron (his PH forum name Tankslider offers a clue to his former job) its role is to offer a sense of purpose for former service men and women, many of whom have had their military careers cut short by life changing injuries and have struggled in the transition to civilian life and work. In those five years it's turned amputee servicemen into racing drivers, offered training and qualifications for hundreds of veterans and helped arrange placements that have turned into full-time jobs at a number of manufacturers and motorsport teams.
Actually, maybe I'll pass on the Caterham...
That, in short, is the serious bit. And it's never far away from the charity's activities, or the thoughts of those involved. But having fun and providing entertaining distraction from tough day to day realities is just as important. Which is where me and a bright orange Caterham came in.
I'm not for one minute going to pretend driving a car around Goodwood Motor Circuit is, by any stretch, a noble sacrifice. But if I could help some of Mission Motorsport's friends and beneficiaries have a fun day out then all to the good. Indeed, I was so keen to help I actually turned up a day early. But that's another story.
Format for the day - once I'd got the right date - was very simple. I and others invited by Jim would bring cars to the circuit, line up in the pitlane and take Mission Motorsport folk out for a (hopefully) enjoyable few laps around Goodwood and share the love for fast, noisy cars that underpins the whole enterprise. There was certainly an amazing selection of machinery too, 'my' Caterham 310 S sharing track space (often briefly) with a Ferrari F12 TdF, racing Jaguar E-Type, Blower Bentley, 911 GT3 RS, SEAT Leon Cup Racer and all sorts of weird and wonderful cars.
Mission: give people a ride to remember
If perhaps not as exotic as some a Caterham is just the job for this kind of gig too. As a driver you can be comfortably within your limits but to people who've never been round a track before, or in a car of that nature, it's a properly intense experience. OK, chances for small talk once under way are somewhat limited. But the format of the day meant there was always a few minutes between passenger being strapped in and the light at the end of the pitlane going green. And I met some amazing people.
There was the army mechanic who'd had to leave after a back injury meant she could no longer do her job. A lad whose lifelong dreams of serving in the infantry were dashed by injury before he'd completed his basic training. Another who'd served in the army in Iraq, returned as a private contractor and brought back mental scars that have made civilian life a struggle ever since. Then there was the chap who runs a company getting ex-service personnel into IT jobs. "What did you do when you were in?" I asked. "Oh, I flew Apache gunships," he replied. What, and a couple of laps in a 154hp Caterham have put a grin like that on your face? Blimey.
This, in the literal sense, was serious fun. I won't for one minute pretend it's anything close to the dedication and hard work shown by Jim and his colleagues. But if I could at least help in some small way I'd consider that a worthwhile day out. And I only made one of my passengers feel sick, which wasn't bad going.