Good grief, is it February already? Doesn’t time fly when you are not racing?
Hopefully everyone had a good Christmas and New Year, and are now busy preparing for the coming seasons racing. As usual we have had to wait for confirmation of our race dates, but as BARC have started sending out the regulations, I am assuming they are now fixed. It is a little disappointing that the Mallory date could not be rescheduled, as being the week before the 24 Hour Race will probably have an effect on entry numbers.

I have heard many reports from people who are squirreling around building engines and generally fettling their cars in readiness for the first race. Lots of people seem to be visiting various rolling roads up and down the country in that elusive search for more power and driveability from their engines. If we have races like we had at the end of the 2004 season as a result, with three, four and sometimes five cars battling for the lead, then that can only be good for the championship. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Roy Eastwood of 2CVParts.com for his support of the club last year, and also for his generous decision to continue his championship sponsorship in 2005. I hope that we can give you some good, clean and competitive racing in return.

For those of you who weren’t at the Dinner Dance, and those who were and don’t know, Sarah’s and my Christmas festivities were rudely interrupted by the need to take Sarah to hospital on 27th December. Initially the problem was thought to be heart related, and after getting her transferred to the Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea she was diagnosed with atrial tachycardia. For those of you not in the medical profession that means her timing was out. After the cardiac equivalent of a timing light was used she was put on beta blockers to sort it, which it has.

Unfortunately that was only the start. The Docs were concerned that her liver was swollen and that the fluid retention in her abdomen wasn’t reducing. There then followed numerous blood tests and a liver biopsy, the result of which we found out last week. Sarah has been diagnosed with Ovarian Germ Cell Cancer. This is a rare form of ovarian cancer, which we are told responds very well to treatment. We were also told that she had secondary tumours in her liver, peritoneum and spine.

Sarah started chemotherapy on Monday 24th January 2005, and radiotherapy for her spine on Tuesday 25th January. She is now in the Charing Cross Hospital, London where her treatment is taking place. They do research into this particular form of cancer there, so she is in the best place. For those of you who don’t know Sarah, and for those of you that do, she is the toughest, strongest and most determined person that I have ever met. She will beat this. As my brother said to me when I told him “I wouldn’t want to be a cancer cell in Sarah’s body!”. Sarah thanks everyone from the club for their wishes. She plans to be around as soon as she can for half-cooking duties. She thinks this will be near the end of the season.

With this in mind I am sure that you won’t be surprised that I will not be competing in this years Championship. My priorities will be elsewhere for the foreseeable future. This does not mean I am abandoning the Club. I will be in contact with Wayne and Christine regularly, and Phil and Paul are keeping me informed of progress with the 24 Hour race. Depending on Sarah’s speed of recovery, we may get to some races later in the season, but purely as spectators, so we hope to see you sometime. I hope you all have a great seasons racing this year, and if you do one thing and one thing alone, remember, we do this because it’s fun!!!!!

TREVOR