Fact or Fiction? - 11

The Maple Forest story was all true.

I used Google fee to use pictures because:

1 I don’t have any pictures of that horse-ride (no camera with me and I had my hands full with controlling a horse).

2 If I had used my pictures, there would be no guessing whether it was truth or fiction. Oh, there’s a picture of Michelle on a horse in a Maple forest in the snow… I’ll guess the story is…

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You may already know that I like cars and bikes as well as horses. Here's the story of a visit to one of the race tracks in this country. The track is an hour and a half away depending on traffic - for example, on The British Grand Prix F1 race days, it can take hours and hours to get there.

A few years ago, Trev and I were gifted tickets to Silverstone Race Track where the television programme Top Gear was hosting a show – not the television show, no filming or anything, they just had track experiences, chances to look at cars, meet celebrities etc.

Trev and I went to put our names down to drive something on the track.

Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Maserati – anything would do!

This is Goodwood, not Silverstone

The queues for all the supercars were so long that we doubted we’d get to drive anything. So we lowered our expectations and went for a shorter queue. We didn’t really mind what we drove, as long as we got to drive on the track!

We put out names down in consecutive time-slots so we would be able to go out in the same car and watch each other’s drive.

We wandered around the show, looking at the displays they’d set up – skid-pan demonstrations and other fun things. We even spotted a member of the (then popular show) Gladiators, but I didn’t get all fan-girly on him. His wife/girlfriend looked simply beautiful, however. She was pregnant at the time and I stopped her to say she looked stunning.

One of the demonstrations we went to see was held in a seated stadium and I saw absolutely nothing… my view was obstructed by a large girder. Never mind, the commentary was fun.

The time we’d booked approached and off we went to find ‘our’ car.

I don’t remember what car we drove, it was a little ‘hot-hatch’, not too powerful, nothing spectacular, but the drive on the track was the main thing. Trev seems to think it was something like a Nissan Primera (or similar).

The instructor-guy greeted us.

He gave us the safety-talk and we went to the car.

“Do you want to drive first?” he said to Trev.

“No, let my wife drive first,” Trev said.

I hopped into the front seat. Trev got into the back seat and the instructor sat beside me.

Off we went.

I accelerated as fast as I could make the car go. The expression ‘Drive it like you stole it’ was coined for this exact situation.

Into the first corner, I turned the wheel, taking the car into the curve, the car went sideways, ‘drifting’ and sliding to make it around the corner to be set up for the acceleration off the bend.

Trev and the instructor were pushed to the side of the car by centrifugal force and I know Trev isn’t a great passenger, but hey! This was my chance to drive on a track, I wasn’t going to miss it just because Trev might puke!

Accelerating off the corner, going through the gears, I started to catch-up the other cars on the track and the instructor sounded a little worried.

“There’s a 70 mile per hour limit on the track!” he said.

Of the ‘Things I should have been told before now’, this ranked low on my priorities.

“Don’t do authority, sorry,” I said and kept my foot down.

The woman I overtook on the straight was certainly not expecting race-conditions. I saw the surprise on her face.

Yeah, I was naughty… but what was he gonna do? Take the keys off me?

It’s probably a good thing we didn’t get our hands on a more powerful car…

When I look back on this, I wonder what went through the instructor’s mind. I wonder if he thinks he should have made the rules clear before we set off? I also wonder if he shouldn’t have made assumptions about me. He clearly thought Trev was the ‘boy-racer’ type and dismissed me, my possible abilities and competitiveness.

At that time, we owned a Golf GTi and we loved driving. Trev taught me how to drive – I took a few lessons coming up to my test and passed first time. I’ve always had a good helping of ‘devilment’ in my nature and it does seem to take over from time to time, even now.

Also, people who make snap-decisions on who I am and how I’m likely to act give me the chance to surprise them – and that is not my fault.

Don’t judge a book by its cover… the cover may have been swapped and the book inside may not be as it seems.

Google pics (Free to use) are used because I don't want you to get any clues from my pictures if it's fact.