Great groups this weekend. Hot and dry weather with a nice breeze.

In one of the groups was Colin and James. They showed us some pictures of the 2 Escorts they are restoring, including a RS2000. Good luck guys, all the hard work will be worth it when you have them up and running.

In another group was Steve. When I asked if he had any good stories he told me the 4 x 4 was hit by a sniper on tour. Makes rallying seem tame after that.

Also there was Jonny Tennant and his mate. Jonny is Mark Tennant’s son. Mark used to rally with some success a Talbot Sunbeam with brother Tim.

Mark went on to work for Team Toyota in Germany which was a fantastic job when Carlos Sainz was there.

School cars ran great all the time and it was good to see people’s faces when you open the bonnet of the Ford Escort MKII. They are shocked to see it’s just a big engine and no bits of plastic cluttering up the engine bay.

But they are built by us so can be easily maintained, sometimes when the day is running. They are high maintenance cars but people love to drive them. Much more satisfaction when you drive them well, more so than a modern car.

In the past we built Cosworths. Peugeot and Subaru’s but decided not to run them at the school.

We also bought Honda off road karts and used them them when the school days were running. But we stopped using them and concentrated on the cars.

We try to do everything in house so we can’t blame anyone if things go wrong. We even stripped and rebuilt the JCB engine which was a big heavy job.

In the past we used to take a couple of cars to the Hull show. One time a guy came up to us and said “You sold me an Escort 20—30 years ago for around £1200.” He still had it and had it valued recently for £30,000.

If we had only known then to hang on to these cars.