The emotional bond you form with a car during a long journey can be either of two things; you hate it from the bottom of your heart or you end up loving it, there are no in-betweens. You can never be indifferent towards it. My newfound bond with Katarzyna has left me scouring sites for parts wanting to upgrade her to 21st century standards. I found some amazing sites listing all kinds of upgrades from sport suspension to entire engines that have been rebuilt and tuned by some Italian man with magic fingers.

So, my thought on the event I just finished. I loved it. I really did, however, as an experienced organiser of car related events, I can point to a some of flaws that I believe should have been dealt with in another fashion than what was actually done. For example, there should have been CLEAR rules from the get go of what could and could not be done. Instead every such thing was very vague and no one seemed to know what exactly the going rate was for anything. There was an immense amount of reckless driving, almost to the point of danger and luckily no one got hurt. There was one minor fender bender but that was not related to any of this, just bad brakes and a lack of ABS. This seemed like a free for all with the organiser washing his hands by just being far enough away.

If one is to organise a road race, which this clearly was, one needs to make certain what kind of category one wants to adhere to. There are namely two: the gentlemen’s race and the mad man’s race. For next time I would like to see clear rules so that one can make a distinction between the two. To check possible mischief, offenders need to know they will be punished by threat of disqualification for body contact, risky overtaking, not observing traffic rules etc. I am not talking about speeding here but rather crazy manoeuvring. Everyone properly interested in cars know that speed limits are stupid and not relevant to modern cars. In a race one speeds, naturally, however for it to be called a gentleman’s race, one can never have crossing the finish line as number one as the only rule as some are always willing to risk it all in order to secure that place. No, one has to get creative, or have strict rules of what one is allowed to do to obtain that first place.

I think Peter Ternström did one hell of a job scouring through Poland to find the proper cars, getting the right mechanics to work with only two hours of sleep per night, having the proper back up in terms of spare parts and cars and getting the project off the ground in the first place. Where he can improve is by just setting some basic ground rules for the event. I don’t want to participate in an event where I am scared of what the others might do. The 126 is a frightfully small car and extremely fragile, especially at the speeds we were travelling. I do however want it to still be a race of sorts because it is possible as the car won’t do more than 125km/h. It is the perfect car for a road race. Even on a race track you have rules. The same should apply here. It’s just common sense. To sum it up, thank you Peter. I had a great time, now make it even better for next time.