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Congratulations to Adam Phelps (@phelpsa) our 2023 Speed Series Champion! His and his family's hard work developing their car over the years has paid off, not to take away credit from Adam, as he is an incredibly quick driver, able to beat out much more specialist machinery in the Westfield! Once again, a huge congrats to Adam, it was always going to happen!

Hi all, I am Dean am based in South Wales and just took delivery of a lovely mega S2000 from the great boys at toybox. Hopefully I can get to some local meets and find out a but more about working on these great cars and have some great blats 😉

Ok, well nailing my colours to the mast right here and say other than cars my other love is science, in all its flavours. If I was pressed I would say cosmology would be number 1 , closely followed by particle physics. I am no more than an arm chair amateur, but strive to learn stuff every day. I would like , ( if folks are interested) to start an on-going debate and conversation on current science developments, these can be in the form of posts here or a video you watched and liked ( post link) . Not sure if car folks would be interested but hey this is an experiment, ( get it ?) so lets see. A recent vid from your "Personal Astrophysicist " Mr Neil deGrasse Tyson - I really enjoyed this one. And this a day later

Please put 27th Jan 2024 in your diaries for the Awards and celebration.It will again be at the Leonardo Hinckley Point Hotel. Further details will be posted later. I anticipate that the price will be similar to last year as will B&B

Well done Adam you are this years champion

Time to put a rumour to bed (probably started by @Scott Young (Captain Colonial) - Club Secretary 😉) I'm not a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams! I've never named any of my cars and I didn't name this one! Someone else did....read on........ on the 6th Nov 2014, I visited Westfield Sports Cars for the first time and placed an order for a Mega S2000 full kit with White bodywork (having tested and bough a S2000 engine and gearbox that morning). I've had previous white cars: As I started my build, I soon learned that I'd need to fit indicator pods on my nose cone to meet IVA requirement. Post IVA I planned to move the indicators to under the headlamps. I therefore didn't want to drill holes in my nice new white nose cone to have to fill them later on. @Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman kindly offered to lend my his spare nose cone which already had holes for the pods. It was bright yellow and was slightly damaged. Dave suggested it would need repairing and painting for IVA, so I asked if he wanted it painted the same colour as it was, the same colour as his blue S2000 or white. Dave said, do whatever I want or even do something daft! A quick google and a found a colour I liked. As the father of two girls, it was a colour I was comfortable with. A quick photoshop mock up and I was happy: Dave's nose was quickly repaired and painted for 'mates rates' by a friend in a body shop. On the 17th March 2016, I was 'followed' by this car, all the way to my IVA Test As I was unloading, the Examiner came across to say hello and said that he likes Westfield's and they are usually well built for IVA, though he had to ask 'Why have you painted your nose pink?" My reply "So you won't want it in your test bay for long, and you won't want it back!' This set the tone for an enjoyable morning and I walked out with a pass. Shortly after I got home, the indicator pods 'fell off' and the nose cone holes were filled in. It wasn't quite time for my pink phase to end. My unique car had gained plenty of WSCC fans (Especially @CosKev) during my build and they needed to see it in the flesh. Also a certain 'kit car show' was close by: Also a run out to my local Cheshire and North Staffs WSCC Meet, which was sharing the pub with the Ferrari owners club: If you zoom in, you'll spy an 'ouch' sticker over my attempt to fill/paint the holes. Here's it next to @lloydox (builder) @fildyke(current owner) lovely S2000, for my Geometry set-up. On the 19th June 2016 (Father's Day)- I was attending a local transport festival. I put my full size front number plate on( @marcusb honestly, officer!) , and less than 3 miles from home, as soon as my speed went passed 30mph, it fell off and got driven over! It's been in the boot since! During my build, after the nose colour was decided, I'd noticed that my local bus company had taken design inspiration from me and stickered up their fleet! So as it was Father's Day, I though I best visit my local bus depot for a 'Father and Son' Selfie: After IVA I also fitted one of @Kit Car Electronics excellent Free Wheel kits. In the press of a button the end of pink...........or is it.............. My car ran like this from 21st June 2016 until July 2017 and the pink nose went back to @Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman as a spare. Every time the garage door was rolled up, I did miss the pink nose. Fate was about to play it's hand. @Greenstreak-Andy D invited @Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman and I to his 50th Birthday celebration at the 2017 Le Mans 24H, which was to be our first Euroblat. The trip was excellent and after the race, rather than rush back home we had a few more additional days bimbling round northern France. On one of these days I had an 'Oh la, la ' moment after a long hot, tiring day with a dry stone wall on our hotel carpark, whilst reversing, I failed to note how close my rear driver's side wing was to the abutment on the wall. Which resulted in: It didn't ruin the great trip, but wasn't going to stop like that. My wife, kindly suggested it wouldn't rust and could stay like that! I'd done similar but less significant damage to the passenger side arch on my own driveway, when reversing without mirrors during my build and had badly bodged it with gelcoat. So both wings needed to be repaired properly. Time for some colour & with some help from Photoshop, I was stuck between these two colours: @Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman kindly agreed to sell me the pink nose, the rear wings were removed and all items went back to my friend to be repaired and painted. I 'really' enjoyed removing the silicon sealant used to hold the stone guards on with. The first meet with my new colour scheme was the excellent Gold Cup at Oulton Park in Aug 2017 You'll notice the 'ouch' stickers still on the nose cone, my friend in the Body Shop had a holiday to go on, and the nose had to wait a while longer. In Sep 2017, I attended a Peak District Meet at Tatton Airfield, and during lunch the discussion turned to a name for my car. @Geoffrey Carter (Buttercup) was mentioned and I stupidly suggested 'Primrose' in jest (I was quickly corrected by the green fingered ones amongst us that they are yellow too ). @Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative blurted out 'Bagpuss' in between chomps of cake and the name has stuck ever since. She shortly after gifted my bonnet ornament of the stuffed toy and most in the club started to refer to me as Bagpuss too. So I've not fought it! I've been called much worse 😉

We are returning to our very first meeting point to celebrate Christmas and the establishment of the East Anglia region which will incorporate Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. So it will be lunch at the Bedingfield Arms at Oxborough on Saturday, December 16th. Let me know very soon if you would like to join us. Barry & Martin - joint AOs

I can't recall I how long I have been with them now , perhaps two or three years, but when you submit a meter reading you are offered to do this "spinning wheel" thing, somewhat childish in my view , but hey I give it a go none the less. Never won as much as a £1.... anyone actually won anything with that ever ?. Perhaps the younger generation have fun with it, but too old for silly games really. You've already played all your spins for October Looks like you've already played all your monthly spins. Thanks for playing! Check back again next month for another chance to win! Want more spins? Book a smart meter installation if you are eligible here to win an extra spin each month. Stuff your smart meter, lol.

Managed an independent record store during this time. We had a visit from Bruce Dickinson & Thunder. I haven’t aged one bit. “That’s me in the corner” 🤣

Now mine is finally sorted…it’s brilliant. The issues all stem from decisions made by government about how the system has to work. This means the meters in my part of the country rely on 2G….and that network is pretty sketchy these days, and will be turned off in 2033 anyway…so another round of meter seaps. More than anyone would ever want to know on the topic… https://www.smartme.co.uk/smets-2.html I’m fine with a dumb gas meter, only real reason I went with the smart leccy meter was to access tariffs that suited my use. I use the vast majority of grid power at cheap rates. When there’s no sun, the Powerwall charges at night on cheap rates then runs the house during normal rates. I also charge the car at night when there’s no sun during the days. …although the battery is so small it doesn’t take much. There are lots of folk who use some of the dynamic Octopus tariffs and micro-manage their energy import/export to the nth degree. Can’t be arsed personally.

I have no issues with smart meters, I just wish the gas would connect. Having the electricity meter connected is a big bonus I think, much more convenient. The little smart meter readout allowed me to see which appliances were using most electricity so I’ve saved a lot from that. For instance, I had no idea our upstairs shower uses around 10kwh, so until we can get that changed we largely use the downstairs shower which uses a lot less. I see a lot of conspiracy theory type comments on another forum I frequent, along the lines that the only people to benefit are the energy companies etc but I don’t see it that way.

BG have had my arm up my back to have a smart meter fitted. Badgering me regularly about it. And if they're that desperate for me to have one then I reckon it has to be for their benefit not mine......

Beat you to it, the joys of whatsapp, lol. He works odd hours ( for obvious reasons) , ah as I was typing he got back to me hang on, "Hi Rich. I usually recommend the DVSA app. It's about £4.99. There are a few cheaper ones or even some for free. But the DVSA are the governing body who do the tests. So all the questions are on there app.and the hazard perception clips." ETA More on the app - "The app is very good. You can do mock tests and it explains the answers if you get them wrong. You have 50 questions on your test and have to get 43 to pass. There are 1200 questions to pick from on that app.Then on the hazard perception test there are 14 clips each clip is marked out 5 points on that you have to get 44 points out of 72..you have to pass both tests on the day for a overall pass."

A good mate who is an instructor, tells his clients to watch stuff on YouTube, in between lesson's, never seen whats there about it, but other than still having to buy a highway code book, it's called something else today I think, but same thing. I can contact him and ask whats about in 2023 if you want for the online generation. I keep meaning to ask him to take me out , just to see if I would pass again today, chickened out so far, lol... ETA, yeah a fair amount on there - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=passing+the+car+theory+test This looks a good one, many more like it though.

Been with Octopus 3 years now I think. Had many issues with the meter when I switched and at one stage I got proper grumpy on their forum….and the CTO picked it up and worked on it directly. This provided a solution for a while, but once winter arrived again the comms went off again so eventually(!) persuaded them to install a comms module with an external antenna. It’s been perfect since. They may take a while, but they do listen and they do help. On their ‘Go’ tariff btw, works well with solarPV & the Powerwall

My current fave is this. The technology, even for these modern times, is staggering

Some of you may recognise this guy in my lounge one Christmas about 20 years ago. Founder member and lead singer with the Housemartins, later The Beautiful South, and now has teamed up again with former band member Jackie Abbot. Paul Heaton was my Niece's partner (also in the photo) for about 15 years and they have 2 children together, we used to see him a couple of times a year at family events.

From what I read Octopus' rapid growth is giving them some CS issues. A permanent "we're busy just now" auto reply would seem to support that. I triggered our switch to Fuse this morning. Currently their CS dept replies almost instantaneously!

I will watch all those this evening, but yes Ligo was a great experiment, what was amazing for me was the fact they were detected not long after the thing was first powered up , I am sure one of these docs mentions it, but at first they thought the machines ( there are two ) were not calibrated correctly. That was a while back now though ( can't recall the announcement year) and it has since found many more of them. So glad that folks are willing to spend what maybe billions on trying to learn about our universe, and it stuns me quite what we can find out given we as humans are stuck to planet earth and we have only visited our own satellite in person a handful of times. The JWST is now providing great data, I watched a vid on that last month, I will see if I can find it tonight. ETA Link to wiki in case no one is familiar with the JWST, Hubble did us proud ( and still does) but this moves the game on somewhat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

Happy with either date, go with the most popular.

Happy with either to suit the rest, and yes I think Refuel is a decent place as nice and central

Nice topic Richard. My other hobby is Astronomy so this does interest me. For me, one of the most amazing scientific events of my lifetime was the discovery of Gravitational waves. To be able to detect these seemed impossible at one time, so it’s testament to our scientific and engineering progress that it has been possible. A few relevant videos here. After some searching, I found the video of what the waves actually ‘look’ like when recorded. https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/video/ligo20160211v2

Evening all, Are we there yet .......... it seems so. Big Congratulations to Adam Phelps as the 2023 Championship winner (obviously subject to any problems). It was a lovely weekend so a great way to end the season - roll on 2024 🙂 Results for you to check and scrutinise lol Anglesey (R23) - Sat Results Anglesey (R24) - Sun Results Tiggs

As Barry has said it would be great if any of you would join us at the very first meeting place. Its a chance to meet up and have fun and hopefully meet some new faces all ready for the new year. The area has grown fantastically since the start and may it continue. Many thanks to Barry for his sterling efforts in getting us to the start of a new chapter. Martin & Barry Joint AOs

Nothing really to add, just a reminder as we head towards the darker evenings of Autumn, that this thread is here, as is the whole WSCC family. Remember, you never know what other people are going through, so be kind and look out for each other. Mental illness is an illness just like any other, its time we loose the stigma, its 2023 not 1893!