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Well, here it is at last, folks! The write-up for Revival 2023! This will be word-heavy and pic-light, as I can't be bothered to take lots of photos at the events and perhaps more importantly I can't be bothered to organise all the photos when I get back. Plus I don't have a camera with a long lens and cars on track generally come out like little coloured dots in the distance. Our story began months ago, when I started work preparing my cars to race - for further details see Hotshot Custom Chassis Build and SRB Superlight Vintage Restomod, but this particular chapter began on the morning of Friday 28th August, as I loaded the very last things into my van and set off on the 3+ hour trip through the middle of England to get to Bingham Model Raceway near Leicester. I was an hour into the journey, and in fine spirits, when a message arrived from my wife informing me that the new airbeam for my awning had arrived, and my pillow was still on the dining room table. I would survive without the airbeam, since in preparation I had cut a piece of wood to replace it, but I wouldn't survive two days sleeping on a rock-solid pull-out bed with no pillow. My back is bad enough as it is, and not even my prescription supply of industrial-grade codeine was going to get me through that. What followed was 90 minutes of back-and-forthing around Leicester trying to find somewhere that sold pillows. That's not as easy as it sounds, especially when one's smartphone is around 8 years old and rather slow and the data speed in the industrial backwaters is unreasonably poor. Eventually I found joy at a B&M, after several detours to "superstores" that turned out to be glorified mini-markets. A few pennies lighter (and foolishly resisting the urge to buy some cheap wrestler figures for scaler drivers from the toy section) I got back on the road and made the last hour to Bingham without any further mishaps. The weather was dry when I arrived, but it was a somewhat soggy July here in Britain and the ground was soft and damp. Perfect for putting up tents, but threatening bad if we got more rain. My van is low to the ground, and has road tyres and an automatic gearbox. Although I've never officially got it stuck (the live rear axle probably helps) it's probably only a matter of time. Despite my later-than-planned arrival, I was surprised to find our usual camping spot (right at the far end of the site, well away from that noisy raver lot) still empty, and none of my camping buddies around yet. So I pitched up alone and started carting my stuff over to the pits to get in some practice. View of the site, as seen from my pitch: Ornamental lake. The blue orb is either a manifestation of the Spirit of Bingham, or an aberration caused by the sunlight landing on the scratched coating on my camera lens:

There's a lot of history to cover with this project, and I may have previously covered some of it already, although I can't find it right now. Essentially, this is the story of how I came into possession of a vintage SRB chassis and parts, and how those parts came together to build a race car. We begin back in 2012, at the Tamiyaclub 10th year anniversary swapmeet and bash, where I had the pleasure of meeting lots of like-minded Tamiya enthusiasts in person for the very first time, not least being Mr. Tamiyaclub himself, @netsmithUK. At the time, I had owned my Buggy Champ Gold Edition for less than a year, and although I loved it, I was too precious with it to really enjoy driving it. In fact at that time, it had only been carefully around the flat at home. I had hoped to pick up a vintage SRB project for a more hands-on approach to SRB ownership, but I expected any donor chassis would be well above my price range. It turns out, I was wrong! Because Netsmith had his own swap table, and was trading all manner of vintage parts at knockdown prices. Spying a bargain, I came away with a vintage chassis, complete with Scorcher roll hoop, complete transmission and front suspension, although it was missing the wheels and tyres, front body post and steering crank and links, radio box and rear cage. I also bagged a set of Proline gold wheels, You-G front tyres, sand paddle rear tyres, and a new rear cage. All for a bargain basement sum - I can't remember exactly what I paid for it all, but it was at the lower end of double figures. Of course, it would be a good few years before I got around to doing anything with the old thing, and the first photo I have is from March 2014, when I collected the parts together for a build in what was then my studio and hobby room.