End of an Era

Mike Traxton celebrates 25 years as RO for the West Essex and North London Region in a sad way.Mike, who has a membership number of 170, is the longest serving RO in the Club but is retiring from the post after his next Regional Meet on the 19th January. Everyone will be more than welcome to to come along to mark this milestone.

Hello – Goodbye from West Essex and North London Region.

Hi there. The January 2005 meeting for this area will officially be our last, also being the 25th anniversary of Mike starting this area's meetings. We reckon that's a pretty fair target for anyone to aim for, and according to Roger Cook (we hope that you and Lyn are well Roger) no one else has got there yet! (If anyone out there would like to take over the area please let us know). We've had endless fun via the Car Club, and met so many of you over the years, in all different countries, that it's very hard to mention anyone in particular. But anyway, here goes! Cheerio to all our friends in the Dutch car club who have given us such wonderful memories of the Zolder race meetings. A couple of those relay races we will take into eternity (yes, Mick Jarvis are you out there?). Of course a couple of those Belgian cars had just a little bit extra both under the bonnet and behind the steering wheel - how could we forget? The Nurburgring and Axel screaming as he hung out of Manfred's car round the carousel and we followed them through amid general hysteria not to mention the motor bikes is another special memory.
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We had great fun organising the Spectaculars for the Club from 1983 to 1990 when we finished off with Donington and then the Extravaganza at Blackpool. Of course being member number 170 meant being around when the Club was very different from how it is today. Colin Lyons used to produce Sprint single handed, we all did it pretty much just for the fun of it, although the VAT disaster meant that a few of us had to crash the Club through some rather unsteady waters, but it came out the other side stronger than ever. Mervyn we always felt we pretty much nagged into being Chairman when Mike stood down as Vice-President, but what a fantastic job he did for the Club, so we were always really happy with the way that all worked.

Still enough of our antiquated memories, we hope that some of you will come to see us and say goodbye on 19th January at the Theydon Oak, junction Coopersale Lane and Stonards Hill, Epping Essex, but if we don't see you, we hope that you're still all out there enjoying yourselves wherever you may be and whatever you are now driving. Our final new member of the Region is a beautiful young lady who goes by the name of Vega Brookes. Sounds like such a special name that if Louise and Jason aren't careful they might just find they have provided a name for a new TVR model.
Anyway we hope to see some of you again, keep driving those cars fast but stay safe - Bye for now.

Mike, Liz and Katie Traxton
Essex and North London Region.