The Green Room

Long time no blog, but I feel the need to get this down, because it’s been a funny sort of day, as Arkwright used to say around this neck of the woods.

At this moment in time, my sister, brother-in-law and their daughter are enjoying the first night of their holiday on P&O’s Ventura, heading to the Med (comp upped into a suite, thank you very much!). This weekend I should have been in Atlanta, Georgia, for the Petit Le Mans sports car race, my second stateside marshalling trip of the year after Long Beach in April.

Much earlier this year, I decided that the trip would be too much, and used some of the holiday days elsewhere, and committed to marshalling this weekends 24hr Britcar race at Silverstone.

However this morning I got itchy feet, wanderlust, whatever you want to call it. Knowing my sister was going, and after seeing my Twitter feed full of comments from drivers, journalists and other marshals already at / preparing for the weekend in Georgia, I wondered if there was any possibility of there being any late flights or package deals. The next two days are rest days from work, and the time’s already booked off work for the Silverstone weekend after all.

That’s when the fun started. A quick glance showed flights out on Wednesday (tomorrow) and back post-race on Sunday being available, and not out of reach price-wise. There are plenty of hotel rooms and car-hires available, again within budget. It was do-able, but would mean giving back-word for Silverstone, where I am in a position of some responsibility for 1/2 of the main 24hr race, and we’re already short-handed. I was umming and ahhing.

Then I screwed up. My cash is in the bank, but I needed it on my pre-load credit card. While I was still thinking, I set up a transfer. As soon as I accepted it, I realised that it would take 3 days to happen. Plans knackered there and then with a click of the mouse.

If I’d have gone to a local shop with top-up facilities, it would have been on my card in 15mins. Looking at the ATM tonight, the cash is gone from my bank, but floating in the ether waiting to credit onto my card. In the meantime, there’s no point looking at the travel plan any more because I would need the card & deposit tomorrow for the car hire and probably for the hotel check-in, and I don’t think the current balance of £46 will get me very far. The race-track isn’t close to downtown Atlanta, so public transport isn’t an option, and I’ve been stung by cab firms before to race circuits (Laguna Seca a few years ago cost a fair bit!).

So now, in some ways annoyingly but in others enthusiastically, I have the 24hr race at Silverstone to look forward to this weekend. I’ll have the radio, timing screens and news feeds coming from America, but I’ll be very much in Northamptonshire. The worst thing will be on Thursday night or Friday morning when I get the text message saying ‘your funds are now available on your credit card’.

Too late, was the cry. Too late.