Hi everyone!

April’s been a busy, and generally top month. Well, aside from some slightly suspect weather!

There was Targa Tasmania, where Lotus caused a stir. Yours truly entered his first Historic Winton in the Eleven, which is where the suss weather reference came from, and DRB announced that they were selling a majority share of Lotus to Geely.

I hope that’s good news for Lotus, but even if a fat wad of cash doesn’t eventuate, the brand seems to survive the challenges it faces.

Speaking of the brand, I definitely see a lot more Lotus cars around than I did even five years ago, which is a great sign. It also means that we, as a club, need to constantly assess what we need to do to attract and retain members.

Your committee is meeting later this month, so please do drop any of us a line if you have any thoughts that you’d like to be raised and addressed. Ideas around events or activities are, in particular, always welcome.

Lee and his team at Simply Sports Cars continue to support us in every aspect – including the upcoming Elite Diamond Anniversary celebrations, which will be a spectacular gathering of Lotuses from all over the country. The fact that it coincides with the AHOC sprint on the Saturday and the LOTD at Wakefield on Monday just makes it even better.

Personally, I am focused currently on getting our Peking to Paris Austin Healey 100/4 prepared so that we can start shakedown as soon as possible. If ready in time, she may even have an outing at Targa High Country.

Finally, I would like to reiterate my ask from a few months ago for volunteers willing to pick up the role of Competition Secretary when Mike retires in September. The role lends itself to being segmented into several parts, so if you are willing to work as part of a small group, that could well be realised. Please call Mike if you’d like to discuss the role in more detail.

Meantime, I look forward to seeing you out and about. As ever, keep safe, upright and on the black stuff!

Pip pip,
Ashton.