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Plans for the future – some progress

Posted on June 30, 2020 by driverjohn

My old web site at driverjohn.co.uk will cease to work as of today, 30th June 2020. For many of you it may not have worked for some time as I related in the earlier Plans for the Future post. Also as of today I have driver-john.com as a web address and my DriverJohn blog is sat there.

It is, at least, a positive step and I can hopefully relax a little about whether my web site is up or not. As far as how this blog links with that one I am still looking at the options. It is a sad fact, but there are still many service providers out there who cannot answer a direct question along the lines of; “If I do this what happens?”.

My problem is that some steps are irreversible and I don’t want to cross a bridge and burn it behind me. I have enough experience of IT to know that backing something up is a very wise step, but it does not always enable you to go back to where you were.

Anyway, some progress has been made today and I am happier than I was yesterday. That alone is a result.

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Plans for the future

Posted on May 31, 2020 by driverjohn

One thing that the lockdown has given me is time to think and one thought is that it might be better too merge this blog into my DriverJohn one and so I am looking at what that would entail.

The two blogs started out with different aims. This one was about motorsport and morphed into including my collectables business whilst DriverJohn was more about the vehicles that I have driven on the road and expanded to include my having driven railway engines and flown aeroplanes.

That difference still exists, but my collectables business is called DriverJohn and so having a blog with that name that does not talk about the business and another blog with a different name that does has caused some confusion with people wanting to do business with me and trying to explain an illogical situation is boring (to the listener) and just either turns them off or confuses them further. Both effects are bad for business.

Another factor in all of this is that the web hosting service that the driverjohn.co.uk web site sits with have become hard to work with. I need to do something with that website and it looks like a change of hosting service is the way forward so my plan is to make the WordPress DriverJohn blog the home web site for my DriverJohn trading and then move these pages over there too.

The main problem with doing that is that some of these blog posts have become very popular and pop up on search engines as a result. If I move them it seems that those search links will be broken so until I find an answer to that this blog will remain here.

Life is never easy, but if it was it would not be so much fun.

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Wham, bam, thank you ma’m

Posted on May 18, 2020 by driverjohn

So Seb has gone, Carlos and Danny have shuffled and Renault have a spare seat, all for next year. And we haven’t started this year yet. Talk about silly season.

The speed of these announcements suggest that the deal was sorted in advance and that Seb’s departure was, in effect, a firing. The way that it was done is brutal, but Ferrari have done the right thing.

The Vettel you get in the car is not the one you see out of it. There is a red mist that descends and he lacks reason. Multi 21, Turkey and many more incidents point to a problem that few team managers can afford and whilst he clearly has talent, the dark side is coming through too often.

If you can remember his qualifying performance for Red Bull, emerging in Q3 with just enough time for one flying lap and bagging pole race after race. That skill was a major factor in those four consecutive world titles. That record shows that he was something special and it is a record that will endure.

But like the equally talented Alonso before him there is that corrosive aspect that can ruin a team. Ferrari could see that and had no desire to keep him. They have a potential world champion in the team and in Carlos Sainz they have a very strong support driver with the potential to pick up wins. A classic number one and two situation.

That is why Danny Ric would not have been a good choice even if a lot of us would have loved to see him, with his Italian heritage, in one of the red cars. Instead we will have him in a McLaren and that should be an interesting combination. It will do Lando no harm either.

What happens to Seb remains to be seen, but I am not sure that there is room for him anywhere. Maybe his time has come to walk away, for certainly he deserves better than tooling around in midfield. He is pretty toxic though and who would take a chance?

The short 2020 season is going to be interesting though. If I were running Ferrari I would bench Seb and bring in Hulkenberg to see out the year in the second Ferrari. But it isn’t my decision.

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Fairs and shows 2020

Posted on February 22, 2020 by truckertoggle

We have, for the time being, decided not to do any shows or events this year. They take a lot of effort and whilst we enjoy meeting people and chatting almost as much as we like selling we would rather devote the time and money to other things. Continue reading →

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news from the DriverJohn store

Posted on August 9, 2016 by truckertoggle

We are just back from another Sunday Scramble at Bicester Heritage. If you’ve not been yet do try and come along to the UK’s best preserved WW2 bomber station and see what they have to offer at this award winning heritage site. The next Scramble is on October 2nd and you can find us there in our regular spot in the Transport Yard. Continue reading →

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