Well the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix has been and gone. We didn't win, place or show.

Our race actually went really well. Thanks to a good pushing effort from Barry, Chris, Mike and Steve, I got out ahead of my opponent and took off. The trolley just flew down the course. Everything went to plan right up until the "hairpin" where I turned in a bit early and the understeer scrubbed off a bit of speed before the finish line. I didn't see my elapsed time and they won't publish the full results until Wednesday 16th Feb. However, I'd put money on it being about 48 seconds.

What really annoys me is that we put on what I thought was a great pre-race stage-show and got rubbished by the judges. One judge gave us only 1 out of 10! To say I'm a bit disappointed is an understatement. We were race team 74 out of 82 so perhaps the judges were a bit jaded by the end. Another team had done a "Greased Lightning" number and a team before them had already done a pram racer. Ours were different (and better, of course) but I'm just dumbfounded about how bad our scores were.

The event was won by the Wanganui Motors team in a machine shaped like a trollified Ford Falcon racing car. They were heavily sponsored by Ford and must have spent thousands on the build. Second place went to the Porsche International Racing Team in a miniature Porsche racing car trolley. ( ditto sponsorship and budget ). I guess our off-beat concept and miniscule budget just couldn't compete...

I think our trolley would have been competitive in the 2003 Trolley GP but we were 2 years behind the times and this one was the year of the big-budget teams. Special thanks to Team Thomas (driving a "Thomas the Tank Engine" kart and doing "The Locomotion") for their support. As team "Rubber Duck Racing" they had won they previous GP in 2003 in their rolling bath-tub. They expressed their sympathy for what they saw as the injustice inflicted on us.

Will I want to be part of another Trolley Grand Prix team? I don't know. I'll make a decision later when the all the bile I have built up has drained from my spleen.