Red Bull gives you wings…

Panic over. I did get time to blog after all. As I mentioned briefly last night, I was visiting the Red Bull Formula 1 Factory in Milton Keynes this morning. The tour was over by lunch which was a shame because I was enjoying myself but it did mean I could get home and tell you all about it. Well, most of it anyway. That’s the thing. The whole place was very secretive because they don’t want to help other teams in any way. Some rooms were closed and the windows were frosted glass to prevent people looking in. It felt a bit like Charlie and the Chocolate factory when Willy Wonka tells Charlie not to enter a room and he does. I wanted to see the secrets.

But the place is as secure as MI6 with the key fobs and finger print  system to  open doors. Nothing is getting out. There were 3 large factories and it was interesting to see the hard work that goes on. Over 300 people are involved but the T.V. coverage suggests only the trackside pit crew are involved. Precision seemed to be the key to their recent success. They even have one part of the factory, which is dedicated to building a miniature replica model for testing in a wind tunnel.

I learnt a lot of fascinating facts today such as it cost £30 Million to build and run one of the cars. It is more staggering if you think the carbon shell alone costs 45, 000. Relatively cheap in comparison. Whilst I was intrigued, I came away questioning whether I am a real man. I don’t get excited by cars and my eyes don’t light up when I see an engine but I suppose it’s the same passion I feel when I go to football. But, it was definitely worth getting up for even though early starts are the worst. I feel privileged to see all the incredible work that that goes on before a race.

Thanks to Keech Hospice for organizing the trip and a massive thank you to Red Bull for allowing us to look around.  I’ll start supporting Webber and Vettel instead of just the British drivers. It was also kind of them to give us a baseball cap and a lanyard. I might make up my own Wheelchair Boy merchandise to promote the blog and hopefully get more votes. If you’re a new reader, you can vote by going to this link: http://www.bigblogexchange.org/blog/72005

I take it everyone likes the new look because I haven’t got any complaints yet. Apart from one. My mum, who struggles to read at the best of time, told me that the writing seemed smaller. I just increased the font size and the problem was gone. Alternatively, she could have zoomed in but that is seemingly too difficult.

Bye for now!