AA Heroes wear dayglo vests

I was going to tell you all about the Ford Kuga EcoBlue mHEV this week.

But then something pretty momentous happened last Friday afternoon.

We were on our way to Cadwell Park race circuit in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds. It was to be the scene of my youngest son’s first ever motorcycle race meeting. Earlier that day we’d loaded his race bike, a generator, pop-up awning, tents, sleeping bags, camping stoves, compressors, fuel can and toolboxes into the back of my beloved and much pampered four year-old, 50,000 mile Renault Trafic van.

Unlike when I used to race bikes ( where everything was rushed, last minute and cobbled together on a wish and a prayer), we were handsomely ahead of schedule, prepared days in advance and ready to do the job calmly and properly.

My thinking was thus: there is nothing more gut-churningly fraut than pre-race nerves but first ever race pre-race nerves are something altogether more intense. It’s that fight or flee feeling but wound all the way up to eleven on the volume scale.

So, as a doting Dad I figured a serene and orderly approach to the weekend’s activities would be just the ticket.

What is it they say about best laid plans?

Yes, of course, disaster struck just half an hour into our journey. As we pulled off the A1 Northbound to tack a course cross-country to Cadwell, my recently serviced van started to knock like an old London taxi. As we limped along the back road to Grantham we started losing power. I scanned all the clock displays like Terminator. Nothing. No oil light. No temperature warning. The knock got louder and louder and visibly wincing at the mechanical Armageddon unleashing itself under my bonnet, I decided to find some where safe to park up and investigate further.

Now I’ve blown a few engines up in my time and I’ve also fixed quite a few, too and it didn’t take me long with my head under the bonnet to realise that this was a catastrophic engine failure. 100% Crankshaft destruction.

The air quickly turned blue.

Then I remembered I’d got AA cover. Having just moved house and gone through the long list of people and places you have to notify, I’d very recently pondered whether shelling out £200 a year for something I hadn’t taken advantage of for seven years was money well spent. Thankfully I had taken the split decision that it was worth it just in case.

I fished out my membership card and set the ball in motion. ‘We’ll have someone with you in an hour’ said the telephonist. Ten minutes later an AA patrol man rings me back and tells me he’s in the area and will be with us in ten minutes. He was there in eight.

Steve, for it was he, came to the same conclusion of mechanical destruction as me after he heard the knock of all knocks. Unfixable by the roadside, that’s for sure. The next conundrum: what next?

The quickest and most practical solution would be to tow us back to my mate’s house who also happens to be a top mechanic and owner of a Vauxhall Vivaro van which he’d offered to lend us. Steve used his i-pad to Google my vehicle’s weight, made an educated guess on the weight of our packed loadspace and decided it was beneath the permitted two tonnes. To be fair, it was pretty borderline but Steve was one of those sorts who just likes to get stuff done. And we all like a doer, don’t we?

Half an hour later we’re safely outside my mate’s house emptying stuff out of dead van into functioning van. Ten minutes later we’re back on our way to Cadwell Park where we arrive at 9pm ready for a solid weekend’s racing.

None of this would have been possible without Steve. Clearly, Steve is a legend and is the living breathing proof that £200 a year is a drop in the ocean when your life is in meltdown and someone like him can make all the problems swiftly disappear.

Well, I say disappear but there now remains the problem of what to do with my poor, broken engine. I have a horrible feeling that £200 won’t make that particular problem go away.

But anyway, thank you Steve we had an awesome weekend of racing thanks to you.