Neil Alberico – Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Brands Hatch, England (October 11, 2011) — Well, the MSA Formula Ford Duratec Championship of Great Britain is over. I finished ninth overall in my rookie season here in Europe. Spencer Pigot came over for the final race of the championship at Silverstone last weekend, which was a blast! Having a fellow American over gave off a real Team USA vibe, especially as our new Team USA Scholarship suits had arrived from Mike Hewitt at Sparco. They look and feel sensational! We also had our Team USA apparel from Kyle Werra and Steve Welk at Styled Aesthetic and our custom Racelite Protection gear from Jonathon Ziegelman. It was cool to see all the Team USA vinyl being applied to the cars, too!

The Friday test day before Silverstone was not only a test day; it was also my 19th birthday. After a day full of dark clouds and rain, all the guys at Cliff Dempsey Racing gave me a birthday card reading, “dude, chill.” I guess it was supposed to be some sort of a funny reference to the fact that I’m from California. Dude. Oh yeah, everyone got me chocolate cake and a Lego racecar too. Haha! And that wasn’t the end of the celebration. Jeremy was kind enough to take me and Spencer out to dinner in Brackley, where we met up with Ian Titchmarsh, who is the track commentator at Silverstone as well as an old friend from Jeremy’s days working at Autosport magazine. We went to a place called Kushboo, an Indian restaurant where F1 driver Karun Chandhok recommends certain dishes. Apparently he lives just across the road, although we didn’t get a chance to meet him because he was away in Japan for the Grand Prix weekend. It wasn’t the first time I’ve celebrated my birthday at the track but it was definitely one to remember.

Monday morning after Silverstone we met up with Trent Hindman and Sebastian Ordonez who had just flown in from the last round of the Skip Barber National Series at Lime Rock. From there we had lunch at a pub near the track called the Green Man. Can’t go wrong with the classic fish and chips, right? It was good! We had a tour arranged for 3pm at the Morgan Motor Company, so we bolted over there after lunch in a Mazda 5 with Jeremy at the wheel. Trent and Sebastian were passed out in the back while Spencer and I thought of good ways to wake them up! We just didn’t want them to be jet-lagged in the morning, that’s all!

Chris Witty, another friend of Jeremy’s, gave us the grand tour of the Morgan factory. That place is an absolutely incredible breath-taking, eye-opening, unreal, retro-vibe, oldskool, stellar facility. Just the smell of a car being built by hand! Yeah, I said it, by hand. Starting with the woodwork, watching the assembly process, drooling over customersâ’ cars, up-close with the historics from the Morgan museum, and meeting Charles Morgan himself! The best way to describe it is where tradition meets technology. Just an amazing experience.

So, Brands Hatch here we come. We had a bit of an adventure jumping from train to train to make our way from Beaconsfield station to Borough Green near Brands Hatch. We knew where we wanted to go but at the same time we weren’t exactly sure. We got a little lost at one point but ended up asking around and running across the station to catch the right train — with Trent and Sebastian virtually sleep-walking behind us. Those two were zombies after traveling all day via planes, trains and automobiles. Good times! It sounds chaotic but we made every train with perfect timing. Surprisingly, we never got lost. It’s now 1:15am and I’m writing this blog because I can’t really sleep. I’m in a hotel room with Sebastian and he’s on Florida time so he’s wide-awake. Luckily, we don’t have to be at the track tomorrow until around 11am!