[Fot] new fot nomination

[Van Mulders Marcel]

Thanks to Chris Marx for nominating me and to the FOT members who believe
I'm good enough to fit in this community of great people dedicated to the
Triumph cars.

I came across of most of the Fot names already when visiting websites about
vintage racing, Triumph race cars and of course in the books of Kas Kastner.
B.t.w. the books of Kas, and also mailing him, have helped me a lot to make
my car fast. Of course, from know on I'll post problems and questions to the
Fot also and, having some experience meanwhile, I 'm always willing to help
people whenever I can.

After posting emails for a while, I met Chris Marx for the first time in
2005 at a race track, where else. We were both new in the vintage racing and
'independent'. I startet racing in 2002 when my late wife gave me a road
racing course for my 50th birthday and my freshly restored and somewhat
tweaked yellow TR3 was the obvious victim to be molested.( Before the TR3, I
had consecutively a SpitfireMkIV, a TR7 and a Dolomite1850 as everyday cars
and restored a TR6 in 1990-1992, so I thought of no other car than a Triumph
to go racing) In 2006 and 2007, I saw Chris at the podium regularly while I
was finishing in the mid field, but for the 2008 season, I had a very strong
engine and ended 2nd overall in the german TriumphCompetition championship,
with the help of Chris who had a lot of mechanical failures. During the
2008-2009 winter, the floppy chassis was strenghtened and also the rest of
the suspension was sorted out. In the 2009 season I finished every race 1st
of class and had also 2 overall wins, but the TC championship was ordered
already by someone else and my car was disqualified. I was very, very
disappointed and only survived this blow by winning the championship overall
in 2010 and again in 2011.

Meanwhile, Chris Marx, racing his red TR4 in the same class as me, had made
up his mind to beat one racer sooner or later : me! He succeeded for the 1st
time in Assen, The Netherlands, in 2010. In 2012 he was faster on more
racetracks than me and he was the overall winner of the TC Championship. In
2013 he is the shining star and has beaten me in every race that both of us
did finish, but he is 15 points behind me in the class ranking because of
more mechanical failures on his side. With 3 races to go (next week-end at
the Nurburgring) I've done everything to my car to win at least one regular
race against Chris in the 2013 season. Watch this place.

Marcel Van Mulders