My sincere thanks to the FSAEX

[Big Bird]

Firstly, the title of this thread is meant to be My sincere thanks to the FSAE Community - but my shaky fingers accidentally hit "Enter" too quickly


A BIG THANK YOU

Yesterday was the best day of my life. I was invited to a barbecue at a mates workshop in Thomastown, Melbourne. When I got there, I found the room full of people to give me a surprise party. It was a bloody surprise. Mission accomplished to those of you who helped organise it.

As many of you will know, I have been having a bit of a rough time with my health of late, having been diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease. Apparently, a couple of weeks back, a whole tribe of family and friends, fellow FSAEers and former students have pulled together and pooled resources to form a team to restore my beloved 1970 Ford Escort, to cheer me up. Yesterday was the first workshop session, and I was invited along as a surprise guest of honour. I am still floored by this.

Every Saturday between now and the Oz Formula SAE event in December, the team will be gathering in the Roaring 40s workshop in Thomastown to work on the car. Intention is for the car to be presented to me at the event. Yesterday's session went really well, and the chassis was completely stripped of all components ready for sandblasting. There were about a dozen people working on the car at any one time, which is pretty good for a small car like that.

For those of you that were part of all this, I cannot begin to thank you enough for your efforts, and more importantly for the consideration of thought that has gone into this whole thing. I must especially thank Mark Browne, Matt Blight and Luke Kane (ex RMIT FSAE) for the effort put into organising this, and my beloved Julie for all the time, energy and deception she has lovingly invested into the project. I love youse all.

I will post photos up on Facebook as they come to hand. Apparently there is a Facebook site set up for the project, called the Geoff Pearson appreciation Society. I think it is invite only, but I certainly won't be requesting an invite until the name is changed.

Thank you once again to all concerned. It is the nicest thing that has ever happened to me.

[Big Bird]

If any of the moderators can change the name of this thread, I would really appreciate it. I cant seem to edit it...

[Xfsae]

Geoff , top guy ,remember following the progress of RMIT especially 2004-2007 , spent hours looking at the cars with the extra low roll centers ,single cyl and a million other cool engineering details and reading your posts here over the last years .Shift to a higher gear you will win over it . You have my appreciation and wishes

[Big Bird]

Thanks mate, I appreciate the kind words. Sorry not to respond earlier, I'm not on here too often these days.

A quick update for those who are interested. We are building the Escort into a tarmac rally car for Targa Tasmania and maybe Classic Adelaide, to raise awareness for Parkinsons Disease. Project codename - Slim Shaky's Escort Service. Car now down to bare metal for rust repairs, about to get a rollcage installed. More details when I can type

Cheers,

Geoff

[Kevin Hayward]

If you want to do Targa West the ECU guys will crew for you.

Kev