As you will see from our staff biographies, our staff have a wide range of hobbies and interests. While many enjoy walking in the countryside with family and friends, reading and going to the cinema, one member of staff stands out, not only at Arnica but also among the Bupa group.
Not only is our Cloe a keen equestrian, she is also a competitive drag racer! “What on earth is drag racing?”, we hear you cry. Well, according to Cloe, drag racing is driving a high-performance vehicle from point A to point B, normally over a quarter of a mile, in the fastest time possible. And the place to do it, is the world-famous Santa Pod Raceway in “car mad” Northamptonshire.
”Me and my friends used to spend a lot of time going to drag racing events, and one day decided that we would give the famous quarter mile dragstrip at Santa Pod a go in our own cars.’’
The most popular race that Cloe enters is called “Run What You Brung”, the winner being the quickest to cover the quarter mile drag strip.
‘’The interesting part is – that you have no idea what you are up against.’’
As a car enthusiast, Cloe spends a lot of time, money and skill getting her car ”track ready” and while it’s an adrenaline-filled hobby, Santa Pod allows you to test its performance in a safe and legal place.
”I race a black Skoda Fabia VRS that looks super-small but can be mighty mean when zooming up the drag strip in 14 secs, reaching speeds of 98mph! To achieve Santa Pod type performances, we’ve increased the brake horsepower of my VRS, from a sedate 130bhp to a no-messing 240bhp, with 448 nm of torque.”
Cloe assures us that it is not always about the winning. Beating your own PB’s (personal bests) and improving race times in certain conditions are as much fun, especially when you try various techniques and tweaks to the car. It also depends on being ”on your game, on the day”.
Being a female car enthusiast comes with a brilliant social life, a chance to be able to enjoy your hobby with thousands of other car crazy people who, like me, appreciate the hard work and creativity that goes into building your dream car and racing it.
I am very lucky to have a group of friends who compete alongside me in their own race cars and as a team, we all do really well. As a result, we have decided to put all of our efforts, inspiration, creativity and mechanical minds together, to build our dream race car and compete as a club.”
Cloe’s next race at Santa Pod is August 6 2021
