SHORT SHIFT

It’s been a while since I’ve been ‘the new guy’ — or, at least, it had been until a few weeks ago. Now, I’m the new guy at almost everything. As you may know, my family and I recently packed up, after 13 years of living in Auckland, and headed for the shaky hills of Wellington. With that has come a bit of a step back from some of the things I was doing with NZV8’ s parent company, Parkside Media, although my role in NZV8 remains essentially the same — apart from Connal taking over some of the parts I can’t do remotely. Of course, that change of city means plenty more changes, too, including a whole range of new local events, the first of which I have been looking forward to — the Capital Rodder’s Swap Meet, which you can see coverage of in this issue. With the new events will come plenty of new faces, but I’m also looking forward to catching up with the old ones, along with meeting a few people in person with who I’ve dealt over the phone or online for a few years now. It’s not just the local area in which I’ll be the new guy, though, as, with having cut back my hours with Parkside, I’ve taken up another role. It’s something that’s been brewing for a while and was the final piece in the puzzle to make our down-country move work successfully. That role is working for the LVVTA in its head office, just north of the city in Porirua. The LVVTA has had a bit of a bad rap over the past few years, and, having seen first-hand some of the stuff it’s dealing with, I think that’s unjustified, so I’m looking forward to joining the team and doing my bit to help out. Going from being part of the furniture at Parkside — where I know exactly what’s going on and have become the go- to guy for everyone else’s questions — it’s certainly going to be strange being the rookie. While the LVVTA system may not be perfect, it sure as hell is a lot better than some of the potential alternatives — for one thing, it’s run by car guys, for car guys, rather than run by people who have no interest in the hobby and industry they’re serving. So, if I can do my bit to help out the rest of the car community by being a part of that common- sense approach, then that’s pretty cool. Of course, there’s one downside to moving away from what you know, and that’s losing all the contacts that you’ve made over the years and might need when building a car or planning to build a car — something that is on the agenda. But there’s a shed needing to be built first … Hmmm, now planning that’s starting to sound like fun.