I know there are a number of threads already on here about mental health but I wanted to give my story alongside documenting my Mini R53 track car build as the two are interlinked. In this blog, I’ll cover my mental health story and show a load of photos on how my little R53 has been transformed.
By writing this I hope it might help at least one person understand they are not alone, or maybe identify with some of the same issues and realise that there’s help out there. Thankfully there are now lots of posts on it being ok to not be ok but I wanted to go a bit further and talk about what not being ok is actually like. I would encourage anyone that can relate to my story below or they feel they need to talk to someone, please get in touch and we can talk through things. My contact details can be found at www.se7enscarhire.com so please reach out anytime via email/phone/text/dm.
I had never really given any thought to stress, depression/anxiety before and assumed people just needed to get on with things until I got a proper wakeup call in Oct/Nov 2020. Depression for me didn’t just happen overnight and I’m sure it’s the same for everyone. Looking back now I can see it had been building for a good number of years and by Oct 2020 I was at breaking point.
Life had become relentless and I couldn’t see any way it would ever change. I felt completely trapped in my situation and didn’t think I could talk to anyone about it. For a long time, I had become completely disengaged with everything and everyone around me. I no longer had any enjoyment from anything in my life. When others would say, today was a good day, to me it was just blah, it was just like every other day. I was really good at hiding it though and putting on a front/mask so that no one would know what was going on. In fact, I’m pretty sure if you’d have asked any of my friends/family they never would have guessed.
I’m sure like everyone on this forum, I love cars, bikes and really anything with an engine that goes fast and sounds good. I’m extremely lucky to have a GSXR600 motorbike and this was my only real escape. For anyone that doesn’t ride motorbikes, your focus has to be 100% on the road and the environment around you in order to keep yourself alive so you can’t think about anything else that’s going on. One of my favourite quotes is
Throughout most of the summer 2020, because I was completely disengaged with everything and found no joy in anything I did, I found myself pushing almost beyond my limits on the bike in order to try and feel alive. At the time I didn’t think anything about it but once I started getting some help it was clear this was being driven by my depression.
As we got into Sep/Oct 2020, things had progressed to the point where every time I got in my car, I thought about crashing into the nearest wall/tree or anything that would cause some serious injury meaning I had a reason to break from everyday life. That feeling of needing some way to stop life as I knew it wasn’t just when I was in the car. Every day I would wake up and will myself to have a heart attack. I know that sounds crazy but that was one of the only ways I could see the relentlessness of life stopping. Also, by this time I was having chest pains, headaches etc anyway so I didn’t think it was too much of a stretch.
It was the end of Oct, start of Nov before I got the proper wakeup call I needed to really accept things couldn’t continue and I needed help. On a Tuesday afternoon after not feeling great all morning, I’d gone downstairs for something and as I came back up, I could feel myself getting dizzy; next thing I knew, I was lying on the study floor unable to move. I had no idea what was happening to me but I felt I couldn’t move. I spent almost an hour lying on the floor before I was able to get myself into a sitting position. After speaking with the GP, I’d had a panic attack but that was the impetus I needed to realise it was time to start addressing my depression.
Again, I was extremely lucky as I had private healthcare which meant I could start getting help from a counsellor/psychotherapist within a couple of weeks. I know that going through the NHS can take a few months and I’m sure that must be so difficult having to wait on getting that support, with the only other option to pay for it privately which is a considerable expense. However, this subject is being talked about far more openly now, especially around men’s mental health so finding support from others that are going through the same thing is much easier. Again, if anyone is in this position and needs someone to talk to, please reach out and I’m happy to grab a coffee, chat on the phone or help in whatever way you need. We can even have you down for a nosey round our garage.
One of the things discussed with my counsellor/psychotherapist in early 2021 was understanding that I needed some sort of hobby/interest that I wanted to do for myself. I needed to find something that would be a positive distraction, something I was choosing to do just for me. Not because someone else was doing it or I felt I had to do it for a particular reason. I needed to have somewhere/something as an escape that made me feel I was a million miles away from all the issues going on in my life.
I didn’t really have anything I enjoyed or was involved in so we started talking about things I was interested in growing up and the only thing I could think of was cars and racing. I’d never done any mechanic work or raced before but it was always something I was interested in. My wife has been super supportive and I started to look for a cheap car that I could start working on with the aim to create a track car. In the end I chose a Mini R53 which I collected from the mainland and drove back home on the boat in March 2021.
I didn’t have a big enough garage so I had to borrow my uncle’s double garage to fit everything in. For me this setup was actually a blessing for 2 reasons, 1. It was 4 miles down the road so going there was a space that was just for me to do something I enjoyed and 2. Due to the distance it meant I had to make the extra effort to go there. The other thing with this project was that I didn’t have any particular time frame in mind, it was just something I could spend a few hours on with no stress or pressure of deadlines.
It's now just over a year on and I still speak with my therapist regularly as I continue to work through the depression and manage ongoing life events. Thankfully I’m now in a far better place with my mental health thanks to being able to talk through what was going on and learning some techniques on how to better manage my anxiety. There’s no quick fix and it takes time but I want to give some hope that things do get better. I’m now in a position where I can see the positive in reaching breaking point as it forced me to make changes and improve my life. I know I’ll always have to work on my mental health but being aware of the signs to look for and understanding the techniques to help manage anxiety, I’m looking forward to what the future holds. Fingers crossed my little Mini will be competing in a few hill climb/sprint events this year.
This is my baby before I started any work. It was dyno’d at 177bhp and weighed in at just over 1200kg.
The next task was to start stripping out the interior to minimise the weight.
Thanks to lots and lots of YouTube videos I started working on getting the engine out.
After a lot of cleaning and scrubbing the engine rebuild started. In the end, there is a Nemans Ph2 Cam, 17% reduced pulley, Airtec top mounted intercooler, Airtec Induction system, upgraded coil pack with cooler plugs, alloy expansion tank, new crank pulley, new water pump, new tensioner pulley, new Pro Hoses and all Aluminium parts vapour blasted (horns, engine mounts, air intake).
After the engine rebuild it was time to pull out the front and rear subframes. Again, all the components were cleaned, wire brushed/shot blasted and painted. For the front subframe most of the components were good so it was only really some new bushes and drop links. And for the rear subframe I upgraded the trailing arms to the lighter aluminium arms from the R56, replaced the control arms with Silverline adjustable ones and installed new rear drop links. I also upgraded the exhaust to the R56 straight through pipe which meant having to relocate the battery from under the boot.
The suspension all round was changed to Tein Z Street Advance adjustable coilovers with new adjustable top mounts on the front. Initial setup has been done by Street Racers in Bangor but I’ll need to go back for corner weighting setup once the cage and race seat are fitted.
The front brakes have also been upgraded to the later R56 calipers, EBC grooved discs and EBC yellow stuff pads. The rears are new standard R53 discs/pads with HEL braided hoses on all four corners.
There are still a couple of bits to finish off before it’s ready to race including remap (will be booked into Auto Tune very soon), rollcage, isolator switch and race seat but these are some of the latest pics I have.
If you've made it to the end of this. Thank you for following my build.
By writing this I hope it might help at least one person understand they are not alone, or maybe identify with some of the same issues and realise that there’s help out there. Thankfully there are now lots of posts on it being ok to not be ok but I wanted to go a bit further and talk about what not being ok is actually like. I would encourage anyone that can relate to my story below or they feel they need to talk to someone, please get in touch and we can talk through things. My contact details can be found at www.se7enscarhire.com so please reach out anytime via email/phone/text/dm.
I had never really given any thought to stress, depression/anxiety before and assumed people just needed to get on with things until I got a proper wakeup call in Oct/Nov 2020. Depression for me didn’t just happen overnight and I’m sure it’s the same for everyone. Looking back now I can see it had been building for a good number of years and by Oct 2020 I was at breaking point.
Life had become relentless and I couldn’t see any way it would ever change. I felt completely trapped in my situation and didn’t think I could talk to anyone about it. For a long time, I had become completely disengaged with everything and everyone around me. I no longer had any enjoyment from anything in my life. When others would say, today was a good day, to me it was just blah, it was just like every other day. I was really good at hiding it though and putting on a front/mask so that no one would know what was going on. In fact, I’m pretty sure if you’d have asked any of my friends/family they never would have guessed.
I’m sure like everyone on this forum, I love cars, bikes and really anything with an engine that goes fast and sounds good. I’m extremely lucky to have a GSXR600 motorbike and this was my only real escape. For anyone that doesn’t ride motorbikes, your focus has to be 100% on the road and the environment around you in order to keep yourself alive so you can’t think about anything else that’s going on. One of my favourite quotes is
“The man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present… he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future… he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear.” Milan Kundera
Throughout most of the summer 2020, because I was completely disengaged with everything and found no joy in anything I did, I found myself pushing almost beyond my limits on the bike in order to try and feel alive. At the time I didn’t think anything about it but once I started getting some help it was clear this was being driven by my depression.
As we got into Sep/Oct 2020, things had progressed to the point where every time I got in my car, I thought about crashing into the nearest wall/tree or anything that would cause some serious injury meaning I had a reason to break from everyday life. That feeling of needing some way to stop life as I knew it wasn’t just when I was in the car. Every day I would wake up and will myself to have a heart attack. I know that sounds crazy but that was one of the only ways I could see the relentlessness of life stopping. Also, by this time I was having chest pains, headaches etc anyway so I didn’t think it was too much of a stretch.
It was the end of Oct, start of Nov before I got the proper wakeup call I needed to really accept things couldn’t continue and I needed help. On a Tuesday afternoon after not feeling great all morning, I’d gone downstairs for something and as I came back up, I could feel myself getting dizzy; next thing I knew, I was lying on the study floor unable to move. I had no idea what was happening to me but I felt I couldn’t move. I spent almost an hour lying on the floor before I was able to get myself into a sitting position. After speaking with the GP, I’d had a panic attack but that was the impetus I needed to realise it was time to start addressing my depression.
Again, I was extremely lucky as I had private healthcare which meant I could start getting help from a counsellor/psychotherapist within a couple of weeks. I know that going through the NHS can take a few months and I’m sure that must be so difficult having to wait on getting that support, with the only other option to pay for it privately which is a considerable expense. However, this subject is being talked about far more openly now, especially around men’s mental health so finding support from others that are going through the same thing is much easier. Again, if anyone is in this position and needs someone to talk to, please reach out and I’m happy to grab a coffee, chat on the phone or help in whatever way you need. We can even have you down for a nosey round our garage.
One of the things discussed with my counsellor/psychotherapist in early 2021 was understanding that I needed some sort of hobby/interest that I wanted to do for myself. I needed to find something that would be a positive distraction, something I was choosing to do just for me. Not because someone else was doing it or I felt I had to do it for a particular reason. I needed to have somewhere/something as an escape that made me feel I was a million miles away from all the issues going on in my life.
I didn’t really have anything I enjoyed or was involved in so we started talking about things I was interested in growing up and the only thing I could think of was cars and racing. I’d never done any mechanic work or raced before but it was always something I was interested in. My wife has been super supportive and I started to look for a cheap car that I could start working on with the aim to create a track car. In the end I chose a Mini R53 which I collected from the mainland and drove back home on the boat in March 2021.
I didn’t have a big enough garage so I had to borrow my uncle’s double garage to fit everything in. For me this setup was actually a blessing for 2 reasons, 1. It was 4 miles down the road so going there was a space that was just for me to do something I enjoyed and 2. Due to the distance it meant I had to make the extra effort to go there. The other thing with this project was that I didn’t have any particular time frame in mind, it was just something I could spend a few hours on with no stress or pressure of deadlines.
It's now just over a year on and I still speak with my therapist regularly as I continue to work through the depression and manage ongoing life events. Thankfully I’m now in a far better place with my mental health thanks to being able to talk through what was going on and learning some techniques on how to better manage my anxiety. There’s no quick fix and it takes time but I want to give some hope that things do get better. I’m now in a position where I can see the positive in reaching breaking point as it forced me to make changes and improve my life. I know I’ll always have to work on my mental health but being aware of the signs to look for and understanding the techniques to help manage anxiety, I’m looking forward to what the future holds. Fingers crossed my little Mini will be competing in a few hill climb/sprint events this year.
This is my baby before I started any work. It was dyno’d at 177bhp and weighed in at just over 1200kg.
The next task was to start stripping out the interior to minimise the weight.
Thanks to lots and lots of YouTube videos I started working on getting the engine out.
After a lot of cleaning and scrubbing the engine rebuild started. In the end, there is a Nemans Ph2 Cam, 17% reduced pulley, Airtec top mounted intercooler, Airtec Induction system, upgraded coil pack with cooler plugs, alloy expansion tank, new crank pulley, new water pump, new tensioner pulley, new Pro Hoses and all Aluminium parts vapour blasted (horns, engine mounts, air intake).
After the engine rebuild it was time to pull out the front and rear subframes. Again, all the components were cleaned, wire brushed/shot blasted and painted. For the front subframe most of the components were good so it was only really some new bushes and drop links. And for the rear subframe I upgraded the trailing arms to the lighter aluminium arms from the R56, replaced the control arms with Silverline adjustable ones and installed new rear drop links. I also upgraded the exhaust to the R56 straight through pipe which meant having to relocate the battery from under the boot.
The suspension all round was changed to Tein Z Street Advance adjustable coilovers with new adjustable top mounts on the front. Initial setup has been done by Street Racers in Bangor but I’ll need to go back for corner weighting setup once the cage and race seat are fitted.
The front brakes have also been upgraded to the later R56 calipers, EBC grooved discs and EBC yellow stuff pads. The rears are new standard R53 discs/pads with HEL braided hoses on all four corners.
There are still a couple of bits to finish off before it’s ready to race including remap (will be booked into Auto Tune very soon), rollcage, isolator switch and race seat but these are some of the latest pics I have.
If you've made it to the end of this. Thank you for following my build.
) and I have to commend you on both accounts actually.
