Book - Flying Finish

Ain’t technology wonderful? At the beginning of last week I gave the printer a USB stick and three days later I had a digital print of the complete ‘Scottish Rally Championship 2010-2019’ book on my desk ready for the final read-through before giving the go-ahead to start the printing press! In the past I got a set of flat A3 sized sheets to look through but the print room chief took the time and trouble to guillotine the pages and bind them with a facsimile cover so that from a distance it actually looks like the real thing. It’s obvious the big Boss wasn’t around.

Now with a copy of the ‘finished’ article David the designer and Michael the printer and myself had a few wee chats just to sort out a few wee niggles. For instance who would have thought that 150gm weight paper would differ in thickness depending on who made the paper? Of course we’re talking fractions of millimetres here we but in a 266 page book that adds up and determines how thick the spine has to be and the exact dimensions of the book cover itself. Those final measurements couldn’t be made until the ordered paper arrived, and there was some sort of delay with that, but it’s finally sorted and this week Michael started making the printing plates. So we are now through the 300 metre boards and into the Flying Finish.

Anyway I also found out a couple of other things. For a start paper costs have gone up. There’s a surprise, eh? Apparently it’s down to the conservationists wanting to preserve all trees and not pulp them to make paper which is also a hugely energy consuming process, and guess what, energy prices have gone up too. That process also uses a lot of water, which you’d think we had plenty of here in Scotland, but apparently it ain’t cheap either! This climate change business has a lot to answer for.

It’s the same from the company which supplies the cardboard wraps for posting books out to on-line customers, the cost of their raw materials and energy prices have gone up too. However the ‘superbly efficient streamlined’ Castle Bunnet sales operation will be able to absorb most of these costs to maintain the book price at the same level as the previous two volumes although p&p costs will have to rise by a pound.

So what will you get for 45 quid – 266 pages containing approximately 140,000 words and over 350 photographs, and for those customers in foreign parts, the Glossary at the back of the book has been retained to help the puzzled with the technical terms and Scottish-isms. Oh, and one other thing Fergus requested that I lighten up on the photo captions, so I asked my big pal Mr Bunnet to help out with a few! Be careful what you wish for, eh?

Speaking of technical terms, the assumption has been made that the vast majority of readers will have some understanding of the sport. On that basis I deliberately haven’t gone into detail with regard to MSA/Motorsport UK Rules & Regulations or the dark arts of time-keeping and Pace Notes simply because that would have required more words and more pages and my page limit was 270. And we all have a fair working knowledge of those, don’t we? So if things haven’t been explained as clearly as some folk would have liked – tough!

As for the front cover, you’ll just have to wait and see. This mock-up one has been ever so slightly disguised!

#ScottishRally #RallyScotland
#MotorsportBooks
https://fife-motor-sports-agency.square.site/

The current books are also available on Ebay, just type in ‘Scottish Rally Championship’ and you should find them.