Jim Alison, a 95-year-old former Royal Engineers veteran from Abergavenny, has shared his delight at getting behind the wheel again, five years after he was registered blind and forced to give up his driving license.<\/p>\n
Alison, who previously worked as a chauffeur and drove for London for 22 years, participated in a charity event at the Llandow Circuit in the Vale of the Glamorgan. Organized by Speed of Sight, the initiative assists individuals with disabilities in experiencing the thrill of motorsports.<\/p>\n
“I think I managed to get to 90 km\/h (55mph),” Alison said after racing alongside an instructor in a dual-controlled vehicle. “You put your life in their hands and it was absolutely fantastic.”<\/p>\n
Alison, who is part of a group from Blind Veterans UK, had his eyesight deteriorate due to macular degeneration. He recalled that instructors allowed him to take control on the straightaways because his sight impairment made navigating bends difficult.<\/p>\n
The event also featured Harley, a 14-year-old with visual impairments who returned to the track for a second time, having first participated at age 10. Describing the experience as a blur of “happiness, excitement, wonder,” Harley noted the adrenaline rush and highlighted the importance of such opportunities for disabled children and adults passionate about cars.<\/p>\n
Speed of Sight was founded in 2012 by Mike Newman, a motorsports enthusiast born blind who defied expectations to set world driving records. Newman established the charity to help others recapture the freedom associated with driving.<\/p>\n
“Because I love cars so much myself, I tried to think of an idea of how we could get behind the wheel again and make it fun and exciting,” Newman explained. “It opens up the opportunities of complete enjoyment, forgetting the day-to-day challenges.”<\/p>\n
Participants drove modified Mazda MX-5s with names like Stanton and Baxter, honoring Newman’s guide dogs. Among the drivers was Dean Twaite, 68, from Tredegar, who lost his sight in an industrial accident in 2007. A former member of the Royal Corps of Transport, Twaite described the experience as exhilarating despite the initial fear.<\/p>\n
“Feeling the wind in the face like that was exhilarating – it was really great, really great,” Twaite said, emphasizing that the experience restored a sense of confidence. “There’s no such thing as can’t. If you put your mind to it, you can do it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 95-year-old blind veteran from Abergavenny experienced driving on a racetrack five years after surrendering his license due to vision loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862],"tags":[2425,2424,39,2423,972,10],"class_list":["post-1191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uk","tag-abergavenny","tag-blindness-and-visual-impairment","tag-breaking","tag-motoring","tag-wales","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}