I was very fortunate to be given a watch for my birthday last April. Part of a limited edition made by Christopher Ward Watches to commemorate the original Grand Prix Races, mine was the C70 IT Rosso which celebrated the first ever Italian Grand Prix in Brescia in 1921.
Christopher Ward watches is a fairly new company, founded in 2005 with the aim to create a quality watch brand using the best swiss movements but without the crazy prices of Rolex’s etc.
As my watch approached its first birthday, I feared I had lost it. I stayed at the Ramada Encore Hotel in Milton Keynes before a Vodafone Dmax test day and when I got home the following evening, there was no sign of the watch. I contacted the hotel who were fairly slow to advise me that they had not found it but were very quick to point out that they had no liability for it…
So I started to assume that I had lost it for good. Until a few days later when I found it in a pile of laundry. When I say a pile of laundry, I mean a pile of clean laundry that had just been through the wash! My watch had been washed with my Daytona uniform and had been immersed in water, spun at 1200 rpm and tossed and turned with the Vodafone and Mercedes branded fleece and jacket.
When I looked closely at the watch, I realised that the crown had become undone and as this is a major part of the waterproofing, I assumed that my watch would be beyond repair. When I screwed the crown in the watch started working fine. The problem was next day when we had unseasonably good weather for March and some condensation appeared inside the watch glass.
However, I put the watch in my boiler room for two days with the crown undone and the condensation has gone – the watch is keeping perfect time and it is very clean!
Well done Christopher Ward watches.
Jim Graham
TEAM DAYTONA