My Eerie Connection Between Me, 9 & 45's, Ford Mustangs and BMW E46's

9, 45's, BMW 320 E46's and Ford Mustangs.

All through my life there has been SUCH a strange resonance between me and these 4 things.

I guess it all started on the day I was born. Wednesday 9th May 2001. When put into numbers, that is the 9th day of the 5th Month. If you multiply them, 9x5 = 45. This is the very first connection of 45 always had a weird link to me. Okay, I know it all sounds a little weird right now but...you just wait! Here are 7 eerie connections between 9, 45, Mustangs and E46 BMWs!

1. My first 45 and E46 at Brands Hatch '07

2007. My dad was part of a BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) team called J-Team Motorsport with its driver Jim Pocklington. This was the first EVER race car I sat in and said at 5 years old "This is what I'm gonna do...I'm gonna race cars" and surprise, the car's number was...45! This is my first proper memory of 45 and this is where I took my number from. My first memories of smelling high-octane fuel, burning rubber and getting told off by circuit officials for sitting on the roof of the race truck. I completely fell in deep awe and love from that day, Saturday 31st March 2007. My mum owned a 2002 BMW E46 320d, the same shape as Jim's car, until 2021 when it started losing power. So not only did the 45 stay in my life for a long time, but so did the BMW.

My favourite shirt when I was a kid, which I had no idea I had until I recently found old pictures of me, was a yellow surfers t-shirt with the number...you guessed it, 45!

2. 45, a Mustang and Senna, Autosport '20

Skipping forward a few years to 2020. A year of madness. Before all of the craziness of that infamous year kicked off I went to Autosport International at the NEC for the first time and it was a celebration of 70 years of Formula 1. My first time there and I was overcome with emotion as I was surrounded by the 2019 F1 team cars, Ayrton Senna's 1988 McLaren MP4/4, Nigel Mansell's 1992 Williams FW14B, a Lotus 49, a Maserati 250F, Ayrton's actual race suit and so much more. But what did I see on a 60's Ford GT? The number plate with 45 on it and near it, a pristine 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback. I knew this would be such an important day for me. Being surrounded by iconic slices of history that I have obsessed over and over and watched time and time again. To touch these cars and just be in their presence you really understand how special having these cars together are, knowing that superhuman and iconic efforts took place inside these fragile machines.

Speaking of Senna, I first watched the documentary released in 2010. It utterly changed my life. The emotion I felt because of the score by Antonio Pinto is so eerie and beautiful. It made me realise a lot of similarities between me and my dad and Senna. But the eeriest thing... THE FILMS IS 1hr 45m 45s LONG. You CANNOT make that up! WHAT?! Insane!

3. 945, Karting and an F1 Shop in Crete '21

I went to Crete in Greece in September 2021. For many reasons, not all of which I'm prepared to talk about, this holiday was an up and a down for me but a holiday in which alongside Faro 2023, I crucially learned important things about myself.

On this holiday, I watched Danny Riccardo win at Monza in a McLaren and yes, I bought a bottle of champagne and sprayed it on the beach like I had won. I would've looked like a right moron but hey, it was fun!

Anyway, I woke up on my final day, 17th September, at about 5:30 am and uncharacteristically went for a spontaneous run to watch the sunrise. I ran about 1-2km to this rocky beach and sat there listening to one of my favourite pieces of music by Hans Zimmer. As I sit down, right where I am, I see a carving in the rocks. A 🤍 L. Both my first and last initials, and yes I do have a picture. As I ran back to the hotel after watching the beautiful sunrise, a pick-up truck had parked up literally outside my hotel with the plate ending 945, again another picture below. I knew this meant this holiday was one of those moments I should remember for the rest of my life, so later that day when I was on the beach sunbathing, I ordered my race license and as I walked back to the hotel, right where the pick up was, a mustang drives by. I stood in my tracks, shocked and in awe with my jaw on the floor.

As I just bought my race licence I decided I needed some practice so searched for the nearest karting track. Luckily Crete is the biggest island in Greece and there are 2 tracks within fairly close distance by taxi. I immediately set off to KartLand. Whilst going through the town of Hersonissos, Χερσόνησος, no more than 300m from the track a 2015 Ford Mustang drives the other way and 20m away was a shop called Motorsport Store Hersonissos stocking all types of F1 merch from hats and T-shirts to a 2000's Jordan engine cover and an Ayrton Senna kart hung on the ceiling. This was properly feeling like The Truman Show at this point. As I got to the track and walked up to the desk to pay for a session, the price board on the desk said the prices as you'd expect...with a red kart WITH THE NUMBER 45! I was even more freaked out at this point, thinking 'How has this happened in the space of 10 hours?!'.

For a good while, I was driving around this kart track looking at mountains and the beaches which was such a surreal and beautiful experience and just feeling so relaxed and calm. It was one of the warmest feelings I've ever felt from an internal perspective and a physical one, I mean it was 30°c after all. After this, I went to the motorsport shop and just couldn't believe what I was looking at, a shop filled with F1 merch in a country where motorsport barely exists bar the Acropolis Rally. Whenever I see things like this in my home country, I get so excited and it feels like such a massive coincidence and a chance to share my passion with my other passion. Like a child in a chocolate factory, or an Alex in a gyros shop perhaps.

4. 45, Spa-Francorchamps and Athens, Greece '22

In 2022, now this was a hell of a crazy week, I drove to 4 countries in 5 days but that is a story for another time. On the final few days in Belgium, I took my mum to Spa for her birthday, luckily an event was on and it was the WEC (World Endurance Championship) 6 hours of Spa. Whilst there, of course, there were mustangs in the village of Spa and in the paddock more importantly, there was an LMP2 team which was blue, similar to the blue of Greece and its number?...45! The team was called Algarve Pro Racing or APR. APR are also my initials...Alex Panayiotis Rizzoli. Another weird coincidence.

A couple of months later when I went to Athens, Greece for the first time in over a decade. Side note, this is a very important holiday to me personally because if you didn't know, my parents divorced when I was around 6/7 and after that my dad left and I never had a relationship with him. We both agreed I would get a flight out on my own to Greece and spend the next week together with him which ended up being one of our favourite memories together. It might seem fairly insignificant but the flight time was 3hrs 45m. Also driving on my own in Athens in a LHD Toyota Yaris was so fun! Burning your clutch to get up literal 30-45-degree hills had me in hysterics!

A few weeks later, the day after my first girlfriend and I split up, I kept it to myself until I bumped into a woman who I knew in her 60s who I always have a natter with. She was the first person I told about it and when I got back in my vehicle, the mileage was 42445, when I got to my work. There was a lorry parked outside, literally outside my work, with the number 45 on the back of it!

5. 45, a Mustang at Silverstone '24

Just before we skip to the most mental coincidence, I went to Silverstone for literally a couple of hours in November 2024 for an important meeting during the Monoposto championship. Well, strictly speaking, it was the extra rounds for the Tiedeman trophy. By the way, I also met Jan Magnussen here. A driver called Felix was racing his first round in Monoposto in a 2011 F3 car using what number…you can guess by now unless you’ve really not been paying attention…45. The only time it had been used was in 2024. Later in the day, during the trophy ceremony, literally 20m away I saw this classic 1960s Ford Mustang Fastback in a colour very similar to the Bullit green in the paddock, again I was stopped in my tracks with my jaw once again, on the floor. So, on a day planning for the 2025 season, 45 and this stunning dream car of mine drives by. Insane! Also, notice the first two letters on the Mustang's number plate...AL! My initials.

6. 45's, Mustangs and Top Gear

Top Gear shaped my life. From being a small child watching my first episode to constantly rewatching episodes now at 23 and never getting sick of them. Top Gear has always been a guiding force in my life and has made me make decisions that have shaped my life. My favourite episodes have fantastically eerie connections to me that I have only realised while writing this. Seriously, It gets weird! Let's dive in.

Series 10, Episode 9.

So the episode aired in 2007, the same year as Jim raced in BTCC. In this episode, the trio enter their first-ever endurance race. It was the Britcar 24 Hour race at Silverstone. I loved this episode because when I first watched this episode, it felt like it would be so cool to be up racing at 3 am when it was dark. The car they used was...suprise suprise...a BMW E46 330d which, as Richard says at the start, has done...45,000 miles. WHAT?! Now come on...that is crazy! In the same year as Jim as well!

Series 19, Episodes 6 & 7 (Africa Special)

Tonight, the boys travel to Uganda, Africa to find the true source of the River Nile in a BMW 528i, a Subaru Impreza WRX and a Volvo 850R. This is such a cool special because when I first watched this special, it instantly became THE comfort show for me. Watching the trio convert their cars into bedrooms with beds in just seemed such a cool cozy idea that I still want to do with my car now! Now the reference.

Firstly, 2012 was one of my favourite years, which was the year this was filmed. Richard says at the start of the episode, that he is 45 years old and James May's 850R has just clicked over to 145,000 miles! Just the music in this episode and the crazy adventure they have is perfection. The hardest I have ever laughed is either from JaackMaate's Happy Hour podcast and the Sausage Strangler (if you know, you know) or the scene in this special with Jezza's wood log handbrake. On the floor struggling to breathe kind of laughing. My god, it was hilarious!

Series 21, Episodes 6 & 7 (Burma Special)

This episode takes the boys to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, or Burma, where they have to do long-distance lorry driving to build a River over the River Kwai. Now there is one really important part of this episode that shaped and influenced my life. Near the end of the first part, James May's 'van' broke a radiator hose and he says whilst sawing a new pipe in half "If you're watching this from an engineering workshop or technical college, this is not the correct tool for the job". When he said this part of my brain just clicked and thought "What would the correct tool be?". So because of this, I went to college for 3 years studying Mechanics and Motorsport. Shall I tell you the timestamp of when James says that? It's 45:20. The 45th minute, please fact-check if you would like! That is genuinely freaky.

7. 45's, Mustangs and Faro, Portugal '23/'24

Now, the final freakiest coincidence of them yet. New Years in Faro 2023/2024. If you haven't watched my vlog about it yet, you can HERE! Shameless, selfless promo I know!

I get there on the 30th of December around 9:00 PM and it is dark. As soon as I landed, I had butterflies in my stomach, it was a fantastic feeling. The one thing that always makes me feel calm and relaxed is holding my phone up in front of me and vlogging, talking to the camera makes me feel like I'm talking to someone, which is a nice, comforting feeling. I walked from the airport to the hotel when it was pitch black which was a little bit of a freaky feeling when I was in a new foreign city but when I got to the hotel it was really pleasant and my room was comfy. I wanted to go out and explore the city at night but I thought it's probably best not to do that on my first night and wait until the daytime so I can explore when it is light, which is a much more sensible idea.

So, in the morning on the 31st of December, I get a taxi to the centre of Faro in Portugal. Shout out to the taxi driver as he was an absolute legend he kept making me laugh and telling me the best places to go to and the best places to eat. What a legend! The short version of this story is I spent the 31st just exploring Faro, walking around, and admiring all the architecture and restaurants. That said, I did have a pretty nasty accident on an electric scooter where I was riding along a main road and I tried to grab my phone to vlog me riding, serves me right I know, and I completely stacked it at about 15/20 MPH. Luckily, the roads were empty and it was only my hand that was bleeding. Rather luckily, a pharmacy was open and I went inside and bought quite a few plasters the guy behind the bar cleaned up my wound and put them on for me. Another legend! Side note, everyone in Faro was so friendly and lovely and utterly hospitable. As I get the taxi back to my hotel, I see a 2018 Ford Mustang with gray stripes with an orange outline in a STUNNING wrap that drives by the outside of my hotel. You couldn't write this. Seriously!

I woke up at 9 PM and started to feel anxious because it started to hit me that I was in a completely foreign city with no one here that I knew at all. I then realised that what calms me down is when I feel like talking to random strangers and meeting new people especially if I'm vlogging it, I’m strange and unique I know. You can see in the vlog, shameless promo again, that I talked myself into going out into the city for the New Year’s concert/party because if I didn't I would have just wasted a trip to a city for a party which could be incredible and I know I would have regretted not going and let me tell you, I 100% would have regretted not going. So, I got a taxi to the city again with the same taxi driver as before, still a legend. I went out to get a nice pizza and walked around the city it had all changed to party mode and roads had been closed. It was packed there was the music stage which read ‘Revenge Of The 2000s’ and all night they were playing songs from my childhood which made it even more special. I started to walk around the harbour and it was packed but I managed to find a quiet spot by a restaurant and the fireworks by the sea. As I'm looking out into the dark, beautiful vastness of the ocean taking in what I’ve done over the past few days, I turn around and see two banners on two fences next to each other one had an advert for Ford with the Ford Mustang on and the other one had the number 45 on... I'm not kidding you…Seriously! I stopped in my tracks for a solid two minutes I then brought out my camera and started filming and as you can imagine I was in absolute shock.

Just early that night I taught myself such an important life lesson no matter how uncomfortable and nervous you feel about doing something you've got to push yourself and do it anyway because you will regret not doing it. The following night was single-handedly the greatest night of my life was dancing to childhood songs that had such a deep profound effect on me and also some songs that have an emotional connection to me which played which brought a tear to my eye. I also got to dance with a group of young people who wanted me to come and dance with them and just have a great time. Nothing untoward, nothing flirty just strangers being friends having an amazing night drinking and dancing to childhood music, it was truly the greatest night of my life and will remain so for a long long time. I'm so thankful for that night.

Not only did this night further solidify this deep-rooted connection that I have to Mustangs and 45s but no doubt, later in my life, these memories will still be as prevalent and as important as they were that night!