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The season is getting close and I have still have both engines iand one gearbox in bits. This is not good as I have a testing session at Silverstone on the 30th April. I am still waitng for my cams. My main engine still needs work doing to the block and head. The gearbox just needs assembling which won't take long. I have however booked next week off to do the majority of the work but it is going to be tough.

Got to the test with my s'class engine but broke a diff pin 10 yards down the pit lane. So postpone the test till 6th April(day before first race). Finished building my spare engine with new crank and had to replace piston and rod ready to test and race with. Testing highlighted some hanndling issues and a cracked exhaust, plus crank shaft nut loose. Times weren't brilliant. Tryed a few different setting on the shock and a new tyre. This improved times by 0.8 of a second. So went even harder on the front but this proved wrong in Qualifying which only aw 5 laps before gear change pin came out and was stuck in 4th. Only 18th on the grid.

Race on the 7th. Fixed diff pin, changed dampers back to a softer setting and changes ignition timing. I was flying in the race and soon moved through the pack to be challenging for 8th. Went a whole lap side by side with paul clarky before back plate exploded ending race on lap 6. got to fix this before Snetterton on 3 weeks.

The clutch back plate had done a fair amount of damage. Thing needed to be replaced were flywheel housing, flywheel, 3 ignition leads radiator (brand new) and back plate. Things needing to be repaired included brake pipe, front and rear of the subframe and the bulkhead had a hole in it!! The engine also needed coming apart to balance the new flywheel and back plate with the crank.

Practise as spent running in the new bits. I did give it a blast towards the end of the session an managed 1min 31.7 time, not bad!
Qualifying only saw me put in time of 1min 32.2 which in a competative field put me down in 16th.

Race- Got a good start and pick of a few places on the opening lap on my move forward through the field. lap 2 saw me up to 12th, lap 3 11th. At this point I was racing with Ian Deviny who was travelling quickly aswell so instead of fighting with him I decided to follow him far a few laps to see if we could catch the lead group in front.

It took us until lap 9 to catch the group by which time 2 of them had dropped out. This put me up to 9th. I then started moving through this group alot of them slowing themselves down and making mistakes. By lap 11 I was 6th thanks to Paul and Kane both having excersions of the track. Then Ian made a mistake and I managed to get dave into the Esses which left me behind 2nd and 3rd. I mangaed to close the small gap to them but on the last lap just as I was in striking distance a back marker got in the way. All in all over the moon with the result especially from 16th. I would have been happy with a top ten. I was only 1.6 sec off a podium. Bonnza!!!

With a long bank holiday weekend in prospect with the practise, qualifying and race split between the Saturday and Monday it started reasonably well with a damp/wet practise. I had gone out with dry’s on the front and wets on the back which is against the rules if your qualifying or racing. It was the safe option enabling me to scrub some the new dry’s whilst still having some grip on the rear in challenging conditions. It also enabled me to set some times in what was predicted to be a wet weekend.

Qualifying sat 26th was dry but cool which was a contributing factor to picking up a misfire as the plug oiled up. I persevered for a few laps but the engine wasn’t getting hot and I was forced to pit. After a quick clean up of the plug I rejoined with Damon and Greame behind me. The car was going better so I decided to stay in front. I was apparent half way round it was apparent that Damon was closing so before start my next lap I decided to let him past. Unfortunately Graeme caught me as well and overtook onto Hissy chicane which slowed us both. This proved to be the last lap and was my best. I was 22nd on the Grid, bugger.

Race. After a wet Sunday watching F1 a dry track met us for the race. I was just hoping for a top ten which was going to be a lot of work and fun from my starting position. I got away well and had picked up 3 places of the line after taking a risky line down the gap between the pit wall and a group of four cars. I then caught the next group at the hair pin and was met by a wall of three cars so I held the inside line but lost one place and got a good drag up the hill which saw me passed all of this group but did see me take a tight line into the chicane so compromising my line and lap. So with a busy 1st lap I had managed to climb to 16th. The next lap saw me overtake Paul Spark and 2 people fall off putting me up to 13th. The next 8 laps saw my trying to close the 3 second gap to the next group. By lap 9 had caught Jabez and had seen him brake early for the hairpin. I mad my move there but was a bit too keen and overshot the corner after a big lock up. By the time I had rejoined I was back in 16th. I then overtook Paul spark again only too run into the back of a slow cornering Mark Smith fighting with Lee Jones. This broke the dizzy arm and smashed the radiator. So I retired one lap from the end. Must do better in Qualifying!

I can take away the fact that for the majority of the race I was running at a similar pace to the leaders.

This is the First Double header of the year and after the tight circuit of Oulton we move the fast Circuit of Combe.

Qualifying. Qualified 14th and 13th after a reasonable qualifying session. Didn’t manage to get any slip streaming effect so reasonably happy with the result in qualifying. The car work without fault and reved well.

Race 1. You would not have guessed this was a double header meeting the way people were going at it. The start was a joke as we had a delayed start because a wheel fell off Greames car. When the track was clear everyone was expecting another warm up lap but instead went straight into the race. I was busy starting my engine when the light went out. I was still better off than others. The first lap saw me pick up a few places and was up to ninth by the end of lap one. A few other mistakes from people saw me elevated to 6th before the safety car came out. At the restart I was lost a place and slowly went backwards to finish a hard fought 9th.

Race 2. After a normal start and a steady first lap I had move to 12th from the 13th starting point on the grid. This did include No26 who had jumped the start by a mile and would be penalised latter so a net 11th. I then lost 2 places along the fast straight when I got a poor exit out of camp. Then the 2 car that had jumped the start were brought in 3 cars in front retired with problems putting me up to ninth by lap four. For the next 4 laps I would be trying to close the gap to the group in front whilst trying to keep James Winnifrith behind me. Two more cars just in front had a coming together at bobbies chicane and I narrowly missed a recovering Greame Davis which put me up to 6th. For the remaining 2 lap I was in constant battle with James only to lose a place on the line and finish 7th. We were only 3 second behind the 3rd place man who 5th place men who had started next to me and behind me on the grid!

Anyway a shed load of point a car that’s in one piece and only a little bit of work to do for Thruxton. Now lying 8th in the Championship.

Thruxton 21st/22nd August

Not much was done to the car between Combe and Thruxton except the gearing was changed for the high speed track. It is the fastest track that we visit with 70% of the track flat in fourth with the speed over 100 mph. The average lap speed is well over 80mph. As the mini shape is not the most aerodynamic slipstreaming is all important so it wise to team up with someone to help each around the fast section and down the long back straight.

On saturday morning a things spiced up when the rain came down just before practise meaning that I went out on slicks on a damp track. This being my first visit to thruxton in a mini it became apparent that sliding around at over 100mph on some parts of the track sparated the men from the boys and on this occassion I was being a boy. Some parts of the track were just plain dangerous with patches of water and if you did get it wrong marshalls posts were kind of targets you could aim for. If you missed them, then on the wet grass you would keep going till you got to London. Towards the end i teamed up with James Winnifrith to practise the slip streaming we were planning to do in Qualifying. Thanks to this technic it knocked 4 seconds off the lap time.

Qualifying came round and thankfully the track had dried out but still had some moisture which unfortunatly caught James out going into the complex which spoilt the plans we had to do the slip streaming. I did a slow lap but there was still no sign of him. I upped the pace and was thankfull to see two faster cars catching up. i used the second to slit stream and this did improve my time but it was still 2 seconds off the pace of Practise. James anaged to recover and annoyingly 4 places further up the grid.

Race The start time for the race was 9am but engines were not allowed to be started until 8:50which meant we had to push the car onto the grid. The track was also damp from the night rain and the temperature wasn't drying the track. I was on wets which a few others were also on. The race started and I made up a few spots and was lyin around 10th after things had settled down. I was infront of Darren Thomas until I shut the door on him going through Church and he decided he wasn't going to lift. this sent my car into and almighty sideways tank slapped at the fastest corner in the country. I pushed the throttle harder into the floor even though it was already flat and steered into the skid. After a second it shot back the other way and I manged to catch it early which striaghtened the car and I had it back under control. By this time i was 200 yards further down the track and needed a change of overalls. This also lost momantum and I then proceeded to go backwards down the field with dodgy handling and the engine going off. I had few moments at the chicane in the next few laps which slowed my lap time even further. i finished 14th.