Our first event in the car. Jeff BTJ Brown did the honours in the Navi seat.

What a brilliant day. A cool but clear day meant brilliant sunshine all day, blue skies and no rain. The car ran brilliantly, a few minor teething problems, but nothing serious. It is an absolute blast to drive on stage, and Jeff and I were amazed at how short the straights appeared to be.

Stage 1 we decided to take relatively easy as this was the car’s first stage. At the first corner the power steering failed which was a little inconvient. On fast corners it wasn’t too bad, but in the tight bits I struggled to change direction quick enough. At service we found the pressure feed to the rack had come apart. Going back a little we noticed when we took the car off the trailer that there was some oil, investigation revealed a leak from this hose, and the connectors appeared loose, and were tightened. So when the hose was found apart we assumed that we had caused the failure. The crew put it together again, but as soon as we started the engine the other end failed. We had no time to repair so went onto Stage 2 without power steering again. We were 50 secs faster this time, as I knew we didn’t have power steering, and also we put some effort into driving. Back at service we had another go at the power steering, but same result so we gave up and finished the day without. Stage 3 gave us a different problem. We were picking up speed by now and having fun. We came down to the hairpin but couldn’t get any gears. I pulled over and let the car behind go and then managed to get first. As we drove gears were becoming harder to find and eventually we found 2nd and cruised to the end of the stage. In service we found the banjo fitting on the hydraulic line has come loose. So tightened up, refilled and bled and off we went. Had a great 4th stage and were getting into advanced hooliganism on stage and having an absolute blast. Very hard work though as trying to manhandle it around was very physical, especially as already mentined in the tighter bits. People did tend to catch us through here.

After lunch the stages were reversed. I don’t know why but I found getting it around the hairpins more difficult this way. We had a fantastic time on Stages 5 and 6, and as is the way with rally drivers decided to give it full beans on the last stage, but alas the clutch did the same thing again, but earlier in the stage so we just took a stage max. Pity as I think we were around 30th at the time, but very happy anyway. 42nd O/A in the end, but most importantly a great day out, a finish, and major smiles all round.