145 Days. Sounds like a long time doesn’t it? This time last year, in the run towards the first round of the ERC, I thought that it was a long time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and as it turned out it wasn’t nearly enough time. This year we are in a much better position. For a start we don’t have half a car to build. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of work to do but it is directed in specific areas. I know we can still encounter a lot of problems, but hopefully we are doing things with enough time in hand to account for such issues.

Progress on the car is going quite well. I didn’t expect to have so many of the things that we want to improve on in place by this point. The new con-rods should be arriving any day now, so we have all the components for the engine. We have also got the parts required to make the new inlet manifold: a standard Renault inlet manifold which will be machined to be provide one flange (the cylinder head end), and a Ford Pinto DCOE manifold that will provide the flange for the throttle bodies. So it’s just a case of making the tubes to join up. I say ‘just’ but this is one of the trickiest jobs on the car due to the angles involved, but it is one that I am sure the ever resourceful Michael and Frankie Boak combination will be able to achieve with apparent ease. I suppose it is the difference between being a professional and not, but they make the hardest of jobs look very easy!

The other main part we are waiting for is the gearbox. Gripper has stripped it and found a couple of minor problems so they are redesigning some of the parts. Once this is sorted, and they have changed the gear ratios with a new crown wheel and pinion we will have the gearbox back, just after Christmas I hope.

Once we have the engine and gearbox back in the car we will re-visit the rolling road, and hopefully come away with more power. To aid this further we are going to take the spare wheel well out of the rear of the car as this will allow us to have the exhaust go straight through to the rear without any big bends. Hopefully the flow will be less effected, and give us a tiny bit more power (every one counts!).

The Super1600 2011 regulations have some brilliant news for me: the weight limit for the class has been raised from 950 to 1000kgs for 2011. I can assure you we were the heaviest car in the class last season, so with the addition of the new glassfibre tailgate and passenger door that are being made for me by Magnum Motorsport, we should be right on the weight limit. With many other cars having to put weight on to meet this limit we will have gained on everyone in the class by virtue of the regulations, so that will give us a massive help going into 2011 too!

As I write this I am in India, with a project based on a some English teaching and photography. Being here has made me realise how lucky we are in Europe to be as affluent as we are, and that we have the opportunities that we do, racing in Rallycross for instance. There are a few similarities between here and our sport though. The roads in India make even the roughest Rallycross track look like a billiard table. Coupled with that, there are next to no rules on the road. One driver said to me “We drive on the left hand side – some of the  time!”. On a road the size of a B road in the UK, I have seen two coaches side-by-side going in one direction, avoiding a truck, two motorbikes and an Auto-rickshaw going in the other direction. And it’s not just other road users you have to avoid. Cows, people and dogs also cause a hazard on the potholed roads. It’s like the chaos theory, somehow it just works. I think a lot of the drivers here would make great Rallycross drivers.

A quick mention for my two of my closest friends in Rallycross. My mechanic since I started Rallycross in 2005, Dave Tulett, made his own Rallycross debut at the Rallycross Superprix at the end of October. He borrowed a clubman modified Seat Ibiza, won his first heat race, and had a fantastic day. I told him before the event that once he had tried it that he would want more. I think he doubted me.

It’s a funny thing motor sport, he is now selling his road car to fund buying the car. So when he isn’t at the ERC with me in 2011 he will be racing in the BTRDA SuperModified Championship. The other person who I wanted to mention is Michael Boak, who also made a debut at the Superprix. Still using his trusty Audi TT, but now with a TDI motor – the first of its kind in the sport. You will be able to read more about this car in the press in the coming months but I know it will be doing very well sooner rather than later. The thing has enough torque to tow the entire workshop to events I would think!

Things are coming together nicely for 2011, hopefully we will be at round one of the championship having completed some testing. Stranger things have happened, but then again, they probably haven’t.