There are 110 days to go, but it still feels like we have only just finished the 2010 season. I returned from India in mid-December to find some of the new parts had arrived, which was great. The last week or two has been a frustrating time though, as making progress over the Christmas and New Year is almost impossible when it comes to ordering things as everybody is on holiday.

The new con-rods for the engine have arrived, so apart from a few gaskets and seals the engine is ready to go back together. Hopefully this will be ready before the end of January.

The gearbox issues have been discovered by Gripper, and are being resolved. Within a month we should have the box back and ready to bolt onto the engine and into the car, at the same time we can be altering the boot floor and the exhaust.

The flanges and material have arrived for the inlet manifold so the new one can be made in readiness – barring any late issues – for a trip to the rolling road.

There are still lots of odds and sods to get for the car, but hopefully by the middle of February we will be able to start testing in time for the start of the season. That should leave us plenty of time to sort out any problems, assuming they don’t cost a fortune of course.

We have also started to look more into the 2011 calendar. Obviously I don’t have the money to do the whole season, but we would like to make a plan and try to stick to it, although that is harder than I first anticipated. Deciding which events to try and do is not easy. Lydden is a must, and France, Belgium and Holland are easy as they are ‘local’. Of the far away events, I can’t do Portugal due to work commitments in the British Championship, and Czech being all on its own at the end of the year isn’t too appealing, but depending on what the situation is at the time I could be persuaded…easily. I really, really, really want to race in Sweden, but the trip so far north to Norway would be both time consuming and expensive. Being in Scandinavia for over a week will just be expensive because of the exchange rate, never mind the amount of distance there is to cover. I also really want to do Poland, as I loved the track in 2010, but that is paired with Austria which I am not too fussed about for some reason. Also, the journey to Poland is epic in the van, as we found out in 2010 travelling non-stop for 38 hours to get there. The issue with the calendar is that there are events I want to do, but none of them are in pairs. In my position the best and really only way to do as many as possible is to do the events in pairs because you are not travelling all the way out to Europe twice. So a compromise will have to be met, and one of the long haul journeys will be dropped I fear.

The pleasing thing is that I have driven on half the circuits of next years championship, and visited three more of them, so I have prior knowledge of most of the venues of 2011 in some capacity.

We are working on some sponsors for this season, and the feeling I am getting from people is positive, so all will become more certain in the next few weeks I’m sure. Aside from that and the car there is another area I think there is massive scope for improvement for this year. That is my fitness. I don’t think I’m unfit, but certainly nowhere near as fit as I could or should be. I have never been one for spending hours in the gym, although I used to play a lot of squash and football, but you have to make time for these things, they don’t just happen. This spring I am going to make a concerted effort to make time for these to improve my fitness. A fitter body means driving the car isn’t so tiring, and your mind will stay more alert. Every tiny thing counts, if you have the best car in the world but are too wrecked to drive it then you are wasting your time.

The opposite side of that is my side, the car might not be the fastest in the field by any means but if I am physically and mentally as strong as I can be then you can get the most out of what you have available to you. This, coupled with making the effort to learn the circuits in more detail with the help of some ‘Supercar’ friends and it should be another little advantage we have over last season, and another small step in the direction of scoring those valuable ERC points!