As is said by many, motor sport is often 90% heartache, 10% totally uncontrollable joy. But despite this, that tiny percentage of joy is so amazingly worthwhile it keeps you going through the rough stuff. Annoyingly for most, a lot of the aggravation in motor sport must be from the length of time it can take suppliers to supply their goods and services. Pat Doran once said to me: “If you order something in motor sport with a deadline in mind, nine times out of 10 you will miss that deadline. In any other walk of life and business this would be totally unacceptable, and yet in motor sport it is just accepted as the norm”. And he’s right. Things seem to take forever.

I am yet to get my gearbox back from Gripper, but the specialists there have now solved the issues that brought us to a halt in Poland last season, and are now in the process of making a new crownwheel and pinion for the differential to cure the gear ratio problems. The calculations have been done: last season at 8000rpm in fifth gear, the Clio would have done over 140mph! Not what you need in a Super1600 Rallycross car on European Rallycross circuits.

While I have to wait a little longer for the gearbox, I now have the con-rods for the engine, and the correct bolts as – surprise, surprise – the first ones supplied were wrong. The engine should be back in the car within the next week or so. I then have to sort out some pipework for new oil pressure gauges and the like before, hopefully, a trip to the rolling road. Unfortunately  I don’t think the gearbox will be back for another couple of weeks, so the car will be mapped without the close ratio dog box, but I am very keen to get the engine sorted as soon as possible so we can have as much time as we can to try and iron out any problems that may occur. Then, once the engine is mapped and the gearbox is back with us, I intend to take the car testing on at least one occasion before the first round of the ERC.

However, my testing will be weather dependent, and if that  doesn’t improve in the coming weeks I may not be able to get too much ‘loose’ testing in. I’m still woprking with MB Motorsport and, a couple of weeks ago we took an Audi A4 rally car to Blyton in order for Michael Boak to give some driver tuition. The car only did a handful of laps before we experienced clutch failure. Even with the small amount of laps involved the circuit was so wet and muddy that it still took me almost three-hours to pressure wash the car, and it still needs more cleaning yet. I don’t fancy trying to test the Clio on what was a half ploughed field to learn little and spend countless hours trying to clean it again. So we could well find ourselves testing at a kart circuit a couple of times prior to Lydden, but any testing will be 100% better than what we managed last year – absolutely no testing whatsoever.

More bits have been arriving for the car over the past weeks in the usual sort of way I have to do things. I bought four new wheels, for instance. These came fitted with road tyres which were taken off and sold to ease the cost of the wheels.

Oh, and the fitness training has been going well as a whole, although I fear the nearer we get to the Rallycross season the amount of time available for this will decrease in direct proportion to the number of hours required to get things ready on both my car and those of MB Motorsport’s customers.

The season is drawing ever closer, I won’t jinx anything by suggesting how things are going but I’ve got everything crossed that we have it a little bit easier in the run up to round one. But you know what they say about not counting your chickens…

One last thing, I want to wish Adam and Gemma Clark all the best for the future following their wedding last weekend. I’m sure they will both have a great time racing in the Swift Championship this season, and on to bigger, better, European things in the future!