All winter long I have been trying to get into a position where it would not be a rush to finish the Clio ready for the 2011 season, with time in hand to go testing and fettle before the start of the year.

Today, as I write this, there are 22 todays to go. I still have no gearbox, the engine in the car is running, albeit currently on the old inlet manifold, and time is disappearing fast.

The new inlet manifold is almost finished, hours and hours of fabrication have gone into it, of course the benefits will overweigh anything else in the end, but you do question what you are doing when you are porting lumps of aluminium at 6am, before real work starts!

Real work has meant the Clio hasn’t had full attention over the last few weeks, the priority has been to finish MB Motorsports’ cars for the first round of the British Championship at Lydden Hill last weekend. Now that is out of the way the Clio my priority. Jabbasport is having the car on its rolling road on April 7 – six days from now. Hopefully this will be problem free, but you can never be sure until you have finished and on the way home with the end result.

The gearbox manufacturers had finished the new differential, but had a problem with heat treating the pinion, so that was no good. They are now putting everything they can into getting the gearbox built and sorted for the end of next week … I’m told. So it won’t be in place for the trip to Jabbasport but it should be in not long after.

Testing is now, at best, unlikely, but that isn’t something I’m unused to. When we got to Lydden last year we didn’t even know if the car would go around a corner, never mind if I would actually be able to drive it. I am a lot more confident about driving the car, and with the improvements we have made over the winter we should have a much more competitive package.

The car currently looks more sorry for itself than ever, although new panels are either waiting to be painted in a slightly new design or are on the way here. We do now have an incredibly lightweight fibreglass door, which I collected at the British event at Lydden Hill, (thanks to Adam Walker). With all this we should be somewhere near the weight limit this season.  With the limit being raised by 50kg and my car having been  on a bit of a diet, I think we are going to have gained almost 80kg on those who were on the weight limit last year.

Earlier this year “Mad Mark” was joking around and asked me “are you going to race this year, Hal, or are you just going to write about it?” It’s sad to see that Mark probably won’t be racing now, but unless I dash now and get some work done, I’m in danger of joining him on the sidelines!

See you all at Lydden Hill for the first round of ERC 2011, I will be doing everything I can to get there as a driver!