Mr Whittington did eventually find me. The annual trip to Glastonbury is one of the only things I would allow to get in the way of an ERC round. The similarities to running a music festival and a rallycross team are greater than you would believe…but that’s a whole different story.

Despite our problems in France, which I highlighted last time I wrote here in Rallycross World, we are making big steps forward at every event we go to with the Clio, making both performance modifications and changes to enhance the cars reliability. So far we have done six ERC rounds, and at every event have made a significant step forward from the last, which is incredibly encouraging. We have made yet more modifications before Belgium and Holland, so I really hope we can see some more improvements there!

After the French ERC round we had a smaller list of jobs to do than usual after an event…or so we thought. The first thing to do was to sort out the engine mount problems we had again experienced in France. We decided not to try and repair the engine steady that has failed on more than one occasion but instead start from scratch. However, the gearbox still had to come out to have the casing repaired again, and the aluminium alternator bracket needed strengthening after the alternator had come loose at Essay. Of course this meant most of the front of the car has to be dismantled.

Once the car was back together it was ready to go to Tony Law Exhausts in Leeds for its new exhaust manifold…or so I thought. After travelling to Belgium to work on the MB Motorsport Audi TT TDI at the British event in Massmechelen at the start of July, I had a good look at several other S1600 Clios and decided that we needed more clearance for the new exhaust to fit between the subframe and the bulkhead and under the car. So, on our return it was decided to move the steering rack down about an inch to allow the subframe to be adapted to give more room for the exhaust. This was a lot of re-fabrication in itself, but it’s always the knock on effect of everything else on these bespoke cars that turns a relatively simple task into hours and hours of fabrication. With the rack moved, the steering column then needed lengthening, and then the angle adjusting since it no longer met up with the rack. The bracket that holds the steering column in place also acts at a clutch pedal stop, but this was now also in the wrong place so the clutch pedal and stop also needed adjusting, as did the bulkhead where the standard seal around the column no longer fitted.

The car then made its trip to Tony Law Exhausts in Leeds, where it spent a week and had a new four-branch manifold fitted. The job Tony Laws did was fantastic and very professional. The exhaust used all the space that we had made available too which made the worth all the more worthwhile. The item is exactly what I asked for, and both interesting and useful was the fact that their ideas were the same as the ideas I had collected from looking at other Clios. (There will be more on Tony Law Exhausts in a feature next month)

Another trip to the rolling road a JabbaSport was then on the cards, since we had the mapping “issues” in France, and the new exhaust manifold was now also attached. This went well again, and although we still don’t have as much power as I would like given how much we have put into the engine compared to what I know others have put into theirs and got more, I am happy that what we do have is very usable and drivable and will ultimately be reliable. There is no way I can afford an engine rebuild every second event if we loose the reliability.

My trip to Belgium for the British event gave me a good look at the circuit. Belgium and Holland will be the first ERC rounds I have done outside the UK where I have had prior knowledge of the circuit. I last raced at both in 2007, albeit in a stockhatch class Peugeot 205 GTi. The joker lap in Belgium has changed recently and it looked very rough three weeks ago, but otherwise the circuit is the same as it was. Valkensvaard in Holland has also got a new joker lap, which I am yet to see, but again I don’t think the rest of the circuit has changed. This will certainly be a help for the first practice sessions at the events, as I won’t be spending those valuable few laps feeling my way around quite as much.

Unfortunately there has again been no chance for testing, but every time I get in the car I am more confident in it. This isn’t a good reason not to go testing of course but the situation is such that we have once again run out of time.

Ultimately the best testing is racing, and as I have said before we take every event as an another extended test, so fingers crossed for two good weekends racing and in Belgium and Holland where we can hopefully have some good racing and make more good progress with the car.