It feels like a long time since my idea to try and do the ERC was first thought of, but at the same time sitting here having just finished the second season in which I have raced somehow doesn’t seem real.

Its amazing where life takes you, and although we are still yet to score an ERC point, I certainly don’t have any regrets about the route we are taking. Its not just the racing in the ERC, its the adventure and experience. Myself and my tiny team have had some money can’t buy experiences over the last couple of years. The stories that come with these are for the most part unprintable, and for some uncanny reason usually involve a Scandinavian or two, or indeed a Celt.

But, of course the reason for doing the ERC is to race, and although more progress is made at some events than others, we have yet to go to an event where we haven’t been able to take massive positives away from it. It must be easy to look at the final finishing order from events and believe that we have made very little progress from day one of our European campaign, but the reality is that when we started we were almost days off the pace, and now we are knocking on the door of a chance at C finals.

We have some significant changes to make, but we have only learnt these from doing the events we have done. They say racing is the best form of testing after all. We are still struggling in two areas, the main one being power. We are giving away over 50bhp to many of our rivals, which is huge. This is being addressed over the winter months, new camshafts are on their way to try and extract more power. Again this is a juggling act, cams are not cheap, so I have had to sell my current ones in order to afford a new set. Of course we are not going to be able to get the same sort of power a the front runners, but if we can make a good improvement on what we have it will certainly help.

We have found that the faster we are making the car go, the more different issues are highlighted. Grip and traction seem to have become more of an issue the further down the development road we have come. Working with what we have I think we have come as far as we can in terms of improving the set up. Don’t get me wrong what we have is good, and cheap, but i feel we are at the point to need better. The dampers on the Clio cost less in total than just one corner of the dampers on a car like Julian Godfreys. Using this suspension has been great, and brilliant for the money, but to make progress we need to be using something better. As usual this is all down to money, and I am putting huge amount of effort into finding the money to improve the car ready for 2012.

I was hoping to race at the Grand Prix at Croft next week, but the Clio’s gearbox developed a problem during the event in Czech so it is back with Gripper being repaired and won’t be back in time. The cost of running a car of this type is apparent at this stage, as the clutch needs a refresh, the clutch release bearing is badly worn etc. All problems that need addressing, and all more expense.

The Czech event itself went well for us, although the pace in Super1600 was mega! The lower-midfield pack are normally those who we race with, and with nobody like that in attendance we were left trying to punch well above our weight. Its the little things you notice progress wise,aside from time of course. A year ago we wouldn’t have even been able to even see the likes of Kalny after half a lap, and this is no longer the case.

The one massive issue in Czech was the way the track was prepared, and the dust that was caused as a result. On Saturday the second free practice was cancelled and the timed practice and first heat were both late, so the dust was soon coupled with low sun. I was in the first race of the first heat, and at the back found the dust horrendous. I had to stop to see where the joker lap was, which in my eyes wasn’t safe. I made my point to Kenneth Hansen, who in turn spoke to the organisers. It was decided that all the races would take place on the Sunday. I was a little taken aback by the decision, based on my assessment of the conditions. I was encouraged that Guttorm Lindefjell and Ludvig Husbedt, a pair renowned for their carefree driving, thanked me for making a judgement on the conditions for the benefit of others, and that it was the correct thing to do. After all, safety HAS to come first. This has become more apparent over the last couple of weeks in motorsport, with the high profile deaths of Dan Whelden and Marco Simoncelli. Its easy to forget that even in Rallycross, we are not invincible.

On a lighter note, the ERC calendar for next season looks good, and for the money-no-object teams it looks great. If I can get the money together I will try and do seven events, I don’t think I will entertain trying to get to the three Scandinavian rounds and this should help with costs massively.

I had hoped that the off seasons might get quieter the more experienced we become at the ERC, and there would be less to do. It is in fact the polar opposite, we are learning more, trying to implement what have learnt and the hunger to succeed grows more and more. It looks like we are going to be busy then…!

Its been a last minute decision, but thanks to the generosity of people once again, we are going to the final round of the ERC in the Czech Republic this coming weekend.

As I write this the car isn’t yet ready to go, but then there’s nothing new there. There is just bodywork to finish repairing after Holland, and a few odds and sods to sort out. The only other thing is the suspension geometry, but I am still awaiting the return of the front damper that broke in Holland that has been away for repair, I have been promised it for Wednesday at the absolute latest, which is handy as we are leaving for Czech on Wednesday, so the damper may have to be swapped and the geometry done at the circuit on Thursday night. This isn’t a big problem, one of the nice things about the European events is that there is a lot of time, in the British championship instead of the event being spread over three days, a single day is all you get to do all the administration, practicing and racing, making things far less relaxed.

Czech will be only the second circuit we have visited twice with the Clio, the other of course being Lydden. Although we didn’t get huge amount of track time in our visit to Ceska Lipa in 2010, I at least did enough laps to start to find my way around, so hopefully we can build on that experience from the offset. Czech is one of the faster circuits on the European tour, and a commitment track at that. The entry in Super1600 for the weekend looks quite widespread, so we should have some good racing given our form from the previous few events. The entry overall is very impressive, especially in Supercars. I assumed, wrongly, that people might not be so keen on going as it is the last round of the season, a standalone event and all the titles are wrapped up, but the list is very impressive for any event.

Another reason to go to Czech is to research further for our plans for next season, and the changes we wish to make to the car over the winter months. There is no better experience than talking to people who have already made mistakes and changed ideas, and seeing different peoples interpretations of the best way of doing things. On top of this I also have to deliver some cylinder head parts that are heading to Sweden for development.

Over the last few months I have been trying to do more with the promotional side of my rallycross adventure. When I first started with the Clio project I was very good at finding the time to write and publish stuff about what I was doing, but then I had less to worry about, and ironically there was also less to write about and inform people of.  I have recently re-launched my website, and also had flyers made to give out on events. The website is just a guide about who I am and what we have done, and a way of giving something back to my sponsors, and keeping people up to date with news. The flyers are to give out on events, it again showcases sponsors and also gets more publicity, you never know who is going to read or see what you put on there, and it might always land you some sponsorship or support if people like what they see.

Of course, results always help your sponsorship hunting cause, and after this coming weekend we will hopefully have some more good news to send out to people who are on the cusp of giving us some backing for the 2012 season.

With every event we go to with the Clio we make progress, and i’m not just saying that to make myself feel better about things. Belgium and Holland were no different to this form, but there were points during the events that it felt like it wasn’t going so well.

Scruiteneering in Belgium was tough, the hardest we have been to. The Clio got pulled and failed on all sorts of things that have always been fine in the past. One such example was the way ballast is held down and the fact it wasn’t lock-wired. These have been in the car since it was built, but all of a sudden they were an issue. By contrast, scruiteneering in Holland was very straight forward.

Once we did get onto the circuit in Belgium the car was feeling much better again than it has previously. The extra power from the exhaust manifold was making a good difference and we played with the set-up in practice which helped a lot. Sometimes we make a change to improve the set-up and I get in the car and its worse, but if we don’t try we will never know!

One thing the car is great at is getting on the startline. I have to say, throughout my time in Rallycross one thing I have always been good at is starting. People watching comment on the fact that I always move first, a split second reaction to the lights, and the car puts its initial power down well. However, when other peoples greater power and sequential gear boxes come into play we normally get out dragged to the first corner. In Belgium, we managed to still be in the mix after the first corner and this changes the race totally, not always jokering on the first lap and being in the mix a bit more.

 The rain came in timed practice, and during a damp and slippy session we were 22^nd fastest, which was very encouraging. I enjoy the slippy conditions, its not all about power and i’m comfortable with the car sliding around. Having said that, the wet was also my downfall in Belgium, but in a different capacity. We had a good couple of first heats, and in the third I was second for most of the race, until the penultimate lap. The circuit had been watered and was slippy, but when I entered the joker lap I hadn’t appreciated how wet it was, I was carrying far too much speed and ended up in the wall on the outside. I finished the heat, albeit slowly. It was just one of those things and I don’t regret pushing as hard as I did.

The damage was mainly superficial, so we got it patched up the next day at the circuit in preparation for Holland.

One thing of note was that my fastest lap in the second heat in Belgium would have been good enough for forth fastest when the British SuperNationals went to Belgium a month earlier, which gave me encouragement.

The week in between the two events was spent re-preparing the car, and going to the campsite near the Valkenswarrd circuit. It amazing who you meet and who has time to chat and discuss things when a lot of like minded people are together, but without the pressure of race day, and we certainly made some new friends, and weirdly some of those that I have been looking up to and admiring for years.

Holland was much more to my liking than Belgium, and practice in the dry went well. It was good that I knew my way around and I was starting to feel like I was on top of the car. The rain came down hard for timed practice, and we were 14^th (from 40ish) fastest! I was made up, the rain had played its part by falling harder near the end, but as we qued for the first heat it was brilliant being in one of the races near the end, instead on in the first couple as usual.

The first heat was still wet, I didn’t make a great start for a change and was last coming into the first corner. Everyone was bunching up on the inside, so I decided to try a do or die and go for the outside – and it worked. I ran second for the race, and it was all going really well until the last corner. I took too much kerb next to the exit of the joker lap and got a puncture, I then missed a gear and got very sideways coming into the last corner, and whilst saving it got a hit from behind, and again… and again, and ended up in the wall. I drove across the line but had even more damage and a rubbish time. Being punted me off didn’t even save the other guy any time, in fact it would have been faster for him to have not punted me off at all and followed me across the line, but such is life.

We got it repaired again, and the rain was even harder on Sunday morning. We opted to go for forest tyres for the second heat, and although it was a total unknown it worked, 3 seconds faster than Veltman, who has always been my benchmark and who we want to beat first. The third heat was set up to be good, and I really felt we could beat Veltman through the whole event on merit. I jokered on the first lap, feeling that with some clear air I could catch and pass the people in front, but a slower car behind chose not to joker, I caught them straight up and struggled to get past. I thought afterwards I probably lost two seconds, and that is the time we lost to Veltman, he beat us, but only just.

We want to make a lot more changes to the car, specifically suspension related, but we also still need more power. Other people just pull past us in a straight line. The week in between Belgium and Holland helped on both of these fronts, collecting ideas and help from others, notably some Scandinavian friends means that this winter I want to change the car significantly, and now we have learnt from what we have already done I really think we can find a lot more time yet.

When we started with the Clio we were 12+ seconds a heat behind the C final sort of pace. Now we are within a second of that, but it’s so much harder and more expensive to find the tenths than the seconds.

I won’t be in Austria or Poland, some bills need settling before I go anywhere else, but we are going to patch the car up and go to Czech for the last round if we can, last year was a great event but we didn’t get far due to reliability problems. Then it will be planning for next year … we are defiantly moving in the right direction.

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.