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 [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…

When I last wrote here in Rallycross World prior to Lydden Hill I was starting to get the feeling that we might not make it to the first round of the European Rallycross Championship. I sit here now having  contested not only the first round but the third round in France too.

The build up to Lydden Hill was frantic to say the least. With 15 or so days to go the car still hadn’t been rolling road tested and I still didn’t have my dogbox back from Gripper. We eventually got to the rolling road at JabbaSport where the mapping went well, and although there wasn’t any more power than in 2010 the vernier pulleys have made for a [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…