I put all other work on hold and tackled each problem in turn, and by the day before the race the only problem left was how to get the car to the race. Luckily Dave Ried turned up trumps and lent me his new trailer for the weekend, top bloke.

I got to Snetterton at midnight, pitched my new tent (special offer from the supermarket) and passed out. I awoke at 4am because it was bloody freezing, the cheap tent offered no wind protection and even less insulation, so I took it apart and covered the back of the Disco with it and slept quite comfortably on the back seat instead. Never buy cheap camping equipment.

Once out for the qualifying session I had time to relax a bit, but then it occurred to me I couldn’t remember if I had torqued up the wheel nuts, needles to say my first lap was conservative. But after a few laps, gathering pace with nothing major falling off, I started to feel quite happy with the car.

The suspension and final drive mods seemed to work rather well and inspired confidence, my home brewed exhaust sounded commandingly raucous and the engine pulled strongly past about 120mph. Crikey, it felt good.

I am used to qualifying last, but this time managed to have four cars behind me at the start of the first race. As the start lights went out I managed to loose all four places in the first hundred yards. Now I was in familiar territory, but it soon became clear that the car was faster than the one in front which meant it was time to practice the high art of overtaking. Unfortunately I am crap at this, but after dithering on several corners I worked out a safe place to go for it and dived up the inside of the first car, then I remembered to breathe again. The next car was taken on the straight, the new diff proving absolutely spot on as I crept past at about 130mph, whilst all the time my mind was screaming to slow down for the next corner. Another two cars were taken before the end of the race leaving me 22nd out of 28 starters with two cars not finishing.

Gordans old car was driven by Mike Sharman, new to the series, who took off like a thing possessed and won the class 1st rather decisively. So it looks like I will have a lot more competition this year and my hopes of getting a few class 2nd s started fading.

The second race was on the Sunday and the grid positions were based on the results of the previous race which meant no less than six cars starting behind me. I was determined to get my start right this time so I talked to the drivers starting around me to get an idea of what to do, Paul Reynolds and Crash Gordan were really helpful and a strategy was hatched.

Sitting on the grid I was still nervous, but when the start lights went out I dived up the outside of two cars in front of me, excellent! Into the first corner surrounded by sliding jaguars, it seemed impossible get that many cars round such a small corner. I conceded the two places to my fellow racers who were much faster, not wishing to slow them up. On the straight I was behind Crash Gordan who is the fastest chap in our class, I figured that if I could just keep up with him then I would learn something. Unfortunately all I learned I s how important it is to prep your car, as his coolant system exploded and covered my windscreen in glycol. The fact that I couldn’t see through it was resolved when I tried to brake and simply went very sideways, sliding on his glycol slick, thus allowing me to see where I was going through the side window.
Setting the suspension up to be progressive paid off as the car waggled through the esses with the casual flair of a drunken tango dancer, but crucially managed to stay on the track. Which was nice. Unfortunately other, faster, racers were not so lucky, have a look at Dave Robbies web site for more info.

I made up a couple of places and was sitting 3rd in class again when I rounded the final corner, at the end of the long straight I could see the chequered flag out, but also I could see the 2nd in class chap easing up. It was an opportunity too good to miss so I stayed in second gear and buried the accelerator, I saw the rev counter go into the red, so obviously I stopped looking at it and kept accelerating. I think that if I had to drive the racer home then I wouldn’t have done that, just goes to show that having a trailer is worth seconds on the track. I got six inches in front of him at the finish line and won the first trophy of my life for 2nd in class, the phrase ‘well chuffed’ springs to mind.

There are still mods to be done, however. The diff is cooking due to the inboard brakes. After a cool down lap and a 10 min delay in parc ferme, I measured the rear diff casing temperature at 160 C. That counts as ‘bad’.
Also, when giving it some beans the cooling system couldn’t cope and the temperature started to rocket. On the track I started to use top gear more which helped keep the temp under control but did nothing for my lap times.
I now have a 6 litre XJ40 in pieces in the workshop so the next mod is to get the outboard brakes fitted and see if I can use bits of its cooling system (which is a lot neater than the XJ-S).
I hope to have this all done for Mallory, fingers crossed.