Thursday May 27^th started worryingly wet. I had been looking forward to my next attempt at grass Autotesting for a full two weeks now and after a last minute struggle to complete the installation of a working CD/radio I now had the pleasure of driving to work in the rain. Lovely. Thankfully it had all but stopped raining by the time I reached the office, the subsequent sunshine and breeze was sure to dry the hills of Farningham, where later we would play. By afternoon it was positively warm outside and I was cooking nicely under the glass roof panels of the MR2. I unpacked my gear, removed those pesky panels and signed-on. There was an eerie quietness to begin with and other competitors had not yet arrived. Andy Watkins made quick work of all the tests to ensure he returned home in time for wedding anniversary celebrations. Well done indeed to him, full marks for mixing motorsport and marital duties on the same day… the same goes for Clive Cooke who ran the event, also on his wedding anniversary.

The first thing to note is that I didn't stick to the plan I made at the end of the last event, to do each test once then go around again, hoping for better grip on the second pass. Instead I chose to complete many of them as quickly as possible, allowing me more time to observe others. From a competitive point of view this was wrong, but I'm doing it to learn, not to win, so why would it matter? I will try the other method sometime but on this occasion it felt right to do what I did.

Interestingly many of the tests had a mixture of surfaces right from the start with some long grass, some short grass and some slightly muddy areas. The grip on the long grass was almost non-existent so those who waited for that to go were sure for better results. Most of the tests included some very tight turns at some point; two of them included mandatory reversing. I managed to avoid the embarrassment of any wrong routes but I did manage to squash one cone, totally misjudge a number of turns, requiring some unplanned reversing, and two spins were thrown in for good measure. I had adjusted my rear tyre pressures vs. the last outing, to try to make it easier to control the rear of the car on the throttle but in hindsight I think this was a mistake, or perhaps I went too far, resulting in very low traction at some critical points. Exhausted dampers didn't help either. I also neglected to raise my side window on a number of occasions so I got a face full of dust when I spun. That's learning!

Although I wasn't too impressed with my times, as compared to others, I did manage to take 3^rd in class and I had opted to run early on the grass rather than wait for the mud. Perhaps I will remember that next time and run some kind of strategy!

Thursday 10^th June was to be the debut of my new dampers. After attending the polling station set up in the village hall I remembered that I'd left my tyre pressure gauge at home, so I returned to collect it. I decided to set the dampers a little firmer for my journey to work before I set off. Luckily I had elected to keep the roof panels on the car because no sooner had I reached the M20, the heavens opened. Thankfully that little patch of bad weather was gone by lunchtime and a pleasant evening was in prospect.

The usual Thursday evening traffic on the QE2 bridge was of no surprise, but during this wait I was treated to an occasional display of red warning lights on the dashboard. I knew from previous events that the alternator voltage regulator was not behaving itself but this was no time for it to give up completely! Luckily it didn't, but it when it was charging it was often over charging (there is a battery voltage gauge on the dashboard).

I was the first competitor to arrive at the Autotest venue but since the grass was quite long I could not see many of the cones, especially seated so low in the car. I waited for the grass to get flattened a little and I begun my first attempts at each test. Sadly, after a couple of tests, the alternator stopped charging the battery altogether so I had to retire, to give myself plenty of time to get home. Typically, as soon as I reached the public road, the charge returned, but it was basically unregulated, leading to me keeping all electrical accessories switched off whilst maintaining low revs. I made it home and by 10pm the alternator was rebuilt with the electrical pack from one of my spares, early the next day it was fully installed and functioning correctly.

The tests this week didn't include any reversing, much to the relief of some people. There were a good variety of tight and sweeping tests, however. I stuck to my guns on strategy and set out to complete each test once, in number order, before going for my second runs. This worked ok for the first two tests, but when I reached the second field I found that we were still one marshal short, so I skipped to test 5 where my trouble was unleashed! Having never wrong-routed this year I blotted my copybook by getting thoroughly confused and aborting the run. I also forgot to start the video camera so any foul language was thankfully not recorded. Fuelled with frustration I went back for another go almost immediately because there was only a short queue. This time I left my window open and as I drifted around one of the marker cones I got a face (and car) full of dust and grass, which totally put me off, partially blinded me and really annoyed me… so that was a double WR which meant I would be quite badly penalised. Silly boy.

By the time I'd completed tests 5 & 6 a new timing strategy had been employed at the course for tests 3 & 4, with a couple of stalwart competitors taking over the stopwatch to keep things moving.

I completed the rest of the runs in reasonable times but that was largely irrelevant as my time penalty was sure to drop me to the bottom of the pile… and it did. I was pretty happy that I now had some kind of technique established and now I will turn more attention to the setup of the car. After some discussion with my fellow competitors I think I need to run a different set of tyre pressures to enable me to steer the car more with application of power whilst keeping the understeer to a minimum. Making mistakes in the routes is purely down to me of course, but I'm pleased at my progress so far.