I was competing once again with my co-driver Craig Burgess on the Pirelli National Rally, which followed the British Rally Championship Round the Pirelli International. The event was a loose gravel forest event based outside the town of Carlisle and we had a mega 9½ hour journey up to Cumbria.

The car was finished about 15 minutes before the start, after the dramas of the previous event and despite setting fast times early on and lying 2^nd out of the 20 Peugeots, mechanical problems and engine failure saw us fall to 6^th place. With a new engine barely run in and un-tuned the odds were always set against us. We got off to a steady start but we had changed the damper settings to handle the big crest and jumps in Keilder Forest to make the car more stable. This unfortunately proved to be a bad move as it just didn’t suit my driving style and I found the car way too lively.

We were setting mid table times for the first part of the day struggling with the new set-up. We tackled the magnificent purpose built spectator stage P-Zero and set a competitive time over the jumps and water splashes designed to please the crowds! I decided to adjust the suspension for the later stages and set constant top five times, but the set-up still wasn’t working for me. All was not lost however and we came home in 5^th place and 3^rd in the Junior Rally Driver Class, with only a damaged steering rack after striking a rock on the last corner of the rally, which is better than a lot of the crews tackling the notorious Killer Keilder stages.

I would like to give a massive thanks to our sponsors Prospeed Motorsport who, after taking part in their Rally Scholarship, offered to support us, thus enabling us to compete on the event. Our past and recent mechanical dramas have left me struggling to maintain a budget of sorts and we simply would not have been able to compete on the Pirelli without the backing. I would also like to give massive thanks to AB Motorsport who have helped me out, working through the night to build and install a new engine for the rally which did not miss a beat all day despite being hardly run in.

We are now lying 3^rd out of the 21 Scholarship entrants in the table now, which is the best position I have ever had, but we just don’t have any budget to contest anymore rounds. It is absolutely gutting because we are probably in the best possible position to challenge in the scholarship than we have ever been and with a car that’s now reliable and a great new engine, but the reality of this level of rallying is that without help you can’t win anything.

As the next scholarship round, the Mid-Wales Rally based in Newtown, draws closer we are hoping to be back out, on the pace with a tuned and more refined machine.