Myself and co-driver Craig Burgess contested the 2^nd Round of the 1.9 Scholarship on the North Humberside Rally, a forest rally based from Hull in North Yorkshire.

We were determined to our mishaps behind us and get out and set some good times in the Yorkshire forest. However we could not shake off the gremlins of the first round and the engine problems raised their ugly head again. SS1 and within 400 metres of the start line the car started to splutter, with a cloud of smoke appearing over Yorkshire which foretold of an underlying and probably major engine problem. We could not get the car to accelerate past 70mph on a straight usually taken flat out in 5^th Gear. We met up with the service team who frantically fixed the car by altering the oil breather system to go into a catch tank.

SS2 was the longest stage of the day with 12 miles of forest gravel track. The stage did not get much better, 4 miles in and the power steering belt fell off again and I was left wrestling with the wheel for another eight demanding miles. To add to the drama, oil was now pouring from the engine onto the exhaust and smearing the windscreen. This certainly made things interesting not being able to see clearly whilst driving just short of 100mph. We arrived at the finish line only to have oil set the car alight and quick reactions with fire extinguisher saved the fire from spreading.

SS3 was another disaster when after 3500 miles of driving the accelerator cable decided it was time to fall off and caused a loss of a further 3 minutes. SS4 and finally we got a clean run though, although we were still at times battling with a dying engine on the long straights, which meant slower times that expected.

SS5 saw another good run, but I decided to turn the engine off at the finish line to prevent another fire. The car then refused to restart and after frantically trying everything to get the car restarted, it later turned out to be a faulty coil.

On inspection of the engine after the rally I found 4 cracked pistons that had been causing all the problems since Round 1 of the championship. All the other gremlins had simply been symptoms of the main problem. More frustratingly for us was the fact that we still didn’t get the opportunity to set a true time in which to gauge our pace.

However we will be out on the next round, which is a British Rally Championship event, Rally of Wales, a forest rally based in Mid Wales on the 15^th and 16^th April.

Hopefully with a freshly built engine and we will be fully determined to put things right. I am worried that with all the hiccups, budget restraints may see the later rounds being cut back unless we manage to secure a sponsor. Ho hum, the joys of our sport!