Once again I found myself swamped with work causing the now familiar last minute rush to check the race car over before departing to Donnington. This race weekend was going to be a very different affair than what has become the norm. Karin was having to work the weekend, my 'opposition' in my class and in another Clubby - Steve (Young) - has resigned himself to doing the last race of the year at Oulton park due to work pressures, and stats man and hospitality provider Keith (Manning – now Otto v

The decision was taken that it wasn't worth hauling all the usual kit and caboodle to the track just for the two of us for a one day event this time – so we both got up at rude hours of the morning on the Sunday to drive from our respective parts of the countryside to get to Donnington for signing on and scrutineering. A VERY long time since I've done that. Anyway – I'm jumping ahead a bit here.

The decision to drive down at the crack of dawn (well, before that actually) on Sunday and make it a one-day affair saw me leave the pre-race check until Saturday. Foolish, I know – but work pressures and some seriously aggravating new parts issues causing work to get very held up forced me into it. The plan was simple – dash to Halfords in York first thing Saturday morning for a new decent battery charger, whisk up to Pickering for a jerry can full of BP Ultimate unleaded fuel, then back to sort the race car. Be done by lunch time. Yeah. Right.

Halfords didn't open until later than usual by some half hour because of road works outside the store. The traffic to Pickering and back was a complete trudge. And then there was the race car... I had already decided to re-set the front dampers to what I had been running prior to the changes I made at Snetterton. I needed to change the oil to put the good stuff (Torco SR5 5W50). And I wanted to check the valve clearances (valve lash). And make sure the calipers weren't leaking again! I jacked the car up, put on axle stands, removed the wheels to find.. .nothing! Calipers bone dry. Phew. Dropped the oil out whilst I re-set the dampers and checked the front suspension/brakes over, then checked the coolant level in the rad as it was getting pretty warm at the end of the Snetterton Race and blew water out in the collecting area after. I poured water in, and more water... hell – it certainly dumped some water! Perhaps I need to consider an over-flow tank... but then I was also considering going back to the electric water pump and two rad set-up I was using initially for various reasons – but mostly because the existing set-up is a complete pain to work on/around. With the cooling system topped up I went to jack the car up off the axle stands (having put the wheels back on of course!) to find a small but growing pool of fluid on the floor under the engine... Now what!!! Further investigation showed drips running off the bottom edge of the engine front plate. Tracing this back showed the fluid coming from the water pump. Hmph – not again. There was a reason though – the water pump retaining bolt closest to the alternator mounting point had fallen out and was missing completely! New one on me – and how the hell did that happen? Did I miss tightening it up?

So – now I had to fit a new water pump gasket. And that forced my hand. Dealing with the current ally rad and two piece rad cowl is such an arse I decided there and then to go back to the leccy pump set-up. I checked the pump was still working and set too. When I got down to taking the pump off – the other three bolts were all tight, so I suspect I didn't miss tightening it up – it must have come loose from vibration. One more thing to remember to check in future – though not with the leccy pump as no mechanical water pump is used. I had put all the leccy-pump/two rad set-up in a box just in case such an occasion arose so locating all the parts was not an issue. I had the re-installation completed in a relatively short space of time. I filled the system with coolant, re-checked the pump was pumping then continued with setting the VCs and re-filling with oil. Whipped the spark plugs out and span the motor over to get oil pressure, popped the plugs back in and hit the button. The motor fired first time; I ran it for awhile to get 70 degrees on the gauge, switched it off and checked for leaks. Everything was good to go, so I loaded the car on to the trailer and sorted all the other paraphernalia out that accompanies me to the race track – tools, a few spares, cleaners, oils, that sort of thing. Now it was just a case of getting up at 05:00 Sunday morning and departing as fast as possible...

With the car on it's original settings from pre-Snetterton, the plan was to do a tyre pressure/temperature check to see what they were getting up to. For the practise session I asked my pit crew – now expanded to two at the arrival of friend Jim Davidson from America – to give me a pit board with '5' on it when I had completed 5 laps and I would come in at the end of the 6th whereupon they would jump on the car tooled up with tyre pyrometer, tyre pressure gauge and note board. I asked them to be as close to the pit lane entry as the marshals allowed to avoid too much temperature loss. You'd be surprised how fast the tyres cool down once off the racing pace. Armed with the equipment my men set of for the pit lane and I trundled off to the collecting area – obviously having done the pre-race fuel, water, oil, wheel nut torque thing.

I love Donington as a circuit, once again despite it not being an overly Mini-friendly place as it is very fast. I took a few laps to get my head round the place as I hadn't raced here for a few years then got a bit more serious. I got the signal on the lap board and came in as planned. Otto and Jim did their stuff quickly and efficiently and out I went again. Slightly wary of the fact the tyres may have cooled a bit I took it relatively easily for that out lap, then a more determined lap after. That lap I took things very much easier at certain points on the circuit and it turned out to be my quickest lap, post practise scrutiny concluded my driving is probably more of a problem than the cars suspension set-up. I am obviously over-driving the car. The tyre check was pretty surprising – cold the tyres were at 35psi. The hot-check showed they had ballooned to 48psi at the front and 42psi at the rear. Strewth! Ambient air/cold tyre temp was 61 deg F, hot check had 165 deg F left front, 125 deg F right front, 132 deg F left rear and 122 deg right rear. Now this is very interesting but what does it mean? Do I need to start with lower tyre pressure/ Or are these hot readings what's needed? Nobody has an answer. Dunlop un-helpfully just say the pressure should be 40 psi... but not whether that is hot or cold! I didn't know whether my best lap was representative of what I should be achieving but as I was the only one in my class and again in front of a few bigger engine cars it was judged to be OK. Again second row from the back of our diminishing grid sizes (we need more players out there guys!)

A very long and un-welcomed break between practise and race – a whole 7 hours! - passed very slowly. A quick check over showed all to be in order, a re-fuel and that was it. As we were preparing to go to the collecting area, a few spots of rain appeared. Was it going to help me out in the race this time? I was praying hard I can tell you... It continued spitting for quite some time. We formed up on the grid after the warm-up lap, lights on, lights off -and a cracking start by me. I blasted down the middle of the pack up to the tail end of the hot front runners into Redgate. It was fairly civilised going through the first part of Redgate, then folks started getting out of shape on cold tyres in desperation not to loose places, at which point I was squeezed fairly heavily out towards the edge of the circuit by a Dolomite Sprint. I backed off, went round the back of him and nailed it to find an RS2000 looking to remove my door mirror and handle. I held on as long as I could, but prudence prevailed – I wasn't going to trash the car on the first lap – and spoil my luvverly Aussie arch extensions! Another slewing RS200 caused others to take avoiding action, including me,a and I lost several more places. And then it started spitting rain a bit harder, the track was getting greasier, and I was grinning more and more. The first two laps were terrific on the slippery surface, I managed to get back past several cars and was concentrating on the next gaggle in front of me. It was that they were on 'pause' and I was 'fast forward' thing again. Then the windscreen dried up, along with the track and I was going backwards again! I fought hard trying to hold off those few cars as they caught me in the closing laps. But on that long back straight I couldn't do much about them. One was so desperate to get past me (RS200) that he blew his motor over-revving it! And Avenger-man out-braked himself in to the chicane and damn near swiped me off the circuit! He defends very firmly... I've gotta get away from him!

The chequered flag came out as Avenger-man beat me to the line by less than a half car length. It was damned good race and I had enjoyed it. Especially as I have now worked out that my driving is a real issue and that I am far happier on the greasy-wet surface when the whole car is sliding about. This means I need to get the car behaving in a similar fashion in the dry – loose is fast after-all! I have no idea where I finished except the usual first in class since there was only me in it. But I wasn't last by a long way. And typically the rain came down as I was loading the car on the trailer! One day it'll happen at the right time.

When I got home – I checked the lap record on our club's website (http://www.classictouringcars.com) to find to my surprise that I was barely 0.6 seconds slower on that good lap... promising and hugely satisfying. Thruxton next – I intend making a couple of small changes to ride height and rear tracking, though Thruxton is definitely not a place to have a car you can't control! A very fast open circuit. No fun for the Mini in the dry... maybe we'll have rain there!