Preparations...

As a shakedown for this year's main event, the Manx historic rally,
which is a round of the British Championship, we decided to give 277 BRX
a run on the Leukaemia Rally at the end of June.

The Rally starts in the Welsh valleys north of Newport and is popular for its long and varied special tests, of which there are 21 during the day as well as 6 regularity sections. We were seeded at number 2 out of a strong entry of 60 crews and with Anthony Preston navigating on brilliant form, by the time we reached the lunchtime halt we were well in contention with the leading crews after 11 tests and 4 regularities.

In the afternoon the clutch started misbehaving and we adjusted the throw step twice to try and keep some pedal. We persevered with little or no clutch until the uphill start of the second last test. We tried for 20 minutes, but with only 15 minutes of the Rally left we had to miss the last 2 tests and struggled to the finish starting the car in gear on the key. We got 19 penalties for our trouble and finsihed 17th, 16 minutes away from the winner.

Before our problem we were leading by 3 minutes! The good news is that we have found the fault, a fatigue in the clutch lever arm causing the ball to slow.

Manx Rally Recce...

We completed the recce last weekend on the island to prepare our pace notes as we have not competed on the Manx before. The stages are very varied, some very fast sections, some very tight and twisty with fords, railway crossings and vicious jumps. It will be a real test of the car to get through 23 stages totalling 156 miles including some of the famous TT course.

The rally starts on Thursday evening and finishes on Saturday and you can follow the progress of the moderns and historics on www.mir.co.im

There are 9 Mini crews entered as follows with Glen Leece (local IOM hotshot) and Mervyn (magic) Johnston from Ireland likely to set the pace among the Minis.

127 Glen Leece Morris Cooper S (local)

128 Mervyn Johnson " " (Irish)

130 Matthew Pearce " " (UK)

138 Philip Smith " " (UK)

146 Mike Barratt " " (UK)

147 Eric Martin " " (local)

151 Alison Lock " " (UK)

153 Peter Horsburgh " " (UK)

154 Tony Mitchell " " (local)

Importation rules regarding vehicles are very specific: Only those over 25 years in age may be brought in to the USA without compilance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).