Dijon - Sunday

Another lovely morning at Dijon, although when my brother got up to run two laps of the circuit I decided that lovely as it might be I didn't need to 'tire myself out before my race'! Iain went with him but only did one lap - lightweight! About the time David would have been starting his second lap I put the croissants and pains au chocolate in the oven to warm up!

Our race was early today, so we were in the assembly area before ten. Lots of banter, especially after such a jolly night in the paddock! With John Chisholm getting called up out of the reserves all four of the FJs in Camp Delta were ready for action. To remind you of the situation, in my class I was lying in second position, and had 'fluked' a whole lap's advantage over Kim. Kim's gearbox had been out and in again so they could sort his clutch issue. Charles was out of the running for a result having retired after just one lap yesterday, but he was sorted again and ready to give chase to John Delane for class honours in today's race. Kim should be quicker than me, but basically I just needed to keep an eye on the gap to him and ensure we finished close enough together.

Another shambolic gridding up, I'm not sure why some people find it hard to work out where they should be going ... And the marshals were there to point us all in the right direction anyway. It was so shambolic that they ended up with 'Start Delayed' and a whole new start procedure, with a second green flag lap, although some obviously didn't see the safety car pull back out of the pitlane to lead us around, so they thought this was the race start and set off like scalded rabbits, only to fall back into line some time later when they realised their error! I thought the second attempt was about to go the same way, but they put the lights out and we all floored it!

Interesting first lap, which had me up onto Kim's tail, but then the faster cars started to pull away, and Kim just eased out a lead on me. I'd asked the chaps to give me a pitboard indicating the gap to Kim so that I would know what was going on, and over the next few laps he eased a few seconds ahead, but not at a rate that was concerning me. I had a fun chase behind Eric Justesen in his U2 in Class B2, I was a touch quicker round the twisty back of the circuit, but he had more horsepower to draw away each time on the straight. Sadly he ended up ploughing headlong into the gravel eventually, which I gathered later was as a result of his differential locking up - rather pleased that didn't happen in different circumstances as we'd been pretty close together at times...

After maybe 9 or 10 laps Manfredo Rossi the race leader came up to lap me, usually the front of FJ races is pretty well contested, but he was alone and I let him by quickly, if he was going to lap me, I wanted him to get up the road and also lap Kim, otherwise the tables could be turned on me! It became irrelevant as my pitboard told me that I was closing on Kim now, I assumed that the traffic lapping him was slowing him down, but when I got on his tail with about half a lap to the finish he put up no resistance and I swept by. Yee haa - chequered flag, second in class again. Turns out that Kim had a recurrence of yesterday's slipping clutch. My car has been great, although I've had to manage my desire to chuck it around after the earlier gearbox issue, but I love this circuit, more power would be great, but it's huge fun.

Second in class gives me 8 more points, taking my total to 32 from the 4 rounds so far. 3 more rounds to go, but only the best 6 results count. John Delane had a good battle with Charles today, taking several laps to re-take the lead, but he had an easy class win overall, so he's now just 2 points behind me. Andrew Tart won Class B2 again, so he too is now just 2 points behind. Beyond that I haven't worked out what the points table will look like, but with 4 different winners from 4 races in the most competitive and highly populated Class E1 no-one will be running away with it. For the record, Manfredo Rossi took the win, with John Fyda second and Tommasso Gelmini third.

As you know I had expected to leave here no longer leading the championship, but when we roll on to the Nurburgring after a seven week break I will still be out front! In between now and then, Iain will give the car a major strip down, the bodywork will be painted, the engine will go to Swiftune for a refresh, and the gearbox will go some place too. Got to keep him and the boys at Delta busy, they have nothing else to work on (err, dear reader, you won't pick up the irony there, his whole team is flat out, but he assured me this work can and will get done in time!)

Been a great weekend, I love the circuit and the atmosphere it generates in the paddock, all very social, exactly what European racing is all about. Many thanks to Iain and Mike Bell for their work on the car, to my brother for lots of stuff, and all those that helped out with the BBQ on Friday, or in some way contributed to my enjoyment of the weekend. Great to catch up with loads of people or meet new ones and actually have a chance to chat for a change.

Oh, and did I mention that I met Brian Johnson!

Dijon - Saturday

A nice relaxed morning today, no bad thing as a little over-indulgence and late to bed last night had left me with a bit of a sore head - and lots of clearing up to do! David and I went for a cycle ride round the inside of the track which we never managed to do last year, lots of classic car clubs and a tented village of retail stands, a reasonable crowd and lovely warm weather.

Iain has brought 4 FJs and one Pre-61 F1 car down, so it's pretty busy in our little contingent, but unusually this morning everyone appeared to be in good order, and all of the cars seemed ready to run. John Chisholm is still a Reserve though, but at least he has another car to race.

Our race was mid-afternoon; by which time it was quite warm. The lap to the grid was quite quick, then followed by about the slowest Green Flag lap I can remember, and a shambolic start. I am quite good at scanning the grid ahead of me just before the 'off' and so I saw Caroline Abrou with her hand up, usually indicative of a driver with a car issue, but then she took it down again, so i assume that's sorted, then a yellow flag appeared momentarily over the pitwall before disappearing again ... Three, four, five red lights, then Justin Fleming alongside me decides he's waited long enough and goes anyway, the rest of us wait until the lights do actually go out! Charles Cook hasn't got away, and someone else is slow off too, all in all and with a tight bunched grid I decide to take an easy get-away, for safety sake, inevitably I lose a few places, but I don't lose any corners of the car (!) and I get two to three back before we've completed half a lap! I'm up behind Kim ... Hmm, what's going on there, I go past him. Things settle down for a couple of laps, before we have a car in the gravel at the first corner, which brings out the safety car.

So things have changed somewhat ... Before the start I'd already settled for 4th (last!) in class here, with my power deficit, and was planning to take it easy on the car, but now I'm up to second in class, but Kim is still running. These races are scored on aggregate result over two heats, he clearly has some minor issue slowing him, so it now becomes important for me to go hell for leather and get a decent Lead over him to take into race Two tomorrow. He's not far behind me in the queue behind the safety car, though, so when that clears I need to get on it again, I then have a fairly lonely race to the flag, but running some reasonably quick laps whilst trying hard to stress the car as little as possible. I finish 16th overall, 9 places up on qualifying and get my second place in class. At the end Kim's car is parked ahead of me in Parc Ferme, can only mean one thing - he'd got lapped by the leader, whereas I didn't, so by some more fluke I've put a lap on him; things are looking promising! Turns out he had a slipping clutch, his mechanic David and he have the 'box out again - 6 or 7th time in three race meetings...

Race is won by Manfredo Rossi, from 'Masterchef' John Fyda, Urs Eberhardt - Hockenheim winner - spins out of the leading group with 3 laps to go and cannot restart. Tommaso Gelmini is 3rd. My class is won by John Delane and with similar inevitability Andrew Tart wins Class B2. Daniele Salodini takes Class A and Luc Deneve Class D.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting!

We fire up the barbecue in the paddock and cook again for Iain and Mike, Kim and David, and a couple of others, beautiful evening here, very sociable paddock - after eating brother David and I take our glasses of wine and wander around some of the paddock parties, the French organiser's contingent are getting pretty lively, then we join the Aussies, then with them we wander over to join the Italians! Great atmosphere - exactly what these European meetings are all about. Tempting to drink too much wine ... But there are points up for grabs again tomorrow and our race is early in the day - must be sensible!

To cap a good day, I had a chat and a laugh with Brian Johnson ... He's loving his weekend, and wants to do more!! Good man!

Dijon - Friday

Qualifying... As you know I was already a little concerned about the gearbox after yesterday's free practice ... The car was getting 'loose', which means it was moving around at the back end more than it should. We've had this problem before, so I intended to go out and qualify relatively easier to try to keep load off it a bit, but you still have to 'try' somewhat, we are 'racing' after all! Anyway, I did a gentle couple of laps to start with, to ensure I had completed the single flying lap necessary to make sure that I get a race (we still have reserves who are not guaranteed a race), I then ran 3-4 quicker laps, I then had a couple more laps when traffic or yellow flags slowed me down, and finally the car got very 'loose' so I pulled it in to the pits, with a good 10 minutes left of qualifying. I pulled into the pitlane opposite Iain, who wobbled the rear end and agreed with my decision not to go any further ...

A bit surprised to find that my quickest lap was a 1:41:7, that being nearly 2 secs quicker than my best last year, but to put things into perspective, I'm still 27th on the grid, of 38 cars, bit disappointing; but here, with such a long main straight (1.1km) which starts with a relatively steep climb uphill, the power of the Fords really tells. I tried to stick with a few having been quicker through the twisty bits, so I could get a slipstream on the straight, but they'd gone by half way up the hill! As I had fully anticipated, all three of my class competitors are ahead of me, John Delane and Charles Cook by 4-5 secs and very close together, and Kim by just over one second, but he might have gone quicker if he hadn't thrown the car into the gravel mid-session!

There was a lot of play from the left hand driveshaft out of the gearbox/differential, Iain wasn't particularly familiar with the set-up in there, but he and Mike set to with the spanners and over the course of the next few hours it came to pieces, they found a displaced circlip, which should have been holding a shim in place, not sure why it would have come loose, and we're not convinced it's all of the issue, but they've adjusted it slightly with some bigger tools than it's probably ever expected to see, and cajoled it back into place. It's all been put back together, and it rather looks as though I'll be taking my place on the grid. Steve Futter is out with a cracked gearbox casing, shame for him, it's a long drive to here from Aberdeen... John Chisholm has had to change his gearbox this afternoon, and Kim will do his in the morning, I'm sure there are other stressed people too, these are FJs after all!

Excellent, well-attended FJ BBQ this evening, centred on our Motorhome. Credit to Penny Wilson for organising and shopping, assisted by Vivienne Watts and my brother David, to Malcolm Wishart and John Fyda for the actual cooking, and to several others led by Ayleen Wishart. Urs Eberhardt brought his usual half-a-cow steak, which he has to cook himself as it takes up a bbq to itself for about an hour! We got through all of the beer I'd brought from Brother-in-law Phil's most excellent Longdog Brewery, and will now have to drink wine tomorrow night! Very social crowd FJ.

Oh, yes, and I nearly forgot to mention, Brian Johnson, of AC/DC, said hello to me in the paddock!! A good day, hopefully more tomorrow.

Dijon - Thursday

Good drive down, but quite long, both of us very tired ... one major disaster ... we forgot the music completely ... nothing. 

We got here good and early this morning, in fact too early to get into the circuit. Beautiful warm sunny morning, clear blue skies. We got in eventually, found Iain and Mike and started getting set up, ready for our first test session scheduled to run at 1030. Only a few of us running in this session so going to be a practically empty track on a glorious day ... Fantastic. All warmed up, strapped in and we arrive in the pitlane, to be told there would be a delay due to the fact that the circuit Doctor had not yet arrived. Initially we were told an hour, but then they decided to move our session from first to last in the morning, so that other sessions would run on time once the Doc arrived. That meant 1230, I was desperate for a bit of sleep, but with circuit staff a bit shambolic, by the time we knew what we were doing there wasn't enough time. I had warmed up the car again and was just about to strap in for the rescheduled session, when a Porsche 908 in the previous session blew it's engine in quite a big, oily, way on the main straight. So this meant another delay whilst cement dust was put down over the oil. We eventually got out at about 1245, just a few laps and the chequered flag was out ... Why? We'd only run about 15mins not the 30mins ... Turns out it is now the marshals lunchtime ... Pretty fed up to be honest ...

I'd gone out only for a gentle run, to refamiliarise myself with the circuit and to check the car was ok, but despite not 'trying' I in fact ran nearly as quick as my best lap here last year, with 1:44:4. Car was okay, but sliding around a fair amount, and there seemed to be a reoccurrence of the dreaded lateral 'play' from the rear driveshafts/gearbox. Despite feeling 'short-changed' from the testing session, I decided not to run any more, this circuit is quite hard on the drivetrain, so I figured it best to save the car for the competitive elements... And keep my fingers crossed!

We'd expected some rain this afternoon, and when David and I were taking a cycle ride around we noticed the foreboding black clouds ... We scuttled back to camp, as all the motorhome roof vents and many windows were open, as it was such a warm day ... Not for much longer! Within the short time it took us to get back the wind had got up, people were rushing to secure awnings and tents. Some didn't make it ... Several destroyed awnings, included one quite big one that literally lifted 10ft in the air and landed astride a high fence breaking itself. We all rushed around helping whoever, strapping things down. Then the rain came of course, and in all this the temperature had dropped 10degrees or more.... Chaos! Not disimilar to last year. 

We'd intended to go back to the excellent little Bistro/restaurant about 3 miles away that David, Iain and I found last year having been caught out on our bicycles in the pouring rain, so we did contemplate repeating the experience in the rain this evening, but eventually decided against getting a soaking this year as it was a lot colder, so we wouldn't be doing it in short trousers that would dry out quickly! Dinner in the motor home, with David, Iain and Mike, and coupled with a sociable hour or so during the storm we have already made a significant dent in the beer supplies that we had bought for tomorrow's FJ barbecue...!

Sorry to hear that the David Methley blew his engine in testing this afternoon, he described it as an electrical failure, as the distributor cap had been knocked off ... by a conrod! Well the distributor sits outside the engine of course, and the conrods are supposed to stay inside, so that's a big blow up then - shame. Good to see Aussie Kim out on track, as he and his mechanic David had been changing the gearbox in the Lotus 18 this morning, I job they've had to do with boring regularity on this trip so far, fingers crossed for better luck.

Bedtime - I'm exhausted!

Off to Dijon... Round 4

A busy day at work tomorrow, but the Motorhome is largely packed ready to head out to Dijon tomorrow evening and drive over night. Fortunately I have my brother David along in support this weekend, so that'll ease the drive. He's an airline pilot, and is in the simulator at Heathrow tomorrow, but should get here about 2000, which is good timing as the kids will have just gone to bed, and we can head off to the Eurotunnel. We'll be well stocked with beer from brother-in-law Phil's brewery, and have plenty of food for Friday's FJ BBQ, where our Motorhome will be the focal point, and will the 'kitchen'!

Oversubscribed grid of 40 cars, so 4 are reserves. Slightly disappointed to see that there are only 4 in my C2 class this weekend, which is a shame. Particularly so because the other three are John Delane and Kim Shearn in their Lotus 18s and Charles Cook back in the Envoy with a rebuilt engine. Now all three of those are Ford-powered cars, with quick drivers, so to be honest I expect them all to beat me ... which in turn is likely to mean me losing the overall Championship lead, but I've been very lucky so far, and it has always been inevitable that 'normal order' would be resumed at some point!

I came to Dijon last year and despite driveshaft failure in Race 1 I still had a great weekend, the circuit is fabulous, unchanged from that epic F1 battle between Villeneuve and Arnoux back in 1979 - here on YouTube if you haven't seen it www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nxwn3OHkEw. The circuit is sweeping and undulating, with no namby-pamby health and safety chicanes, and a very long straight. While you're on YouTube you can see my highlights of Race 2 from last year here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jxeAUg72m6M&feature=plcp

We get plenty of track time, free practice (it's not free though!) all day Thursday and Friday morning, there are four sessions i could run in, but i'll probably do 2, as it's all quite expensive, and would be a lot of extra running for the car. Then the usual 25min qualifying Friday lunchtime, and two 25min races, one Saturday lunchtime, one Sunday morning.

We have one big decision left to make ... What music to keep us trucking on through the night ...? Could go with Zep, or Stones, or AC/DC (although after Brian Johnson 'blanked' me at Brands maybe they're off the playlist this time around!)

WiFi permitting I'll be blogging over the weekend.