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.