A few changes, hopefully improvements, have taken place since the last race at Cadwell Park. The most obvious is the addition of the front splitter. It looks like it was made for the Y10, but the simple reality is that it is a combination of Universal Splitter kit and Universal Splitter Corners from, of all places, Halfords. Less obvious is that all the windows bar the windscreen have been replaced with perspex.

Peter White, from whom I bought the original rally car, let me have some perspex door windows he had. They came with ready-made sliding doors for ventilation, much needed after I nearly fried at Cadwell due to lack of ventilation. All the glass and mechanisms all came out of the doors along with the strengthening bars. Terry weighed it and found he had removed 20kgs from the doors alone! After this the tailgate and rear side windows were replaced with perspex also, along with the tailgate having most of its inner skin removed. So I guess the car is 25kgs or so lighter than at Cadwell Park.

Needless to say, brake lights were properly wired in at this stage and finally the car went off to the rolling road again. The boost setting was a little conservative so this has been upped. I am now running 1 bar, still pretty conservative, but the dyno trace showed 122bhp at the flywheel at 5700rpm, an improvement of 9 horsepower. The power curve is still very smooth but she runs very rich.

Anyway, back to the plot. I had loaded the car onto the trailer on the Sunday at which point she was running as sweet as can be, but when unloading at Mallory, it became apparent that all was not well. She sounded rough, like she was only running on 3 cylinders. Anyway, first things first, so off to scrutineering. This time there were no surprises and we got the pass ticket first time. Back to the paddock, bonnet up. I'm no mechanic and had travelled solo for this trip so I was a little worried. Help was at hand. Roberto Giordanelli, he of Auto-Italia fame, not to mention that 500bhp Alfa GTA, was parked up next to me. He came over offering assistance which was gratefully received. At first it seemed that the HT lead for no. 1 cylinder was at fault but then it was decided that no. 1 spark plug had fouled up big time - must start carrying spare spark plugs!

It was around this time that James Nicklin arrived. Luckily for me, he had come in his Y10 Turbo. He was sent off to the car park with spark plug spanner in hand and duly returned with his plugs. Put them into my car and all was well. Well, at least I thought it was!

Practice started. Lined up in the pits ready to go, feeling quite confident although not knowing my way round the circuit. The green light came on and I was away. Blast through first gear, same again in second, up into third as I enter Gerrards, the longest circuit corner in the UK, and oh dear, fuel starvation. Lifted off and she started running again only to keep misfiring as soon as I floored the throttle. I limped round to the paddock entrance and came back in. Ran fine in the paddock so I went back out but to no avaiil. This time it was worse, I didn't make it back to the paddock entrance - the engine cut. I had run out of petrol and had to be pushed back in by the marshalls. Got a bollocking from the Clerk of the Course for stopping out on the circuit, but he was sympathetic when I explained what had happened. He also told me he would sort out my race entry if I could get the car running - top man!

Well, the obvious thing was that I had run out of petrol. I had completely underestimated the fuel consumption of the car. I had put in a fair bit up at Cadwell and naively assumed I would have enough for practice (the following day we did the Lancia Motor Club track day at Goodwood as a result of which I now know the fuel consumption to be about 8mpg!). Threw 3 gallons of fuel into the car and informed the Clerk I was ready to go. The deal was that when the cars lined up in the pits ready to go out for the race, I would do 2 laps on my own to get familiar with the circuit and then come into the pits from where I would start after the rest of the cars had got past the pit exit. Seemed a pretty fair deal to me, especially as I expected to start near the back anyway.

The race started, a clean start by everyone else and then the pit lane light went green. I was off. Most of the day had been spent watching the weather as it was changeable and had already rained big time straight after practice, but like everyone else, I had decided to go with the slicks. I was only a couple of laps into the race when I caught up with the Fiat 127GT and to my surprise I overtook him! Well that's one of my ambitions achieved for the year - with hindsight I might well have achieved the other by not qualifying last had practice gone better. On about lap 8 it started to rain, suddenly realised I needed the wiper on which was interesting as the wiper switch is situated behind the gear stick but I didn't know which switch it was. Luckily the slicks were warm enough that even though the rain started coming down hard, I only had one slight slide (at the hairpin) and was lapping only a little slower.

Caught up with the 127 again, and lapped him, although the two race leaders lapped me twice. The highlights of the race for me were that I was lifting a rear wheel most times round the hairpin, and on one occasion I moved over at the hairpin to let the Maserati Ghibli Cub go past, accelerated out of the hairpin only to have to lift off to let him go! As you can see from the results page, I finished 3rd in class (there were 4 starters, the Minari didn't make the start) so now I have 16 more points in the bag. Shame we don't have a podium for the classes! Take a look at some of the pictures taken by James Nicklin at the hairpin.

Next race, Silverstone on October 1^st - my entry is in and has been accepted. I am still hoping for the 127 Sport camshaft to turn up which might increase the power (and rev range) a little and the new Leda springs which didn't make it in time for Mallory.

Visit the Le Mans Motorsport site for details of the Le Mans Auto-Italia championship and standings so far.

Check out the race report for this race.