The annual Clubmans Track Day gave 40 car owners, plus wannabee competitors, spare drivers, hopefuls, wives and lovers, sponsors (yes Rob Oldaker of MG Rover was there in the Le Mans race suit) the opportunity to spend the day together at the Friendly Circuit. Most of us went to shake down the car before the season as the priority. Any drives given to others would be a second priority, but we did our best to pretend otherwise!

Having spent the whole winter working on my new dazzling yellow with blue stripe Mallock Mk 26/27, you can imagine the chagrin at having a breakdown after five laps. We had overhauled the engine, new clutch, starter motor, diff, suspension and shocks all round, fuel system, bodywork. What broke? The gearbox! I got on the circuit and started to warm the car up, at 09h15 in the morning, with at least three drivers waiting to drive my car afterwards. Accelerating out of the hairpin from 2nd to 3rd their was a sudden cracking and a horrifying rapid clunking coming from the left centre of the car. No drive. I coasted to the pit road and closed down. It took us five minutes to diagnose a broken gearbox. As Lady Luck would have it, that lady of luck Sue Mallock had called me two weeks ago to ask if I wanted a used gearbox, same as mine as a spare. I said yes. She brought it to Mallory and had delivered it to me five minutes before I went out.

Ian heaved a huge sigh, muttered something about having to take the engine out to get the bell-housing and gearbox off, got his tools out and set to work. I am getting to know the car well and was able to help productively. Cockpit walls off, drive shaft off, support the engine, undo the bell-housing bolts, struggle with some horrid bolts with Allen Key fittings from the inside of the bell-housing, and the box is off. The new one had a different fitting to the chassis which required some deft drilling by Ian, but the bell-housing and drive shaft fittings were the same. We finished three hours later. Brilliant effort by Ian, and another demonstration of the Clubmans Spirit. I was delighted, especially as I hope to race the car next Monday (Easter) at Castle Combe for fun.

In fact there were quite a few breakdowns. Adrian Brown blew a head gasket. Adrian Lester blew a head gasket (the water in the oil at high speed down the back straight seized the engine up solid. Martin Covill was crowbarred into the Genesis of the EBXs and lasted 30 seconds and the pit road before something gave up the ghost. What else, I forget. Let's hope everyone has reliable race meetings this year. Oh, the good news, Mike Luck's car was running, and still running at the end.

Anyway, my car was going again. Ian gingerly shuffled it round the paddock to check the drive chain, then accepted my invitation to drive it on the track. It was memorable for me and all his mates to see him back on the track again, getting to grips quickly with a new car, and showing verve and poise. The picture of Matthew's hand gesture (above right) says it all!

VSCC racer Nick Cook had had to leave at lunch, and therefore did not drive mine, but Martin Covill got him going in the EBX. We got Cobra-nut Graham Bates out in the car (no pictures, sorry) and then Gareth Salter who has been doing trackside report for Brian Jordan and who is a future Clubmans champion. He should have bought my Allan Elphick car too. It has a nice big cockpit. Gareth had a splendid drive, with plenty of use of the right foot. We caught him on camera in the company of several other cars, including the Mike Luck Dart.

I then pulled rank and took the last two sessions. The car was going well by now. We softened the rear shock absorbers to reduce the sideways lunges the car was making at the entrance to Gerards and at the Esses. We discarded a nose cone that got uncontrolable vibrations on both straights (you see, I told you all there was sense in having lots of them. We just put another one on and it worked fine.).

I find my new car much more physical than Ian's. The plus side is that it's fast, probably because of its light weight. The down side is that it requires a lot of concentration and a ton of arm muscle. In Gerards, that endless 180° course reversal at full throttle, I felt like Rudolf Carriciola in a pre war Auto-Union, struggling with a recalcitrant rudder. The balance is actually pretty good otherwise, incipient understeer at Gerards, the Esses and the entry to the Hairpin, but with plenty of warning. It seems not to break at the back, but then that's the slicks'n'wings thing isn't... they don't let go till they let go. What a miracle to get a day done without a spin. Although Ian has built a lot of the interior body fittings new, and new venturi vertical walls at the back (pictures below), the car still has some clattery bodywork bits when the car gets wound up to speed, so I have some work to do getting parts really secure. But it IS FUN.

The reward for me was several lap under 50 seconds at the end of the day, including one at 49.04 seconds which is a tadge faster than I went in qualifying for 13th place on the grid at the second Mallory race last year (49.84). Oh, I nearly forgot, we were running in the new 3.7 diff!

The action on the pit wall was worth catching too. Pete Richings' thumbs-up at Joy is a darn sight more genuine than Matthew's at Ian!

Charlie Mallock had a first drive on a circuit, in the Mallock Mk.20 Classic B Class car which I drove four times last year. What a cracker. Good to see Charlie out there.

This must be the Howard Payne car, with a gleaming new EBX body, and a rather fetching Burgundy paint job. And who is the driver? Martin Covill thinks it's Adrian Brown.

What about Ian's work on my car over the winter. Have a look at these beautiful aluminium side panels to the rear venturi. Works of art.But see what happened at it's first race meeting ten days later by clicking here.

Ian fitted new Aeroquip fuel lines throughout (picture below), new shock absorbers front and rear, new bearings for the Mumford link axle mount system, roll-over bar extension to cover my height etc etc.

The panel on the left is by Ian, the spacing of the rivets equal to the millimetre. The rectangular panel is the mini voltmeter from Mallock Sports. Oh Ian, it was reading 9.8 to 10 volts on the track but the car was going fine, so maybe we don't have full reliability from the voltmeter yet. The picture also shows that the fire extinguisher is plumbed. I have redirected the nozzles so that when I pull that red jobby, a cloud of foam ejects from the rear and scatters the chasing pack behind me. Just joking.

The left hand wall of the footwell, protecting my legs from the engine and a potential engine fire, was mostly gaffer tape last year. Ian created this beautiful aluminium panel. The three dimensional countour round the clutch bell-housing displays some more rivetting to perfection.

To bring up the rear of this little report to open the season, here is the view from the back, the multi-diode bad weather light, also from Mallock Sports. It has its own battery so does not drain the engine's battery.