I decided in the end with Pembrey being so close to home and being relatively cheap compared to most of the circuits we go to that I’d be a mug not to do a bit of testing. I booked the afternoon session for the relative bargain of £105. It was quite odd packing all the stuff in the motorhome then having just a 40 minute journey to the circuit. It had been raining on and off all morning but the forecast for the afternoon was better. When I got there I was given a parking plan only to find the bit I was supposed to park in was completely jam packed so I parked where I could find a space.

I got the car off the trainler and swapped the wheels for the ‘wets’. Of course they’re still fairly useless in the wet but probably aquaplane a bit less. I signed on then went and got changed. Of course the weather forecast was wrong and although it had looked brighter it was drizzling when we went out. I’ve done a couple of trackdays here before so do know my way round but it’s all different in the wet and of course testing is very different from a trackday. It was pretty slippery, especially exiting the Hatchets and Brooklands hairpins. The other cars were mostly Ginettas and it was clear their tyres cope with rain better than ours. I suvived the session without any major dramas although my fastest lap was only 1:21. Fastest lap times when RGB were last here in 2006 were 1:02 but of course that was in the dry. I was getting a bit more grip towards the end of the session and felt I could lean on the tyres a bit more – of course the more you push them the more the heat up and you get a bit more grip.

As usual in the wet I was soaked, the water all comes over the sidepod onto your right arm and leg. I’d forgotten what it was like to have ‘Fury Foot’ – a bit like trench foot but wetter. While I’d put a bit more air in the tyres than normal I’d left the suspension alone and I decided to soften everything off. So as well as checking nothing was falling off (which it wasn’t) I took 6 clicks off all 4 dampers and softened off the ARB as much as it would go. The oil leak was sorted – having an floor in the engine bay makes it very easy to see if you’ve got a leak or not.

The weather brightened up a bit. Then started raining again just as we went out for the second session. It was still very wet with poor visibility but I was delighted to find that I could really feel a difference in the car. I could definitely feel that it was softer, with more feel for what was going on and was a bit more progressive. Of course it was still all over the place on the power out of the hairpins but that was quite good fun rather than being alarming. The Ginettas were still quicker than me but I managed to narrow the gap a bit and could stick with them for a bit longer. I didn’t get any very clear laps and only improved my lap time a little bit to a shorter 1:21 but more importantly I’d gained a bit more confidence.

Back in the paddock my spanner check revealed no problems and all the car needed was fuel. I had some new neighbours, both were driving 250 karts and one had a very swanky motorhome with ‘European Champion’ blazoned all over it. He reckoned his FL round here in the dry was 55 seconds!! Although there were still a few spots of rain the final session was definitely a bit less wet. There was nowehre near a dry line but visibility was better. I was now quicker than the slower Ginettas and the couple of Westfields altohugh the latter were sporting novice crosses. I discovered I had quite a lot more power than the Ginettas (who are all on control engines) and even when the faster ones passed me on bends I had to hold back behind them down the straights. We did have a brief red flag when 2 Ginettas simultaneously decided to do a bit of farming but we got back out again for a few laps. By now I really was enjoying myself, reflected in lap times in the low 1:19s.

I gave the car a bit of a clean up, swapped back to my dry set of wheels and went through my spanner check again finding nothing awry. I packed everything up and headed home for the evening. The forecast’s better for tomorrow, dry and sunny and quite a bit warmer. Still no idea what I’m racing against as I haven’t seen any kind of start sheet.

Not a lot happened in the week leading up to the Birkett. The car was ready but I was constantly worried about the engine – until I ran it in anger there was no way of knowing whether my bits of clutch plate swilling around in the oil had done any damage or not. The indications were that it was probably OK, but until you get it under full load and up near the redline you can’t be certain.

I rang up on the Monday about the clutch springs that never arrived from Hayabusa Central and the guy I spoke to seemed a bit vague but unsurprised, it seems it is or was the same company as Big CC Racing and indeed the former URL now resolves to the latter. He said he’d stick some in the post for me. He also said they do 2 types, short ones and long ones, I said what it was for and what problems I’d had and he said he’s stick the longer ones in. These duly arrived on Thursday, too late to fit of course, but I’ll get them in over the winter. Here’s a pic of the 3 different sets of springs – the one on the left is the Suzuki original, the middle one is the old ‘heavy duty’ spring that I suspect caused the problem in the first place, and the one on the right is the new one from Big CC Racing. I reckon that’ll do it! I might need to get down the gym though as the pedal could be a whole heap harder work. He also sent me a ‘ramp ring’ which I think is some device to limit the slipper action of the clutch.

I had to leave early on Friday morning and got to Silverstone just before 9am. I parked up with a few of the RGB guys and got the car off the trailer, signed on etc. The weather was brightening but the track was clearly still going to be damp from overnight rain. I left my ‘dry’ tyres on as the forecast was bad for Saturday and I wanted to save the ‘wets’. The first session was at 10.25 and the track was indeed still rather wet. I always take the first couple of laps very steady anyway, and I’d never driven this circuit before so I was being extra cautious. As I turned into the Abbey hairpin it turned out to be a little tighter than I expected so I had to just tweak the steering wheel a bit more, I didn’t expect a problem as I really was going very slowly but the car just spun! I hadn’t stalled and the MR2 behind missed me easily so I just got on my way again. The surface was very greasy so it was a good opportunity to take a few steady laps and see how the engine was. On the 3rd lap we got red flagged as a brace of MR2s went off at Abbey into the kitty litter so we lost 10 minutes or so of the session sitting in pit lane. By now it was clear that none of the conrods had exited the crankcase and all seemed well, the clutch was now fine.

After the restart I went a little quicker and towards the end the line was getting a bit drier. My fastest lap was a 1:57 which is pretty slow but as I pulled up behind the motorhome back in the paddock I was pretty elated that I’d come in after a full session without a single issue – the car seemed to be handling OK, the engine hadn’t grenaded, clutch and gearbox were working great, she seemed to be pulling fine and the dash and video were working properly. A step forward and promising start to the weekend

I checked over the car, the only thing I found was 3 of the front prop bolts had loosened slightly, so I tightened those and repainted them. The next session was at 13.05 and by now it was sunny and the track was more or less dry. And much more fun! I started to gain a bit more confidence and was quite enjoying myself – it was pretty busy and although our RGB cars were quicker than the MR2s, Locosts etc. there were some very quick cars out there. There was what looked like a Caparo who was quite happy to go up the inside of me into Abbey while one of the slick shod touring car-alikes went round the outside. Unfortunately the Caparo had his come-uppance as 2 laps later he was in the gravel trap there and the session was red flagged. My last flying lap was a 1:40.

After the restart I got a couple of 1:39s in but because of the traffic was confident there was quite a bit more to come. The car became very noisy and I was fairly confident the exhaust manifold had broken again. I thought it was nearly the end of the session and decided to come in before I did any more damage. Sure enough the rest of the guys were in a couple of minutes later. I hadn’t planned to go out in the third session anyway so I now had the rest of the afternoon to go over the car and get the exhaust fixed if I could. I found Andy Bates who just said to bring the manifold over, near his truck was George Polley’s truck so I grabbed their trolley and headed back to pit lane to get my rears off and over for some new rubber – the left rear was well past its sell by date. Once the manifold was cool enough I got that over to Andy, collected my wheels from Polley and stuck them on. By the time I got back Andy had finished welding the manifold and I refitted that. While the silencer was off I thought I might as well check the packing to find there was almost none of it left. The stainless wool had all migrated down to the far end of the can and had clearly done no good at all. Once that was packed and refitted I check over the rest of the car to find no problems at all. By 3.30 I was done and dusted and ready for Saturday.

Here’s a vid with a few clips from the first session and first half of the second session testing – sadly I hit the wrong switch at the end of the second half of the last session so lost all that.

Andy Cunningham went out for my last test session, there was no point me going out again and just a risk something would happen to the car. I signed on for Saturday’s race then my brother Andy arrived so he and I went over with the car to get it scrutineered. Once that was done we could relax for the evening with a barbecue and a few beers with Austen and the rest of the team. The weather forecast for Saturday was pretty awful but there was nothing any of us could do about that! I was just pleased to have the car fully functioning.