What a weekend! The 600 mile round trip to the County Kildare circuit was certainly worth it. 

Saturday was a very steep learning curve, it was the first time in a few years that I'd visited a brand new track to me, so after taking it easy in practice, a fresh set of rubber saw me ready to take the fight to the Irish locals. The track made for some very interesting racing, with sections that suited my car along with sections that suited some of the higher powered rwd cars, meaning that in some sections of the track I was repeatedly held up! Despite this I secured a grid spot on the second row of the B final, with championship leader Dan Rooke on the front row just in front. It was then that things started to go wrong. On final lap, having passed the Lotus of Paige Bellerby, I was chasing the similar Irish Lotus of Lloyd Spendlove when while pushing too hard, carried too much speed into a fast right hander and ploughed the car straight into a grassy bank. From in the car, I felt like it was going over and seeing the left front wheel bounce across the track to my right didn't fill me with overall confidence. A quick trip to the medical centre later, I joined the car back in the paddock and alongside my chief mechanic Duncan and set to work to get the car out for the next day. Amazingly, by the next morning, thanks in no small part to a very late night, and the borrowing of some spare parts (I must extend a massive thanks to both Tony Lynch at Team Geriatric and David and Tony Bell for this)  the car was ready to race again. We replaced effectively the entirety of the front suspension, steering system and both driveshafts.

A cautions start with a not so straight car on Sunday meant that in the first heat I wasn't quite up to speed, however by the second heat I was 8th overall and second Brit. Despite this success, I only managed the C final, and after an accidental knock of the ignition switch at the hole in the hedge on the first lap, I fell back to second to last with the other Mini of Tony Lynch to chase. Unfortunately I couldn't catch Tony and that was where I stayed

Next up is the annual Classic Mini trip to Valkenswaard in The Netherlands, followed by the British Rallycross Championship at Pembrey.

Rounds 2&3 of the BTRDA clubmans rallycross championship out at Pembrey in south Wales really were an international affair, with a huge group of Irish competitors crossing the water to take part and give us brits a run for our money.

Round 2 on Saturday started poorly for us, with a poor start in heat one caused by driver error only getting us 6th place in that heat. However for heats 2 and 3 we vastly improved on this by finishing second overall in both. After the unfortunate retirement of Tommy Graham in his mk2 Escort due to engine troubles, it left me and the Irishman Kieran Curran to battle it out for overall honours in the final. The Corsa driver got a slightly better launch than I did off the line, meaning I had to fight my way through the clouds of dust to keep up with him. We streaked ahead of the rest of the field, finishing a massive 12 seconds ahead of third place, but remained in that order by the small margin of 1.4 seconds by the end.

The light of the following day showed us that we had a potentially race ending problem in the race car's driveshaft. However, due to the resourcefullnes of our chief mechanic Duncan and the spare parts of fellow David Attiwell a replacement part was constructed using a combination of MINI and Peugeot parts. A big thanks goes out to David and his team for letting us use his valuable spares! A very wet circuit led to us only scoring an eighth in heat one, but this was succeeded by a 3rd and a 4th in heats 2 and 3 respectively placed us on 3rd for the A final. The field had increased in competitiveness massively overnight with the arrival of Steve Cozens in his 400+BHP clio v6 and Irish 205 driver Peter McGarry stepping up his game overnight. A freshly wetted track saw the RWD clio struggling for traction in the A final, resulting in an epic battle between myself and Steve, resulting in me taking 2nd overall and in class with McGarry taking the win.

The next round I'll be competing at is the 'BRX vs IRX' double header round held at mondello park, which means another chance to go door handle to door handle with the boys from across the Irish sea. Bring on another great weekend's racing!