Turbo troubles sorted and series round-up

It's been a while, but we've finally got the turbo R53 on track! Since my last update we've actually had 5 race meetings, 3 of which I've competed at but only for the last one did we manage to get the SG Haulage Supernational Mini out. All sorts of things have held us up, I'll cover those a little later. But first I'll give you a round-up of all the Mini action from the meetings so far.

Back at the beginning of March we had the first round of the BTRDA Clubmans Rallycross Championship held at Blyton Park in Lincolnshire. Blyton is really the home of the Minicross Drivers Association and all Rallycross events held there are organised by the club, so as you'd expect there was a good turn-out of Classic Minicross cars. 

My old Minicross car was out on track in the hands of my mum, Helen. She improved a lot throughout the day in what was only her second Rallycross meeting, despite an intermittent misfire. The win in the end went to George Edwardes in the 459 car, followed by Richard Wakeling in 480 and George's brother Tommy in 432. A pair of R50 Minis also featured in the supermodified class, with Yorkshireman David Bell taking the victory over Circuit owner Richard Usher.

The British Rallycross Championship also has a class for R50 and R53 Minis, with prizes for fastest overall and fastest R50. So far the championship has had 4 Rounds, with all wins shared between the Hudson brothers, Keifer and Kris. Currently, Kris is topping his younger sibling by 13 points, with David Bell, winner in the BTRDA Mini class at Blyton running in 3rd.  

Unfortunately, I missed almost all these races. Only occasional appearances in borrowed or hired cars kept me on form. We had delays at many stages of the project, primarily with the intercooler, followed by the downpipe and finally troubles in getting somebody who was able to map the car within the tight timescale which we had.  Finally though, with help from AET Motorsport and Revivals Rolling Road, we got the car out to rounds 3 and 4 of the British Rallycross Championship at Pembrey, all be it running on slightly reduced boost. In the end though, everyone struggled to get their power down, because the weekend was almost a complete washout....

Sunday it rained heavily all day, with delays and longer races caused by rain the day was cut short to 2 heats instead of the usual 3, followed by semi finals and finals. The loose sections on the track took particular care, being just a few centimetres off line dragged you into the deep wet sludge thrown out to the outside of the track.  Out in the sludge nobody had traction, that combined with severely reduced visibility due to rain and mud made for a real race of attrition. Despite this, the Mini Cooper 'T' ran perfectly all day long and managed to score a very pleasing 6th in its first race day out since its rebuild.

We had hoped for improved weather on Monday morning, but we weren't so lucky. The loose sections were still as wet and boggy, and the circuit owners had pulled all the deeper loose back towards the racing line meaning that we spent most of our time scrabbling around for grip.

Unfortunately we didn't have the reliability of the previous day either, snapping a driveshaft in heat 2 and having a throttle body failure in heat 3. Thankfully though we still qualified for our semi final, and after a close battle with the BMW 328 of Vince Bristow we qualified for the final. Again we had a good run in the final, coming in an improved 5th. The car is improving all the time, so I can't wait till we get to take it out again.

Next event we have is the Coventry Motorfest on the 4th and 5th of June, this is a great event running on the Coventry ring road which is always a blast. Following that we have the Minis and Modifieds show and sprint at Blyton Park. This is set to be a great event, and we'd love to see you there, especially if you have a Mini!