Molly's Blog - June 2010

This has been the first weekend in a while I have actually spent at home so it was nice to be able to catch up on a few things.

It doesn't feel like we are already at the midway point in the season.  Although my overall position is not where I would have liked, I am happy with the progress. This year was always going to be about learning so am just trying to keep things in perspective. 

The Jim Clark Rally was the first tarmac rally for the 2010 British Championship and overall it was a really worthwhile rally, albeit a bit  frustrating at times. I am improving all the time on the tarmac, but there is still so much to learn. We are considerably closer to the front runners in sec/km than at Killarney earlier in the month, so the goal is to reduce this gap again at the next one. The good thing is that I know there is a lot  more in me, its just the time in the seat to get the consistency. The car is absolutely fantastic to drive on the tarmac and really enjoyable.

The rally started on the Friday night with two runs of a super special stage around the Duns town centre and four night stages. The roads were really fast and a mixture of wide fast roads and narrower sections through farms  yards. I was happy with the start we made and the second pass of the long stage was going really well until the gearbox stripped the teeth in second gear. We were able to drive on and complete the next stage. The boys did a great job changing the gearbox in the 45 minute service. By about 2am it was time for bed.

We now had the short ratio gearbox in, which meant our top speed was quite a bit lower. It sounded pretty good on the tarmac getting up to fifth gear so quickly though! The morning loop of stages I was happy with and we made good

progress. We had jumped into third in the Citroens. I went into the next group wanting to push more as we were only 7 seconds in front of fourth. I think I was trying to hard and made a few silly mistakes which cost us some time. We had a couple of spins and a flat tyre so third place was no longer looking good. There is definitely a good lesson there..

The afternoon brought a bit of rain and the stages became very greasy which kept it interesting. We finished the last two stages with no problems, just a little slippery on slicks!

There is now just over a month until the Isle of Man, so once again busy planning ahead..

Work is really busy as usual and there are lots of exciting things happening. Its still challenging trying to fit it all in, but as long as I keep driving faster I don't mind!

Molly