I had the day off today, so I thought I'd crack on with a few outstanding jobs on the Lotus Cortina. The main job on my list was to strip both brake callipers down in readiness for the new pistons to arrive. 
Three of the existing pistons were reasonably easy to get out, but the last one was a real challenge. Eventually, I managed to get the piston out far enough to clamp it in the vice and then tap the calliper away from it with a copper hammer. As you can see below it was in a bad way! The others were all knackered as well! 

I had to separate the callipers to be able to get the pistons out and the bolts proved to be quite tight as well. In fact I managed to break my 5/8th's socket before adding some heat to finally extract them.With this done, I then jacked the car up and altered the steering track rod arms so that the wheels looked straighter. I had fitted new track rod ends a few weeks back, but couldn't adjust them properly until they were on the car. Once the wheels were straight the car looked much better. 
Another job to do was to fit the newly refurbished brake and clutch master cylinders. The brake cylinder was already in place, but had to be connected to the brake pedal. This is always fiddly, but I eventually managed it. The clutch master soon followed and is another job I can cross off of my list. 

The next thing to do was to remove the old rough black paint off of the cam cover. I used a brass brush attachment on an electric drill and luckily it came off quite easily. 
I then sprayed it with several coats of etch primer, before adding several coats of top coat. I have to say, I was quite pleased with the end result. It should look quite smart on the engine when it returns. 😊

 My good friend Dave Maton came up today to help with the Lotus Cortina. I had a huge list of jobs to get done, as the plan was to finally get the Lotus off of the rotisserie and back on its wheels.  
I made a start before Dave arrived and rebuilt the front hubs and fitted new bearing races and new bearings. I also cleaned up the discs with a wire brush attachment on an electric drill. 

When Dave arrived our first job was to bleed the brakes on the Green Cortina so that I at least have one car to do the shows with. Fitting the new remote brake servo the other night had allowed air into the system which need to be expelled. With this done successfully, we moved onto the Lotus. 

I started by fitting the front hubs back onto the car, while Dave was fitting new bearings and retainers to the half shafts, and oil seals to the axle. The old bearings and retainers have to be cut off of the half shafts very carefully with a thin cutting disc on an angle grinder so that you don't gouge into the half shaft.
The new bearings and retainers then have to be pressed onto the half shafts with great pressure, but luckily I have a 20 ton press in my garage, so this was no problem. The original oil seals put up some fight before they would come out, but they had been in there for sixty years! 

Once this had been done, we then spun the car onto its side and Dave fitted a new metal brake pipe that runs from the front to the back of the car. whilst he was doing this, I fitted the newly refurbished brake master cylinder.

While the car was on its side, we then fitted the newly rebuilt half shafts so that we could move onto the next stage of fitting the back plates and brakes. We then fitted the rear back plates, new wheel cylinders and adjusters along with brand new metal brake pipes. 
By now, time had caught up with us and Dave had to leave at 4.30pm. However, we had had a very good day and achieved everything that we wanted to, so it was now time to finally remove the car from the rotisserie. I went and got a set of wheels and some car ramps from the shed and we got the car back on its wheels for the first time since last September. 
It's been a great feeling bolting bits back on, instead of the relentless removal and cleaning and replacing and refurbing over the past six months or so. It's also nice knowing that the car has new wheel bearings, new brakes and new brake pipes all round and all new suspension bushes too. 
There's still plenty left to do, but every job I do brings it closer to completion. I couldn't have got everything done today without the help of Dave and I am very grateful for his assistance. 😊

 The new remote servo for the Green Cortina arrive today, so I decided to get it fitted. It's not a massive job and it's the same design as the previous one, so I can use the same bolt holes and I wont have to alter any of the metal brake pipes. 
The worst bit was trying to find the two bolts inside the passenger compartment that are situated under the dashboard. As you can see from below, the remote servo bolts through the fire wall. 

The whole job only took about an hour though, so once I'd finished I went into the garage and stripped down the hubs from the Lotus Cortina. I thought this would save a bit of time when it comes to Saturday and the heavy work load I have lined up. 

 I managed to get a couple of hours in the garage tonight and decided to refit the suspension legs onto the Lotus Cortina.
Before I fitted them though I removed the front hubs and discs in readiness to fit new bearings and bearing races. To be honest the original bearings do seem ok, but I need to keep in mind that these could well be sixty years old and even if they aren't, they would have been coated in the same grease since before 1977. (That's when the car was last on the road)
With the hubs and discs removed, it did make the suspension legs a little bit lighter to lift (not a lot though!) and I had them fitted within a couple of hours. 
The bottom ball joints put up a bit of fight and I usually get a trolley jack under the bottom of the legs and jack them up to give me more room, but because the car is on a rotisserie, it's not possible to do it that way. 
it was a good nights work though and it knocks another few things off of my massive list of impending jobs. 

 I had another few hours spare this morning, so I thought I'd try and get ahead on the Lotus. Dave Maton is coming up next Saturday to try and help me get the Lotus back on its wheels, but there's a lot of work to do before that can happen, so I wanted to get a head start. 
The steering linkage was the next on my list and I decided to fit all new track rod ends. (There are four of them!) With fitting all new track rod ends, the tracking will have to set up at some point, but that's not important right now. Annoyingly, I also forgot to take pics of the refurbished steering linkage and track rod ends, so I'll use a picture of how it all looked just after I got the car. It will give you an idea of what it all looks like. I'm pleased with the progression so far though. 😊 

 Today was to be another test drive day for the Green Cortina. I had fitted another set of idle jets since the last test drive, so I wanted to see if it had made any difference. 
I decided to stop for breakfast before I got to the Billericay meet this time as the cafe at Billericay is very good, but the queuing and waiting time for food and drinks is ridiculously slow. 
My cafe of choice this morning was the 'My Place' on the A127, but when I slowed to pull in my brake pedal seemed to stick, but then free itself quite harshly. 
I had noticed the sticky brake pedal feeling a few times recently, but nothing as bad as this morning. I suspect that my remote brake servo is on the way out.
 Once I had eaten I carried onto the breakfast meet with no further issues. When I got there I adjusted the tick over on the carb as I felt the engine was running too fast and also adjusted the air mixture screw to give it more fuel.

There were some nice cars at the meet, including my friend Keith's Lotus Cortina and a Mk2 Cortina with a turbo and injected Lotus V8 engine. This engine also has four camshafts and a secondary radiator in the boot as the radiator under the bonnet is not up to the job of keeping the engine cool! 
On leaving the meet I had to endure my sticky brake pedal again only this time it got much worse as I had to dab the brakes on on the A127, only this time, they stuck on and stayed on. Luckily a parking lay-by was very close by, so I pulled in and opened the bonnet. My suspicions were the brake servo, so I removed the hose that runs from the inlet manifold to the servo and a loud gush of air escaped out. With the air released the brakes then freed off and I was able to drive the car home. So it was indeed a servo problem. I'll get one ordered and fit it when time allows. 

Once I was home I decided to go and play with the Lotus for a few hours. I had fitted the front axle on Wednesday evening after work, so the next stage was to refit the anti-roll bar and track control arms.
This turned out to be a bit of a mission as I had replaced all of the bushes, and being an anti-roll bar everything has to be very taut with hardly any movement. 
After a couple of hours, everything was fitted and as it should be and now that I'm finally bolting things back on instead of removing them, I feel that I'm actually moving forward. 😊

 After speaking to a weber carburettor specialist about my issues with the Green Cortina, I was advised to try changing the idle jets to a bigger size. Being a twin choke weber there are two jets, a primary and a secondary. 
The standard sizes are 55 & 50, so I purchased two at bigger sizes. The first combination I tried was a 60 & 55. I then took the car for a long test drive. It did make quite a difference and the car felt happier a low speeds and the popping and banging on the over run reduced dramatically. 
I then returned home and decided to change them again. This time I tried a combination of 65 & 60. I went for another test drive, but to be honest it didn't really feel much different to the first run. (Although I didn't go as far)
The car is a lot more drivable though, but removal of the spark plugs showed that they are still quite white, so it appears the engine is still running lean. I think I'll need to having a chat with the carburettor specialist again to see what the next move is. 

 Every night for the past few weeks I had been concentrating on finalising the engine bay on the Lotus Cortina. The engine bay being finished will be a massive step forward as I'll then be able to start putting the car back together. (I'm sick to death of sanding, cleaning, de-greasing, wire brushing etc.)
Once I felt that the engine bay was acceptable, I gave it a few coats of etch primer and left it five days to dry and harden. I was quite happy with the result to be honest. (See below)

Once the primer had dried and I was happy with the finish, I requested the presence of a guy from work who used to be an auto spray painter. (Glen) He's the same guy who painted the floor for me and the quality of his work is very good. 
I was home a good couple of hours before Glen was due round, so I ignited the diesel heater in the garage to get it nice and warm and also stood the paint in front of the hot air vent to allow it to 'thin' before use. 
After checking over my work, Glen mixed the paint and then got down to the job in hand. 
He laid on a light coat first to form a barrier and give the paint something to stick to, and once that had dried he went full on with a beautiful coat of Ford Ermine white. 
We had a break while we let the paint fumes dissipate and then Glen gave it another coat. We still had some paint left in the gun afterwards, so we painted the front bumper irons as well. (For some reason they are black on standard Cortina's, but white on the Lotus Cortina) 
By about 8pm, we were finished and called it a day. I'm very pleased with how it looks and the temptation to start bolting bits back on this weekend will be massive, but I'm going to leave it a week or so in order for the paint to harden. I don't want to risk dropping things on the fresh paint and marking it. 
At last it feels like progress has been made. Since I've had the car all I've done is removed bits from it and made it worse and less like a car. I've even taken to looking at pictures of when I first bought it, so I can remind myself what it looked like, but now I feel that I'm finally moving forward. 😊
Last August when it looked like a car. 

With the ongoing tuning issue with the Green Cortina, I have been experimenting with changing the primary and secondary main jets in the twin choke carburettor. (32/36 DGV)
The standard jet size should be 140 & 135, but in recent weeks I had increased the jet sizes to 145 &140, then 147 & 145 and todays test drive would be with 150 & 147. 
The drive went well, but to be honest I didn't notice much difference since the last change of 147 &145.

 So, I've probably gone as far as I can go with the main jets. The acceleration is fine  and the car is very responsive, but I'm getting a lot of popping on the over run. The car also doesn't seem happy at lower revs and doesn't drive smoothly. 
I'll need to do a bit more investigating, but I'm definitely improving the car, so I will persevere. It did feel good driving it again today and it was a nice morning to find a cafe and enjoy a nice breakfast! 😊

With the end of 2025 bringing engine woes, the start of 2026 would all be about getting these sorted on the ZR.

First up though was sorting a few little issues with Red Shed II, this was to be ready for the first autotest of the year right at the beginning of January. Apart from a coolant pipe leaking before the start the day went well, and I finished up 2nd overall and 1st in class.

With a bit more work Red Shed II was then ready to go again for the February autotest, landing back from Turkey just hours before the event wasn’t the most ideal prep but the day went well and we finished up first overall and taking the win by over 50 seconds. Good to be back to winning ways in the Red Shed, though it did claim yet another alternator….

So another little job done, and a tyre change and puncture repair the Red Shed was off again to do its now annual car trail with Cambridge CC. This is fun event, and with all the rain we have had this year, it was very slippery. The car ran well, no issues at all this time and we finished up 3rd in class and 7th overall – not bad competing against crews who do these types of events all the time.

Here you can see my ‘style’ of driving isn’t delicate, but it worked more often that it didn’t

So on to the MGZR Rally car…. .this turned out to be some major work with many late nights working outside on the drive (no garage here!).

Work done

Engine swapped for a 1.8 ‘135’ engine, which has been ‘hugged’ by Ian Mepham of Performance Motorsport.

Suspension all fully rebuilt and serviced

Engine bay cleaned, and various little cracks weled up

Wiring cleaning up

New radiator and fan

New lighter flywheel and clutch

Oil cooler fitted

New driveshafts

This work isn’t quite fully complete yet but will hopefully be all competed in time for the Kent Targa Rally.

 One of the reasons my Lotus Cortina has such a solid floor is due in part to the poor design of the rear crankshaft seal on the Lotus twin cam engine. Known as a 'rope seal', these seals have always been known to leak oil and there didn't seem to be any options around to stop it. However, a guy that I sold a set of wheels to has three Lotus Cortina's and has recently developed an alloy sump, with a back plate and new seal which will eliminate such leakage. 
Bearing in mind that I have just painted the underneath of my car and I'm also in the process of replacing every rubber bush, the last thing I want is oil peeing out the back of the engine and coating my floor and new rubber. So I bought one of his kits. 
They're certainly not cheap, but will be a good addition to my car. Plus, I took it to my engine builder the following day who thought it was a very good idea. 

 Whilst working on the underneath of the Lotus Cortina, it was evident that the car had had an oil leak for a number of years before it was laid up. (Most likely due to a leaking rope seal on the back of the crankshaft)
This has probably had a lot to do with keeping the floor rust and rot free, but had also had a detrimental effect on anything made of rubber! 
The special LC split propshaft has two rubber bushes in the centre and both of these had become seriously contaminated, as you can see from the pic below.

Whilst removing these, I also removed the gearbox crossmember and found that the rubber part of that was totally oil contaminated too. Needless to say, a new one has been ordered and will be replaced once it arrives. 

 Since Christmas I'd been hoping to get the underneath of the Lotus Cortina painted, but the cold weather and the damp from the constant rain had been preventing me from doing this as quick as I wanted. I did however, manage to fit in the odd dry day here and there and eventually managed to get the floor finished. 
The first stage was painting two litres of red oxide which was then followed by a good dousing of stone chip primer. The final coat was two litres of Ford Ermine white. 
Once this had time to harden and dry it was time to start fitting up. Good friend Dave Maton came up for the day and we started making progress refitting some mechanical bits. 
The battery lead went on first. (The battery is in the boot, so the lead has to run from back to front.) The leaf springs went on next, followed by the back axle and hand brake cable. The differential was next and then we got down to the laborious task of making up brake pipes. 
Since I've had the car all I seem to have been doing is removing parts and cleaning and sanding, so it felt really good to actually start fitting bits back on. Progress at last!

With it being an ex-rally car it's had a had quite a hard time in the past and although the floor is rust free, the out riggers have taken a bit of a battering. They are still solid though, so I'm happy to leave them as they are. 
While Dave was here, I got him to help me remove the additional 'works' fuel tank. (So called as they were mainly fitted to the 'works' rally cars. 
This is a very rare item and I've already been offered good money for it. However, it's a vital part of the cars rallying history, (Along with the roll cage) so I will be keeping it. (See 'works' fuel tank below)

We'd had a good day, but by mid-afternoon we'd done all we could and called it a day. I appreciated the help from Dave and as said, I now finally feel that I have turned a corner and I'm now moving forward. 

Always carry a spare Maton in your boot! 😄

 What with all the masses of rain and cold weather we'd been having lately, I really hadn't been up to much. Plus I was struck down for a week with the dreaded flu bug that had been doing the rounds. 

The weather for this Saturday looked promising, and I still needed to test drive the Green Cortina after trying another set of bigger size jets in the carburettor, so I decided to make the effort and make an appearance. 

It was a good turnout and there was some beautiful old Fords there. An added bonus was seeing friends again that I hadn't seen since before Christmas. All in all it was a good meeting and I'm looking forward to the weather warming up so I can get out to some more. 

My Green Mk1 Cortina with 1600 Mk2 Crossflow engineKelvin's beautiful Red two door GT with Harris engine and Keith's Lotus Cortina parked next to itNeil Bell's lovely 2 door Corsair GT
John's 2.0 Pinto powered Anglia

After the meet I followed Keith back to his place to pick up some parts and it was good fun chasing his Lotus Cortina through the country lanes. The two cars drew quite a few looks from bystanders and pedestrians. 
My test drive had been good, and the car is almost there, but not quite. I'm going to try another set of bigger jets, but if that doesn't cure it, I'm going to book it in for a rolling road session. Watch this space. 

After a good result for our first rally together last August, Tom Brooks and I teamed up again for the Bath Festival in his MR2. After DNFs on the Bath Festival in 2024 (with Gavin, in Fly) and in 2025 (with Anthony Newton, in his BMW), I really didn’t want to make it a hat-trick…!

Tom had put a lot of pre-event work into the car, as on his last event at Debden in November he had blown the engine. The replacement is a standard second hand engine (like for like as it was before), and he’d also made some improvements to the car including a new sump guard and some secondhand harnesses (bought from Anthony!). I’d worked on a few things myself, but ultimately we both wanted to get a finish and had a view that what would be would be. We were seeded at Car 6.

The first couple of tests were around Castle Combe, the first being around the perimeter track with the rally school and the second being on the circuit. We had a good run here, and were sitting 3rd overall, cheered on by both Tom’s Dad and his oldest son. We, along with many other crews, beat the bogey on Test 2; we can now see we were joint fastest on that test along with John Davies and Nick Bloxham, but having beaten the bogey, it didn’t count. Tom doesn’t want to know results during the day and this has rubbed off on me so I try to check times but ignore positions.

From Combe, we headed to a 0.60 mile test on a farm track, which was a little not as map. It took just over 90 seconds, which saw us 8th quickest, but there were just seconds in it. We then headed to a venue I remembered from years ago, by Keevil Airfield, which was very slippery. It was a mud bath and we were fourth quickest; unsurprisingly the Subaru was way ahead of everyone! Back to the short farm test, where we went one second quicker (one of those odd ones where we thought it would be more!) before we headed north for our first time at Charlton Park.

Around Charlton Park, we were fourth quickest, dropping a few seconds to both John and Nick and the Subaru. The test had been amended slightly to avoid a big flood, but there was still plenty of water, some of which ended up in the car! With many passage checks I find it easier to leave the window down and just deal with the consequences (and protect the map and timecard!). We then headed back to Combe for Test 7, which was a repeat of Test 1. We were joint second fastest here, five seconds off the Subaru. It was then time for a 40 minute lunch break where we checked tyres, and a couple of things on the car and had a bite to eat. Tom had decided we were running knobblies all day, rather than changing for different tests, and this was working well.

Test 8 was a repeat of Test 2 and this time we were the only crew to beat the bogey, being three seconds under – but you cannot get a time quicker than the bogey, so those extra few seconds didn’t count. We were the quickest crew on this test, being five seconds quicker than the next closest once we were given the bogey time. We then headed to Kemble for the first time that day, where we had two tests. They were the same, with Test 9 starting and finishing in the left lane and Test 10 starting and finishing on the right. Tom won the Kemble Targa last year (a single venue event) and we were quickest on Test 9 by four seconds which was pleasing.

We were going well on Test 10 (Kemble 2) until just before the split where we caught the car who had started 30 seconds in front of us. Unfortunately, we followed them through the split and the passage check; there was nothing we could do other than sit and wait whilst they had their timecard signed, and we watched a few seconds tick away (there was nothing we nor the marshals could do other than await our turn). We went three seconds slower than our first run, which we would have hoped to have improved on. We were joint quickest on this test and it is part of rallying, but as I said to Tom at the time, I hoped those few seconds wouldn’t be costly later…

We headed off to Test 11, which was Charlton Park and a repeat of the earliest test. We were second quickest here (the Subaru was three seconds faster), and we had found 19 seconds from our first run, which was pleasing. We didn’t know it at the time, but as we headed off to Castle Combe, we were sitting joint 2nd overall, 25 seconds behind John and Nick in the Puma.

Test 12 was the earlier two Combe tests joined up, but with the loop taken out of the rally school. We changed the right rear tyre for our spare before the start as it was looking a little ropey, and we were good to go. The MR2 is a well built, and well pedalled, car but this for me was our test of the day and it will stay with me for a good while yet. We were both on it, and I don’t know what more we really could have given. We were catching another car and stopped alongside them at our final stop/go, and just managed to get in front of them before next slalom. The effort showed in the final times; 19 seconds quicker than anybody else. Tom’s Dad messaged me and said “just seen the time on the last test, what were you two doing?” and my reply was simple; “Teamwork .”

We finished the event 2nd overall – our second rally together, and our second 2nd overall. We would have taken that before the event if you had asked us, but that last test really helped us as we ended up finishing just one second off the overall win. So close, but…! Sometimes in rallying you need the speed and a little luck; we had the pace but a little more sprinkling of luck would have helped, but we finished. Best of all, we spent a LOT of the day laughing whilst driving around the countryside and enjoying the tests and snacking on minstrels. Oh, and I beat Gavin – the first time we’ve both navigated on the same event, he and Anthony had a great run to 7th overall, Anthony’s first targa in the Fiesta.

A good day’s rallying in the best coloured car (red!), having a lot of laughs with a great mate – can’t ask for much more really.

Photos: M&H Photography and my own

After having more than my fair share of messers, chancers and time wasters, I finally had contact from someone who seemed genuine with regard to buying my Zetec Cortina. Since buying the Lotus Cortina, I couldn't really justify owning three Mk1 Cortina's, so decided that the Zetec had to go. The Zetec, like the Lotus is a 2 door, aeroflow model and I couldn't see a need to have two of the same model. 

After a few emails back and forth, the potential buyer decided that he liked the car enough to make the long 230 mile journey from his house in Oldham, Lancashire to my place near Southend. He liked the look of the car when he arrived and must have also enjoyed the test drive as on return to my house he made an acceptable offer and wanted to take the car home there and then. This made such a nice change as ebay and facebook market place seems to be full up with total dickheads that just want to piss you about! Anyway, the paperwork was completed and I watched my Zetec drive off to it's new home. 😌

So, I am now down to just two Cortina Mk1's. (A few months ago, I had four!) I have my 1964 Pre-aeroflow, four door model and my aeroflow two door Lotus Cortina. (Ex rally car) 
These are both great cars and I have to confess to liking the idea that neither of them have any modern electronics and ECU's etc. (I haven't got the patience to learn about map sensors and throttle sensors etc!) The sale of the Zetec car will also help fund the restoration of the Lotus. 😏

 After weeks and weeks of scrubbing, cleaning and rubbing down the floor on the Lotus Cortina, I was finally in a position to get some red oxide on the floor before the stone chip primer goes on. 
I finally decided on red oxide first as it's a rust inhibitor as well as a paint, so anything that makes the car last longer has got to be a good thing. 

Dave Maton came up to help me today and he is a bit more experienced at spraying than I am, so he took the lead and got started. We had a couple of small issues due to the spray gun partially blocking up, but once we found the offending obstacles we were going good. 

It didn't take that long and it certainly looks a lot better. Just need to wait for some warmer weather now so I can get the stone chip primer on. 

The end of the year was all rather busy and manic with motorsport, life and a number of overseas work trips.

In between this I did manage a few more motorsport events, though they didn’t all finish that well…

The last event of the year for Red Shed II was a SOCC Autotest, although we finished ok (5th overall) the car wasn’t well with a lower engine mount ripped apart. On further inspection it appears it may not have been the right mount. This lead to a few pieces of work on the car, including fitting poly bushes and upgrading the engine mounts and welding them up.

Also as well as the usual maintenance things, I found a set of strengthening plates for sale on eBay so I bought this and fitted them as well at the same time as well as welding up the rear subframe where they all fail. This just leaves a few more jobs to finish before its next outing at the beginning of January.

So on to the MGZR Rally Car, we had a good run out at the Debden Targa Rally finishing up 7th overall driving with David Lobb on the maps and a very pleasing 2nd overall navving for David. As ever it is a busy day, though worryingly during the day the ZR didn’t want to keep its coolant in the header tank….

Next up it was back to Debden for an Autosolo, of course meant a long drive to the event in the rally car which is never much fun. The day started off very wet, but being an airfield once the rain stopped it soon dried out. The event used a number of new test sites and layouts, which were good fun especially once there was some grip you could use. It was pleasing to be close to the normal event top runners, and finished up 2nd in class.

Sadly soon after this the ZR decide the head gasket wanted to fail, thankfully on my drive not on the way back from the Autosolo. So although annoying it didn’t leave me stranded anywhere.

It seems like the liners have dropped, so it will be easier to get a new engine fitted. So it will be out with the spanners in the new year to fit a new engine, carry out some tidying work and then get back on with things.

Sadly with the engine not wanting to play I didn’t get to enter Goodwood Stages or the Preston.

We’ve seen many events we’ve entered sadly end up cancelled in 2025, more than either of us have experienced in recent years, and with the DDMC November 12 Car being cancelled we were looking forward to the December event and had asked for our entry to be carried over. In November, a storm and heavy local flooding saw the event we’d entered (understandably!) cancelled, which was a shame as it had a full entry and reserves. Whilst there wasn’t quite a full entry for the December event, it was still well supported.

The event started out of Leigh Delamere services, so I hoped it may use some lanes I knew from my childhood having moved to Wiltshire age 7. We had entered with me driving and Gavin navigating for this reason, although we thought some lanes may now also be familiar from running the Cotswold Historic. We thought the first section would see us turn left out of the services but we went right, with an interesting section around Kington St Michael. It was all plot and bash with the first handout taking us to two controls, and telling us we would use a white as well as a byway open to all traffic.

The handout was a combination of spot heights, things to pass over, green dots and a couple of grid references for triangles, where we expected to find code boards. The byway was interesting as it wasn’t one either of us knew, and didn’t go until recently (I’ve parked at the end of it before!). We dropped 1 minute in the first section (3 miles, just missing our time by a few seconds), and then 5 minutes in the second (8 miles); Gavin had forgotten to tell me about a long way round triangle, so we went back incase there was a board, only to find there wasn’t! TC3 was about a mile on from where I’d moved to age 7 as we passed the cottage where I lived, so I did know a little of the route.

From here, the sections got longer. TC3 to TC4 was 15 miles, and again some lanes were familiar, with the navigation being crossing grid lines. The northing and easting grid lines were very similar numbers which kept Gavin busy, and he told me the control was in a lay-by; I could think of two it could be as we were now within 2/3 miles of where my parents currently live, and we found it ok without dropping any time. The next section was the longest of the night at 20 miles, with the navigation being the direction (north, south, east or west) to leave grid squares. This section took us around the other side of my parents’ village and then into some unfamiliar roads, although the beginning was tricky with a lot of junctions for Gavin to work out. We did ok on this section too dropping no time.

The final section was 18.5 miles and was a mixture of grid references (for triangles), things touching the road on the map, e.g. spot heights, mile stones, churches, and a few unders and overs for bridges and electricity lines. This brought us back to south of Chippenham, and we had another good section with no time dropped.

.We’d managed to fill in all the boxes for code boards so hoped we had done ok, but you never quite know! It turned out we had found all the boards so had no fails and had dropped 6 minutes, leaving us 1st in class and 3rd overall. The winners had only dropped 1 minute with the second place crew dropping four minutes, so it was a close and an enjoyable night. We thought this was our penultimate event of 2025 as we’d tried to enter an autotest the next day, but with no acknowledgement of our entry, no finals, no entry list published anywhere and no idea if the event was running, the 12 Car ended up being our last event for 2025, which was a good way to end.