So Thursday morning, car is loaded, van is ready, Tom, Simon and Dom get on the road around 11 am, in under 5 minutes they hit traffic, brilliant. The trip was going to take 
around 5 1/2 hours to get to Carlisle. Alistair and Bryan had been up since 4 am, they had to drive to Belfast in Ireland to catch a ferry over to the UK. We all met up at Carlisle racecourse at 5pm, unloaded the car and prepared the RECCE car for the next day. Tom and Alistair and went and signed on and then went into the pre event meeting. Then the team headed off to the accommodation, settled in, had dinner and then off to bed. 6 am on Friday and the team are up and ready. Tom and Alistair head off to RECCE, mean while Simon, Bryan and Dom head off to service and set up, take the car to get fuel, scrutineering and noise test. Tyre wise on this event we had to choose between 2 different tyre compounds, the K6 which was the softer compound and the K4 which was the harder
compound. We decided to go for 2 of the K4 and 4 of the K6, we also had the option of having 2 joker tyres which means we could purchase these on the Saturday if we needed them. So Tom and Alistair had finished RECCE and Tom took the Subaru out for a run. We realised that last event we was badly down on power, we thought we had found the problem when we found a piece of metal 
stuck in the exhaust, but when Tom came back he reported that there was still a problem with it. So we asked Stuart from TEG Sport to sit in with Tom and see if he could see what was wrong with it. It turns out that a pipe of the turbo was the wrong way around so it was pressurising the wrong end. Problem fixed and we were back up on power. So 6 pm and it was the start of the rally, Tom and Alistair head off to the ceremonial start, then off to the first two stages of
which would be staged at night. The first problem we had was we have no light pod, the only car in the internationals that had no light pod. So stage 1 and Tom goes 8th fastest, putting him 8th overall. After this stage all the drivers had a 45 minute break to have some dinner. So the start of stage 2, what would be the worst stage of the rally for us, its 9pm at night going through a pitch black forest with just your normal car lights, well Tom gave it his best shot, came out of the stage 17th fastest leaving him 13th overall after day 1.
Start of day 2 and Tom was up and ready to go. 7am and we had a 40 minute service. Stage 3 gets under way and Tom goes 9th fastest pulling us up to 11th overall, good start 
to the day. At this point in the day, Bryan and Simon were traveling to the first remote service of the day. Stage 4 and this was one of the longest stages of the day at 13.40 miles. Tom goes 12th fastest maintaining 11th overall. So its into remote service after this stage, we realise that the K6 the softer compound was getting too hot and we was shredding the tyres, so we switched to the K4s. Stage 5 and these are re runs of the morning stages, Tom goes 9th fastest on the stage pulling us up to 9th overall, straight on to Stage 6 which was the longest stage of the rally. Tom goes 11th fastest but drops back to 10th overall. Back to Carlise for service and Tom phones through to report that on the front right suspension there is a rattling noise which is why he backed off a little, to get the car through the stage. So car into service and we decided to get the joker tyres, so another 2 K4 tyres go on the front of the car, Bryan checks the front suspension and believes that its just a bull joint is a little loose. Back out of service and onto Stage 7, Tom goes 7th fastest on this stage pulling us back upto 8th
overall, Stage 8, 11th fastest maintaining 8th overall. Stage 9 and Tom goes 13th fastest, we believe that the tyres are now worn out, thank god that we have a remote service. Stage 10 and goes 10th fastest but due to the last stage we dropped back to 9th overall. Stage 11 and we go 14th fastest again maintaining our 9th place. Stage 12 and the tyres now are worn out, Tom pulls in 15th fastest dropping back to 10th overall. On the last 3 stages the sun was also getting very low and so the visibility is getting dangerous so Tom is happy with 10th overall. But 
the main thing is that we collected valuable championship points, with the points from this event Tom, Alistair and the team are lying 4th overall in the Dulux Trade British Rally Championship. So the day has ended, the team pack up, Tom, Simon and Dom head off to the accommodation, Alistair and Bryan head back to Ireland for another rally the next day.
Tom, Alistair and the team would like to thank Labcraft and Lucas Oils for the support on this event.
The Jim Clark rally is only 27 days away, a tarmac event so keep your eyes pealed for more information.