End of day 1. 10th out of 45.

Lunch time. Yum

Ready to start

Cobra

Yes, it is a real one.

E-Type

DB2/4 Drophead

Oh sweet lord this is nice.

Jags lovely Jags

Checking in

Scrutineering - check

Signing on - check

Club sandwich and a few pints at the Turnberry - check

Ready to go - check

Taste of things to come

This is us last week on the Ilkley Jubilee Historic where we won our class (ok, it was a lowly class but a win is a win!) and had a damned good day out.

Leaving tomorrow at early o' clock for the Malts, very excited indeed.

2012 HERO Scottish Malts Rally

We're leaving a first light on Sunday morning for the journey up to Scotland for the HERO Scottish Malts. I'll try and keep the blog updated daily as we crack on...

Artistic nude

MSA regulations state that a car involved in (my level of) rallying can't carry any advertisements or endorsements. So off came all the period 70's stickers before the rally tomorrow.

It is good to see the old girl naked again.

TLG (Tender Loving Graham)

I had a great day today in the workshop with Graham and the lads. He kindly agreed to fit me in for an urgent appointment after the rally in France at the weekend.

Nothing too major needed attention but lots of little niggles were making quite a racket under the bonnet.

Air filter had worked loose and needed tightening, Graham manufactured a bespoke gasket for the heat exchanger in true Heath Robinson style, refitting of a headlamp that a knocked off its housing while on a gravel rally stage (harder than it looks to put right), a pint of acid into the battery (yikes!), new fire retardant bonnet lining, tightening the hydraulic pump belts and a few other bits.

She's running sweet as a nut now and ready to take on the stiff competition at the Ilkley Jubilee historic on Sunday.

Allez les rouges.

Lamborghini Espada on R des J

Alpine A310s on R des J

Porsche 911 RSs on R des J

Rallye des Jonquilles

We all had a terrific time on the Rallye des Jonquilles in Flandres yesterday.

The car performed magnificently, especially as a lot of it was spent between a Ferrari and an Aston and we didn't want to hold them up on single track lanes...

My wife made a brilliant navigator, in fact we were a total of 300m out over a total rally distance of around 170km. Well done wifey!

It's a fair cop, guv

Naughty, naughty boy.

Good pic though, going to frame it for the garage wall...

Dix neuf

Well the car is primed and ready (more or less) for a packed April schedule of rallying. France next week avec famille, The Ilkley Jubilee in a few weeks and then the big one - The Scottish Malts at the end of April into May. I really can't wait.

The car has been in for a little holiday with Graham for a week. I'd anticipated this being just a bit of grease here and a wipe down there - sadly not to be!

New drive shafts, full fluid service (oil, LHM, coolant), replaced a number of crap balljoints and misc others, bespoke wiring for the new Brantz Tripmaster, new (brighter!) front light bulbs. The list goes on and on.

Yet again Graham did an incredible job getting things turned around so quickly. Any of you other DS owners really need to get in touch with him (or me) and see what he can do. My car will be on Grahams stand at the ICCCR at Harrogate in the summer.

Anyway, that's about it. I've got some real work to do (to pay for all this fun) and then we'll be off to the start line in France in just over a week.