Due to the arrival of our daughter in July (our second child, in addition to our 2 year old son), my rallying in 1998 had amounted to only the first two rounds of the British Championship in March and April. I therefore thought I would finish the year with Rally GB.

In the months leading up to the rally, I took the opportunity to update my Group N Peugeot 306 to the latest homologated specification which includes bigger brakes, a 6-speed gearbox and a more powerful engine. Dave Gough of TI Motorsport and a friend of mine from Australia did the work and produced a very well-prepared car.

We did the last round of the national championship as a test run and we were very pleased to find that the up-grade made the car 1 to 2 seconds a mile faster. Unfortunately, the alternator belt came off mid-way through the event and we drained the battery and went OTL before we could fit a new one. However, it was a useful exercise to gauge the car's performance before Rally GB.

Our class (N3) always attracts a competitive entry list and this year was no different. There were nine crews, headed by Richard Roberts (one of the front-runners in the BTRDA Series), followed by the Barber brothers who are multiple class-winners in the event. Most of the others were in Vauxhall Astras which unlike my 306, have LSD's homologated in Group N.

Our event got off to a good start with 2nd fastest in class on the first stage. But things quickly deteriorated as the day went on. To our surprise, the tarmac sections on the stages were bone dry and with them making up such a high proportion of the "mickey-mouse" stages in the first leg, tarmac tyres were required to set competitive times. Unfortunately, mine were sitting at home in the garage! This meant that we were only fourth in class at the end of the first day, almost two and a half minutes behind the class leader. And, to add insult to injury, the lack of grip (or was it too much speed?!!) had resulted in us sliding into the armco at Milbrook which had dented all the panels and messed up my nice new Peugeot 306 Maxi look-a-like livery along the left-hand side of the car. But, with so few stage miles completed, we kept telling ourselves that the rally had not really started yet and that we still had a chance.........!!

Day 2 got off to another good start with a second fastest time on the first stage (15 miles of Radnor). Our good run continued throughout the day and, after some fairly committed driving, we returned to Cheltenham in second place, with a one and a half minute buffer to the third placed crew. However, the bad news was that the class leaders (the Barbers) had taken some more time out of us, although only at the rate of 0.7 seconds/mile. If they had a problem the following day, we could make a big effort to catch them, but otherwise they were too far ahead.

We decided to maintain our position on Day 3 but, even so, we had to keep pushing as the third placed crew had a strong desire to be second! We had one major moment when I didn't notice a flat right bend and I thought the next bend was it. Instead, the next bend turned out to be a "K" right, so we had a very fast run along the ditch on the outside. Fortunately the ditch had a smooth end to it and we came back onto the road with only a cracked bumper. Our only other dramas were a bend sump-guard on a massive rock and another thrown alternator belt (probably due to a mis-aligned pulley). We ended up taking another couple of minutes off the third placed crew and we just about equalled the leader's time on Leg 3. After all the competition, it was satisfying to finish second in class and 54th overall (from a start number of 126), particularly in the slippery conditions where the Astras' LSD's give them much more traction.