Had an amazing time, ran the car on 1.5 bar the whole weekend, as the ambient temps were a bit extreme. The car never went above 117°C oil and 105°C water - and that was a particularly "hot" lap. The weekend started tentatively and I was overtaken by quite a lot, as I was scared to push the car incase the untried front end gave up the ghost (drive-shaft wise). However, as the weekend progressed and I gained confidence in the car, I gradually picked up the pace and by Monday, I felt that Peggy was "back" . After playing catch up to the green CSL and his mate (and then finally managing to get passed - they really didn't want to let a Ford through ), I then had a couple of awesome laps with James (Johnny Bravo) as passenger. By then I had completely regained my confidence in the car, and despite some hectic traffic, we had two really good laps - one of which was managing to sneak past the green Supra after following him round for half a lap, short shifting at 6500 - 7000 to stay with him. Once I saw an opportunty to get past (we had a better line out of the fast uphill corner after the bit where Niki Lauda crashed), I had to use all the revs to out drag him up the hill (still on 1.5 bar), we then played cat and mouse as it was his turn to follow me as we threaded our way through the traffic.

It was a very enjoyable lap despite being slowed down by plenty of accidents and traffic. However, this was the lap where we discovered the problem. As we coasted down the main straight to cool the car off, I could hear a very faint ticha, ticha, ticha, ticha as something was either rubbing somewhere or the noise lifters make when they are low on oil. Given the car had just been hammered for 3 laps, my first though was that maybe the oil had run low, so we went back to the hotel to check.

This was 3mm above the minium, so I put half a litre in for good measure and then went to start the car to see if it had alleviated any of the noise. Bizzarely (so we thought at the time), the car wouldn't start. After numerous attempts with the Pectel monitor in the position to check the sensors, all we got was the normal "low battery" warning that you get when the car is cranking. I then decided to whip out the plugs to see if fuel was getting through, as it didn't appear to even be catching, so was obviously lacking spark or fuel. The plug inspection revealed perfectly coloured, but dry plugs on all four cylinders (relief - no oil or other issues ), so no fuel was getting through. A quick phone call to Harvey and he suggested that if the voltage dropped below a certain level, then the ECU wouldn't allow the car to start, so we borrowed a jumper pack from the garage next door and tried that with high hopes, but to no avail. By this time Guido had turned up and him and James stood at the front of the car while I turned it over. It was at this point that they spotted the bottom crank pulley wobbling around as the car was turning over. Another quick phone call to Harvey suggest that the bolt "may" have come undone, but he was sure it had been loctited. I could tell the concern in his voice, and asked what he thought it was if it wasn't this, and he just said "crank has snapped" . With hopes that it was the bolt lose, I jacked the car up and James leapt underneath and started to remove the fans so we could check the bolt. With this done he got under there and tried to see if it was tight. Suddenly the car started rolling back off the jack, I yelled, but luckily Jame's cat like reflexes had allowed him to scrabble out just in time as in slow motion the car fell off the scissor jack. In the rush, I had forgotten to put the car in gear and apply the handbrake fully . After a brief cigarette to calm his nerves while I got the car back into position, James went back under and checked the bolt, which was completely tight and would not budge.

Phoned Harvey and explained this, where he sounded extremely dispondent, "Have you tried undoing it?" he asked. "Nope" - "Try that and then call me back". So then it as a case of removing the alternator belt (swapping the pony Ford jack from one side to the other to do so), where I then got in the car, put it into fourth and stood on the brakes as James attempted to undo the bolt. He couldn't budge it, so I went and got my breaker bar from in the garage and gave him that to try. Back in position, James finally managed to crack the bolt and he shouted from under the car that it was definitely Loctited, as he could feel the courseness in the thread as he undid it. Unfortunately three full turns later and the pulley was off in his hands .

I don't know whether to consider this bad luck or good luck . Obviously it is bad luck to have failed when it did, but then again it is good luck that it hasn't (seemed to have) done any other damage (fingers crossed).

Apart from that, this was probably one of the best weekends for socialising that I have ever been on .