We got it back a few weeks before Rally Tennessee and Kieran and I spent a weekend getting it back in the car. When is was all buttoned up we found that the transmission would seriously bind up and lock when in reverse. Unusable. So I return the whole car for further diagnostics. It is pulled and rebuilt again and put back in the car.


All seems well when we collect it but testing several days later (and 3 days before we need to head out for the rally) reveals some further problems. It gets stuck in a high gear at a traffic light that we finally managed to clear and the transmission is starting to make a disappointing whining noise. I have to make a last minute decision: do we risk running the transmission as is and hope it doesn’t grenade itself at the rally or go for a swap? Rally Tennessee is 150 miles of tarmac stages over two days. Our good friend Marcel is visiting (he and I are preparing for STPR - he’ll be my codriver there) and he advises a swap. I don’t have a spare but manage to find a junk yard stock transmission with 74,000 miles on it at a local salvage yard (Wagner’s - thanks Jeremy!). On Monday Kieran tows the car with the replacement transmission up to Marcel’s shop in Staunton, VA where he and Marcel do the swap on Monday and Tuesday nights. Kieran is back at 6AM on Wednesday,


He grabs some sleep while I do final prep on the car and load up for the tow to Tennessee. We leave early Thursday and there are no issues getting to Hurricane Mills. Our crew this year is Adam Marris (who crewed for us at Sandblast) and Carl Russ. They both live in Atlanta and are car-pooling to the event. We’ll hook up with them very late Thursday, Kieran and I unload the car/trailer, get registered, and eat.


Early Friday, Kieran and I are out doing recce, checking the provided notes for accuracy and safety and amending them for our driving style and performance. It’s an all day affair since there are more stages this year than ever before. Meanwhile the crew are doing final preparations on the car and getting it through scrutineering. We meet up with them later in the day to take several runs through the practice stage. Car seems fine, the stock transmission is running great although I have to get used to a different clutch bite point (much higher than before - don’t know why). I’ve also added risers to my shift tower so that it is higher and closer to the steering wheel. Theory is that the less time it takes to get from the wheel to the shifter the better. Thanks to Matt Mathias for building and donating them to us.


There is a Parc Exposé in Linden and the cars go into Parc Fermé overnight. A fellow competitor, Andrew Frick, points out to me that the passenger side motor mount is on upside down! Causing the engine to pitch down about an inch on that side. It explains a number of anomalies. Don’t know if it was me or transmission guy - could have been either of us. So our crew manage to get it sorted before the start of the rally on Saturday.


The Saturday stages include the awesome Tree Farm stage a roller-coaster fun stage that we run again on Sunday. We complete the day with little drama and nearly matched with Andrew Frick - he’s doing very well. The Wimpey’s are, of course, spanking us both. At the end of the day we are in 3rd place in class just 25 seconds back from Andrew. Kieran is pushing me hard.


The cars go into Parc Fermé over night and we’re ready to go again on Sunday. Josh Wimpey is astonishingly fast ultimately taking 1st place in our class and 2nd place overall! Andrew and I take turns taking 2nd place on each of the day’s stages - it’s fun competing with him but in the end I can only claw back a few seconds and he takes 2nd place in class and we have to settle for third. Some of the stages are cancelled due to volunteer shortages and other issues.


The ceremonial finish takes place inside a local biker bar that features a burn out track through the bar. Here we are doing a small jump into the bar for our fun run.


But we had a great time overall. Many thanks to our crew, Adam and Carl and to the many volunteers that made the event happen - especially Anders and Amy who did an amazing job under very challenging conditions.