The stopping  and starting was even more frustrating considering we had done a fair bit  of wiring work including replacing some of the grounding points and the  feed for the ECU.  I discovered quite by accident during the King of the  Hill event that running the radiator fan made the shutting down problem  disappear, and we ran the last two runs with the fan on, and took about 20  seconds off our time on a stage 84 seconds long. Told you it was slow!   After more checks and tests, we eventually took the car for a test drive a  few nights later and everything was fine - or so we thought... 

We also managed to get one other thing done before the big rally, and that  was to reduce the fueling a bit. The engine in the car was no longer the  QED built rally engine, but rather a standard engine on throttle bodies  and slightly bigger exhaust manifold, but it was still running on the same mapping as the big engine.  Additionally we had richened the 3000+rpm end of  the map before the 2007 Rally Barbados in an effort to counteract an  overheating issue at that time.  Thanks to a friend (and current owner of  our original MK2 Astra) we reduced the fueling by 5% across the board - an  amount we considered safe without access to wide-band sensors and rolling  roads before the rally.

One major change from last year was my passenger to my left.  Since Jackie always wanted to have a go at the "big one" and Jonathan was not sure if he could make it, a mutual decision was made to have my wife Jackie occupy the passenger's seat.
 

I expected the rally to be fiercely competitive in our group between ourselves and Greg "Hottie" Cozier in his Ford Escort RS2000.  He had the better of us in last year's Rally Barbados, I had beaten him in the  warm-up rally, and he had returned the favour and put a second and a half on me up Turners Hall in the King of the Hill event, so it was shaping up  to be a very interesting duel.  The stages times can be found on the Rally  Barbados website and also on rallyscoring.com but don't quite convey the  full story.

I had generally been quicker on the Canefield north stages, and this year  was no exception while Greg tended to be quicker on the Canefield south  runs.  On the first Dark Hole stage (SS2) however, after a very slippery run through the stage I ran into the embankment just after the finish and nearly put the car on its roof.  What I did manage to do was to bend the  TCA and steering arm and rip off the left side skirt.  A hurried call to  the service crew ensued, and we drove about a half mile with the wheels  pointed in opposite  directions to meet them at a suitable work area.

The steering arm and TCA were beaten straight with the aid of a sledge hammer and put back on. The rear rose joint of the TCA had to be adjusted so that the bolt could line  back up with the captive nut in the chassis.  With time running very close to going OTL we left off the sump guard and decided to deal with alignment  after the next stage and just drive the car carefully in the mean time. As luck would have it, as we drove away from the service point, the steering  wheel was still pointing straight ahead, there was no pulling to either  side, and above all, it felt good. 

SS3 was taken at full tilt and the car felt fine. We pushed hard for the remaining stages of the day, and  finished the day with comfortable 20 something second cushion ahead of  Greg, due in part to some time lost on the two night stages by Greg due to  an alternator problem.
 

It all came apart (or so I thought) after a flat right over crest heading towards Malvern wall on the Lemon Arbor-Wilson Hill stage - at which point I had changed to sixth. The  road then starts to tighten towards Malvern wall. I lost the back end of  the car and spun rather dramatically into a freshly ploughed field.
      

Fortunately the car didn't roll, and after starting the car again but unable to get going under my own steam the spectators were quick to respond with a push.  It took what felt like an eternity to get back on the road, and by now I was acutely aware that the next competitor could only  be seconds away.

I continued through the stage as quicker as I could,  checking mirrors for the impending arrival of the next car so I could pull  over and not unfairly block them while at the same time trying to stay on the road with a car that clearly had a bent steering arm...again.   Once more a hurried call to the service crew at the end on the stage and  we rendevoused with them shortly after where we confirmed a bent steering arm. This time in the interests of time (SS23 had been cancelled and SS22  and SS24 were running back to back) I chose to dial out the misalignment by adjusting the rod end and do a quick by eye wheel alignment.

The spin  had cost us about 45 seconds, and considering I had only about 20 seconds on Greg prior to the spin, I had effectively thrown away the class win.  The  stage was repeated with a cautious driver at the wheel, and it was on to  Bushy Park for the super special and the finish. 

By now though I was beginning to wonder where Greg was since on the the previous stage he  started behind me, and must have been on the stage when I spun, and he  certainly had not passed me. I figured that there must have been some kind of delay after I started, and that he was lower down the running order as  a result. It was only on arriving at Bushy Park that we found out that he  too had suffered problems in SS22 and broken a driveshaft - hence the  reason we didn't see him.

So the rally ended a class win, a narrow escape  from a moment of over-exuberance, and a fair degree of satisfaction  knowing that the little engine could hold its own against the competition.