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The Automotive Art warm-up rally had high-lighted a couple of items that were in need of attention on the car, and we took the opportunity in the lead up to Sol RB08 to deal with a few other bits and pieces. Priority was the electrics and the "over-abundance" of wire. The intention when the car was built was to strip out all the unnecessary wiring from the car and simplify what was left. The initial build was only 16 days, and we never seemed to get back to it. This time around it would not escape attention.

I eventually managed to remove about 15 pounds of wiring. Part and parcel of the wiring strip-out was a desire to bring the car down to its minimum weight of 1000kgs. We needed to drop around 30kgs - 60 odd pounds in real terms considering I had an imperial scale - and the wiring accounted for a quarter of this. Next were a couple of unwanted brackets in the back and the complete blower assembly and associated stuff - another 15 pounds - followed by the soundproofing/tar-like stuff on the floor and bulkhead. This constituted about 20 pounds, and with sundry other bits and pieces we were up to nearly 60 pounds - mission accomplished.

While all this was going on it presented us with the perfect time to deal with a second wish-list item, namely the strengthening of the bulkhead. The MK2 and MK3 Astras suffer from bulkhead flexing which eventually results in cracks and splits appearing in the bulkhead. This was rectified by welding a profiled light gauge angle across the bulkhead at strategic points. Other than that, Opel/Vauxhall did their homework and built one solid car!

During the King of the Hill event the car had suffered from a bad electrical fault whereby the car shutdown at about 4000rpm, then went again, then stopped again etc etc etc. Rather annoying and very very slow. This is actually occurred as well once or twice during the warm-up rally, and we had put it down to a fuel filter needing changing, which we had done, and the problem disappeared over the next few stages.

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.

Now, onto the rally itself. On the way to the start I pressed out 2nd gear just to confirm everything was fine, and wouldn't you know it, the problem was back! By now we realized that it was due not to a faulty ground or low voltage, but apparently to high voltage. The alternator was charging a bit high. Murphy obviously knew this, and with the assistance of Sod's law had kindly hidden it from us until the last minute. We decided to fix the problem the old fashioned way. Jackie penciled in "fan on" immediately before the first note of each stage of the rally and we were set!

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.