Well today I head off to Bath for my first competitive rally and I am so excited. The plan is to drive down there check in to the B&B and then head off for some dinner to meet my support team. I arrived in Bath to find out there had been a problem with the booking and it had been made for 2016 so this was not a good start. I rang around and found a B7B near by that was available so headed off to it. After I had checked in I then went off to meet Bill Gwynne and the two other guys, one who was in charge of the car and the other, Bellworthy, who was going to have the fun job of being the co-driver.

Morning of the rally was a 6 am start, due to having to go to scrutineering and a driver briefing. Got my first look at my little Nissan Micra rally car and was surprised to see it was left hand drive but it did at least have my name on it.

The format of the day was 10 stages, which were down in pairs of two.  so you got to at least try the same course twice before it was changed, alas 4 of these stages were to be done in the dark which I was not looking forward too.

By the end of the rally I was amazed at a few things, one I had survived where about 20 other cars had crashed out and also how hard physically and mentally the day had been.

Overall absolutely loved the day and was 9th in class, I cant wait to do my next four races, and again a huge thanks to Bill and his team.

Bill Gwynne

So today I headed off to Silverstone to Bill Gwynne Rally school to do my BARS test and first full day of front wheel drive rally training which also gives me my first signature.

After a long drive I arrived and got to work so to speak. What an intense day so much to learn and think about and such hard work both mentally and physically.
Paul and the instructor were both extremely friendly and made such huge improvements to my driving over the course of the day.

Below is a couple of videos of me driving the course working on the driving line and car control.

Got to love the little Nissan Micra.

Was a very slippery, gravely course.

This is probably the most exciting skill I want to train for my application onto the stunt register. I wanted to get my training underway on some of my other skills before I started this skill as it is probably one of my strongest areas and one that I am happy to spend many hours at practice.

The overall qualification that is required is an National A Licence. To start the process you first need to apply for your National B licence which requires you getting your “Go Rallying Pack” from http://www.msauk.org, you then need to pass you BARS test and that will get you your B licence. I have just sent off for my pack and I am booking a day for my BARS test asap.

Once you have got your National B licence you need to complete 6 rallys to get the 6 signatures you require to upgrade to a National A licence.

So a long journey but one i am really pleased to have started.