After our enjoyable and successful run on the Rally of The Tests last year a decision was made to have a good crack at the HRCR c/ship in 2014. Because this series has events as far apart as Yorkshire and Kent a fair bit of planning was required, no driving to and from events like in the past 
and the fact that Bob my navigator lives an hour and a half from me.Slowboy has very kindly offered the loan of his trailer as he is having a year off, my employer has promised a tow vehicle, and me and Bob have two very understanding wives, two events fall on both our wedding anniversaries
However the biggest development this year is proper backing from Mini Sport Padiham. They were very happy with the RoTT and this year we have extended backing and a 'works' engine for the Orangebox 
The faithful 997 has been given a well earned rest and after talks with Daniel Harper as to what we required a spec was decided on and we now have a 1293cc Historic Road rally spec engine to help keep on terms with the RS2000/Pinto MK1 Escorts and Porsche 911s.Historic rallying is going to be a direction Mini Sport is going to be moving into with some very exciting plans discussed, They are well placed as the history books show they are very capable of running Minis in rallying, back in the 1970s when Cyril Bolton and Brian Harper took on the Escorts in road rallying and won in their famous car NCK453P, labelled by Triple C as the Ultimate Road Rally Mini, the 1990s with Daniel winning the Group A British c/ship with their well developed Spi Rover Cooper and latterly success with the BMW MINI.
The first round was the Tour of Cheshire on the 1st of March and I worked flat out on the car only getting it running on the Sunday before the rally and spending the week doing jobs on it and going out till the early hours of the morning to get some miles on it, complicated by a very busy 11 hour working day which included two days 'lost' going to Reading with work
(460 MILE ROUND TRIP). Friday morning saw us on the rolling road, oil change etc. I made a decision to drive it to the start to get more miles on it and things went smoothly at noise and scrutinneering. Rally day saw things go pretty well, the new engine ran superb and the extra torque and power was a nice help 
I felt pretty rusty not having done anything for five months , and apart from having the wrong tyres and ride height for the terrain we were well pleased to finish 8th overall and best Mini and bag a chunk of points for the first round 
Next round was just over a week ago and some tweaking and a new set of HS4 carbs saw us gain another 9bhp, we fitted some new Aoo8s and put the Mini Sport Ajusta Ride suspension back on that had been removed for the RoTT and we were off to Yorkshire for the second round. Bob did a fabulous job all day and the test times were good though I couldn't seem to get a proper flow, midday afternoon though we were leading
with Howard Warren and Ian Tullie one second behind us in their 911. The last tests were really rough in places and very slippery, couldn't get traction, and we slipped back to 3rd with an Escort winning, Warren second, us third and the Powley's 911 behind, still a bloody remarkable result, and I reckon with our other tyres and ride height we could have held on to the lead, but that's rallying Next event again in Yorkshire is on the 13th April before we head to Wales in May then Kent in June. Will try to keep the thread updated and load some pics 
With 21 tests during the day, I was at 100% for the rest of the day and good navigating saw us climb back to 6th at the finish 
Flat for the rest of the day saw us pull back 8 places to finish the day 12th. It was safe to say I was gutted, anyway that's over and done with now and next weekend we are in Ross on Wye for the next round, which I will update on. 
