Jaguar Tales

  A Dry and Dusty Wales It is March 2022.  Historic Rallying is back with a full timetable, and with a nod to the environment, I'm pleased to say with a Net Zero Carbon agenda on the HERO events. For our upcoming HERO Challenge One, the total estimated carbon emissions for the entire event will be offset through carbon capture programmes.   The programme is called Net Hero...and they are encouraging everyone to further offset their car's day-to-day carbon emissions by contributing to the carbon offset schemes affiliated with Net Hero. Dexter, our youngest son, was persuaded to take the navigator's seat, especially as it meant being taken out of the last day of school in order to travel from Essex to Flintshire in North Wales in time for scrutineering.   The week prior, our children's "learning-to drive-car", an old Ford Focus, finally gave into old age when the seals on the steering rack failed in a big way.  After four and a half years of replacing wo...

The XJ-S had survived its greatest rally test so far:  1000 miles over one long weekend, with 300 competitive rallying miles including 14 regularities and 17 tests.   The HERO film above gives you a flavour of what was involved (we're interviewed at about 10:28). Nevertheless, by the time we got home, not all was well.   Mike Ferrari at our ever-helpful local Jaguar specialist, Epping Classic Cars, agreed to put the car up on one of their lifts so I could inspect the damage.  Our family has been customers for over 20 years and we are happy to unashamedly give them a mention!  As long standing Jaguar and Land Rover specialists, Mike & Ian cast their expert eyes over the car, giving me a tip here and there, as I carried out my own inspection.  There was good and bad news: The bad news was that the one-year-old rear radius arm bushes were already very much past their best, in fact, one of the metal inserts had torn itself out of the rubber bush, ...

Racing Around Nigel Mansell's Kart Circuit on the PAAI 2022 Despite Covid interruptions, it took us just over one year from our first rally to break into the top 10 finishers on a one-day HERO event.  A very gratifying result, but nonetheless, not the ultimate aim of the project:  We still need to do a true endurance event. We cover a few hundred miles or so on a short event, but the real test of crew and car will be a multi-day rally when we are well into four figure mileages. I have no wish to tempt fate, but we have been extraordinarily lucky that we suffered no breakdowns or punctures whilst actually competing in the XJ-S. That's not to say that there haven't been plenty of breakdowns as old components failed when stressed (on the school run), but hopefully, the three year restoration of the car means we are now in a sweet spot where we can replace and maintain parts on a planned basis before failure.  Perhaps now is the right time for that true test. On the 2020 PAAI...

2021 Rally Round Up: The lack of clamour by my followers for updates during the year only confirms my suspicion that the only reader of this blog is me. Don't feel guilty if it slipped your mind! The first six months of 2021 were light on rallying for obvious reasons. Regularly taking the XJS on the school run (35 miles round trip) kept the old girl in good fettle until a small disaster struck: On the way home we stopped at a red light just before the slip road onto the M11 (the site of many a breakdown - see previous posts) and were enveloped in steam - luckily I managed to shut down the engine before any damage was done (I hope). It was a hole in the radiator. Once again my AA membership proved its worth as our knights in yellow armour were summoned. The school run seems to be an excellent test bed: After about 20 miles, anything that might go wrong, does. The jolly AA man who came to our rescue was very excited...he said the V12 was the best engine ever made and he was so...

  Using All 12 Cylinders! December 2020 After what has been for much of the globe, an annus horribilis, there was a ray of sunshine in the world of historic rallying:  HERO, having cancelled its two blue riband events, Rally of the Tests and Le Jog, managed to put together a one-day event in mid-December, entitled Per Ardua Ad Infinitum (Through Endless Adversity) from their new base at Bicester Heritage. The route was being changed right up to the start as newly announced Covid Tiers meant sections in Buckinghamshire were no longer viable, but nonetheless it was a wonderful Christmas present to the 70 crews that managed to get to the start.   The event was categorised "Red", which in the HERO lexicon is "Advanced", a higher category than we had hitherto attempted. Rather than start in class order, this event was seeded:  The top 15 crews were all past winners of HERO events and we started 53rd, which we felt was reasonable given our limited experience. Graham, ...