With just one week before we do our first test and only 8 days before our first race, its just down to the small things in our prep list, thankfully.

This week, John and I, attached the Shaw patented towing eye and cut out a suitable slot in the front bodywork. The slot is a little larger than the attachment, to ease the fitting of the bonnet and at worse will just a little more cooling for the front wheel. It actually looks quite neat in Red and does not protrude beyond the front splitter which is nice.

Its attached to the front chassis support for the floor and wedged between the two bars so the entire car could probably be hung from it without a problem! Its also nice and low down on the car which will aid the marshals if they need to drag the car out of a gravel trap as it will stop the car from digging the nose in.

Apart from a good spanner check, the only other task at the front of the car was to bleed through all of the old brake fluid and replace with nice clean Castrol Response 4. We did that for both circuits and reset the brake bias. We have already replaced the front pads as the old ones were almost complete down to metal, interestingly the brake bias was wound all the way to the front. I must have been moving this forward throughout the two long birkett sessions, compensating for the reducing front pads, although I have not recollection of this being the case. Interesting how your concentration is focused on the variety of cars and huge variances of speed in a race like that.

At the rear of the car, the K&N filter has been cleaned and refitted, the repacked exhaust and CAT has been fitted (pending a couple of spacer to help clear the rear from the undertray that I need to fit). All of the interior panels have been refitted, some even repainted, belts installed and seat refitted. If I decide against giving the dash a quick spray then all I need to do is refit a few screws and its all complete.

Items for the coming week are down to tracking and sorting out the chain. The chain at minimum needs to be swapped for a new one which should be with us by mid week but that's a quick job. We may also have a replacement rear sprocket through before the test session on Friday so we may have a go at fitting that. Trouble is it requires removing the driveshaft from the diff which is a new activity for us so we may opt not to undertake that in the time we have! You can see from the photo that the sprocket is showing signs of wear as you would expect from Ali being attacked by the chain for a race season.

The start of the season is really close and its all getting exciting. Oh and my new helmet and HANS device has arrived so it feels a little like Christmas.