From the beautiful setting and interesting and testing/demanding track that is Cadwell Park to the stark, tedious double drag strip, chain-link fenced edifice that is 'Stalag Silverstone'. Most definitely not a Mini-friendly circuit. The track is not very entertaining at all. Mostly two longish stretched of flat-out with two stops – one a hair pin (Becketts) and one a 'hurry up and wait' series of very, very slow corners that you have to literally trundle round.

The car was in good order post Cadwell, so nothing to do on it except over-inflate the tyres and load it on to the trailer. The weather reports were not too promising (basically 'grim, may be damp, cold, over-cast') but at least there was not likely to be snow as there was a couple of years ago. Though I suspect I would have preferred it if it had snowed – fun for all the family! Instead of going straight to the circuit Friday as usual, we decided to stay over with my sparring partner Steve and his good lady Alison. They live around an hour or so from Silverstone. Seeing as the weather was not looking like being too clement, and I had picked up a heavy, horrible cold from somebody during the week immediately before, we decided that the warmth and dryness offered by a proper roof was a better deal. Plus this being a 'double header' weekend for us – we had qualifying on Saturday and two races on Sunday. The drive down to Steve & Alisons was the usual aggro that is navigating the roads in the UK. Didn't even get out of Yorkshire before we hit a traffic jam on the A1 caused by a multi-car accident.  And I REALLY need to do something about the brakes on the van – they are bloody awful and down-right nervous-making. Anyway – we made it eventually, with me feeling pretty crappy health-wise. A decent Indian meal and a few beers preceded an evening of general hilarity – finally retiring to bed a little later than perhaps we ought! Kick off was quite early Saturday morning.

Saturday morning dawned grey, cold, windy and damp. At least both sets of tyres were now scrubbed in. By the time our qualifying session came around it was only damp, not wet so I went with the scrubbed tyres. It was Steve first time out for quite a while, but as he's always quick no matter what i decided to let him past me as we went out on to the track and to try and follow him. That almost ended prematurely – at the first corner (Copse) in fact, as Steve went it to it at quite a rate – somewhat quicker that I judged prudent in the conditions and straight out of the collecting area. He went VERY sideways.  So much so that myself and the two cars with me (Dolomite Sprint and RS200 Escort) backed RIGHT off and waited. Steve collected it up and shot off down to Maggots, leaving the three of us looking at each other and obviously 'tutting' in our helmets and shaking our heads in a resigned fashion. The track was extremely slippery, not at all helped by various cars in previous qualifying session dumping oil here, there and everywhere. It was worse than Cadwell on brand new tyres was – so once again decided just to get the car back to the paddock in one piece. Result was Steve's quickest lap was 2.5 seconds faster than mine. Despite that he was only two spots on the grid up on me, and we weren't the slowest by some margin. Steve was pretty impressed with the engine I just built him – though how good would yet to be proven under dry racing conditions. Usual post qualifying check over and re-fuel undertaken, Steve discovered oil ejected from hat seemed to be the clutch/primary gear seal. Hmmm. He cleaned it up and decided to do the first race to see what happened. There have been issues with these seals on and off for a couple of years now – seems down to grossly inconsistent manufacturing. We then set off back to Steve's to warm up, get fed and watered and early to bed.  Well – sort of early.

Back at the circuit Sunday and the weather was distinctly brighter, warmer (not by much though), less windy and drier. Though I was still feeling pretty crappy with this damned cold thing. Down to the collecting area for the first of our two races of the day, out and round the circuit, back to the grid and lined up. VERY close together and almost line a-stern. Hmmmm. I wanted to get away and up behind Steve who was on the inside of the row in front of me. Lights on, off -and away. I haven't been making good starts for some time – having been excellent off the line for years. No idea why – I think it was because I was thinking too much about what I wad doing, where before I just did whatever I did sort of instinctively. So i determined not to think about it and hey presto! Great start. I couldn't get inside as a Mk1 Lotus Cortina was pushing through the middle (same bloke that pushed past me at Cadwell), so I went left and up the outside of the next row in front of me. Not a good plan as heading in to the right-hander that is Copse on the first lap means everybody is going to slide out left... where I was. I tried to hold position for as long as possible, across the kerbs, then way out on to the Tarmac apron before finally having to lift to avoid being pushed way of the track side. As soon as you lift slightly it's like you've been 'paused' and everybody else goes to 'fast forward'. Consequently going through the left kink (Maggots) then down to the big stop that is a hairpin right (Becketts) I had lost a heap of ground. Coming out on to the looonnngggggg back straight I was some 100 yards behind Steve. I doubted then that I'd catch him, and I didn't. I got tangled up with a Hillman Avenger and my mate in the Mk2 Lotus Cortina. I spent the whole race trying to catch the Cortina and fend off the Avenger. The two straight sections that make up the track between Becketts hairpin and the stupid Luffield complex meant I had to work very hard at getting the stop-go-slow-bendy sections sorted to get a good run out of them to try and stay in touch with the Cortina and ahead of the Avenger. If Avenger-man hadn't been so desperate to get by me for the bulk of the laps we could have helped each other catch up with the Cortina. But he wanted past at the soonest opportunity... Amazingly it took him until around the second to last lap to get past me – my Clubby was so quick pulling out of the slow sections that I made yards and yards on him that he struggled to regain on the straights – so it was mostly down to out-braking and track position in to the slow bits. I finally let myself down and he slipped past then drove WIDE to keep me behind to the chequered flag.

Meanwhile I could see Steve ahead – having a very lonely race. BUT – at least he saw the chequered flag, so he was dead-chuffed. Downside was that clutch seal was leaking pretty bad. Rather than risk stacking the car because of oil on brakes or tyres or both he decided to take the car home whole and sort the clutch seal. A very mature decision! He was just so damned pleased he'd finished a race at last, and was even more pleased at how the engine went. Very impressed. I re-filled the fuel tank and a quick check round showed nothing else needing doing so we went off to watch some of the other championship races from our club. Then time to get prepared for my second race of the day.

We had asked that the grid be a little more spread out and offset from race one as it was very cramped. The marshals duly complied. Red lights on, off, and another blinding start. I shot out left and up the outside of the two rows in front before pulling back in again. Pleased with such a good start I was hoping to get out on to that long back straight behind some of the bigger, faster cars to try and get as much of a tow as possible. Bad news was, several of the more, erm.. 'determined' mid pack drivers decided to have a bit of a coming together as nobody wanted to give way at Becketts for the first time. Sheer stupidity. As those luminaries on BBCs F1 coverage keep reminding us - you can not win the race at the first corner. 4 cars did not rejoin the race after that corner fracas. And of course it completely screwed up my excellent start and gain in position. I went wide out left to avoid all the tortured tin and plastic bits that was flying around. By the time I'd negotiated the mess, I was back behind that bloomin' Mk2 Lotus Cortina and Hillman Avenger! This time they had some distance on me, so head down and try and catch up. Except the harder I tried, the further behind I fell. I then did the one thing you should never do, and is totally uncharacteristic for me – I drove angry. Red mist came down and I started over-driving the car everywhere in an effort to catch them up. The onsequences were inevitable – two missed flat-out (no lift on the throttle) up-shifts from second to third (a dodgey thing to do at the best of times with the vagueness that is the Minis gear change system) and a jarring brick-wall-hitting shift from 4th to 1st when already pulling 7,800rpm in 4th. Damn near grazed the glass off the headlights. That happened because I had started shifting down through the gears instead of slowing the car on the brakes then selecting the relevant gear for the corner like I usually do. The result of that was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Towards the end of that long back straight I felt a slight rumble, and dipped the clutch to shove the gear lever into neutral just as there was a loud bang and oil smoke everywhere.... obviously caused by a hole in the block and/or gearbox casing where the presumably busted centre main cap had made its escape. Idiot. So – load it on the trailer, take it home then strip it and take a look.

This is the perfect illustration of what I try to explain to folk about main caps and main cap straps. If you drive the car properly, and do not use the gearbox to slow the car down (the brakes are FAR more effective at this) there is no need for a main cap strap. Especially if it is a cheap one that is not ground flat and square. So the vast majority of road-used engines do not need them. And race engines driven properly do not need them either. If you are an engine/gearbox abuser, you should go straight to a steel centre main cap or a proper, quality steel, ground strap. In which case the centre main is unlikely to break – but something else will eventually. You just move the problem to the next weakest link. So don't drive like an idiot.

Article by Keith Calver