Round 1 of the DMN Championship was to see the debut of our new works KAD twin cam engine.

The winter lay off proved to be a respite for the team and now we are in full hands on mode.

The first few sighting laps of qualifying saw the new brake pads and Avon slicks bed in, initially we felt the car was too stiff, however we had to qualify with what we had.

Lap times began to tumble as the mini was pushed to its limit, on lap 8 5th gear seemed to be missing, 1 lap later 4th gear expired, qualifying for us was over.

A bitterly disappointed team returned to the paddock hoping the problem was as simple as adjusting the gear linkage, however upon close inspection it was evident the KAD 5 speed gearbox had suffered a major failure.

A phone call to KAD resulted in us removing the engine/gearbox package and hot footing it back to the KAD workshop at a 100mph. The KAD team were all waiting for the arrival of the engine package, within 20 minutes the troublesome gearbox was removed from the engine and diagnosed with a broken mainshaft. Due to the timescale involved it was decided to run our old 4 speed Quaife gearbox which competed in over 200 laps at the MiniWorld action day last year, a drop gear change was made to increase the rpm run into Paddock Hill bend.

With anticipation of a race Sunday morning although starting from the back of the grid (as we missed race 1), we hurriedly made our way back to Brands Hatch to install the engine ready for our 2nd race on Sunday.

Sunday dawned with a good weather forecast predicted (sunshine). The team were in good spirits although a little tired from the late frantic installation of the engine.

The race was underway, our pre-arranged strategy was that I would compete at least 1 lap before making a move on the tail enders, which was as it happened a good call, as always on lap 1 mayhem intervened in the pack, bumping and boring took place with 1 car spinning off at Clearways into the tyre wall.

Lap after lap saw our gallant Mini overtake many different cars, we gained 8 places but had to settle for 9th overall as progress was hindered lap after lap through the power and tenacity of a BMW E30 saloon, which had the legs on us through shear grunt along the straights.

As our strength comes from cornering speed this car put a stop to our progress.

The team returned to the paddock knowing that we took fastest lap from all the cars in our class, this in itself was a great achievement for the team, hopefully order will be restored at the next round of the DMN at Brands Hatch on 30th April/1st May

Watch the in car footage from race 2.