Day three and we were in a solid fourth place in the Suzuki Swift Sport Cup and about 70 seconds down on third. I pushed quite hard as I needed to take 10 seconds a stage out of third placed man to overhaul him. On the first stage I overshot one corner and dropped 7 or 8 seconds, which I was annoyed about, but we still took over 20 seconds out of Henry Catchpole. The second stage again I pushed hard and unfortunately went off the road twice, both at slippery points under the trees. The first off only cost me a few seconds but the second time we lost 15 or 20 seconds as we had to rely on spectators to push us back on the road. Amazingly we still took another 20 or so seconds off Henry so we had cut the distance to third by half in two stages. The third stage was wet and maybe I was a bit too cautious on my slicks but I dropped 3 seconds to P3.

I had information that the next stages were going to begin to get wet so I went for wet weather tyres. Unfortunately it was dry everywhere and I lost a second a mile to Catchpole. This undid all the work we had done in the other stages so the gap was back to a minute.

We needed to take 3 seconds a mile out of third place on the last three stages to overhaul them. However it was not to be as my clutch failed before the start. We managed to get to the finish but we dropped three or so minutes, thankfully not enough to lose fourth place.

I have to say it felt good to finish my first Rally Isle of Man. I had learnt more on that event than the last five rallies put together. It was also great to see both David and Mark Higgins on the podium too and both TQ.com cars pick up overall championship points. Tim [Sturla] my co-driver again did a fantastic job as always. I was given a lot of time by FX team member Jon Mills before and after the rally. I hugely appreciated it so many thanks go to him as well. All the boys in service were phenomenal and looked after the car perfectly. You could see everyone was enjoying it so much it was a nice atmosphere to come back to.

Next for me is the Ulster Rally, followed by a round of the Chinese Rally Championship. I can't wait for either and am really enjoying the events more and more as I get more comfortable with my surroundings.

Until next time,

Take care,


Nick.


To find out more about Nick visit his personal website: http://www.nickrowland.co.uk/ or simply CLICK HERE.