I had Novice Andrew Brougham sitting with me again, for the fifth time we reckon. He has made a lot of progress since his first time a few months ago on the Fife Circle. It may have been something to do with the very straightforward nature of the information, but it all seemed to fall into place for him, and he took on a much more confident air than ever before.

Early on I suggested he might like to try and plot on the move. This is something that not many novices can do, but he said O.K. and he did it very successfully. So we carried on doing it, and I reckon this may have played a big part in his enhanced performance and enjoyment. This technique relies on the driver making gentle, smooth progress while the navigator is plotting, if anybody else wants to try it. He did make a couple of mistakes, but then who doesn’t?

One of the Open crews spotted one of our mistakes. The Open clues must have been quite hard, because several of them had dropped a lot of time halfway through the first half, and on one section we had about four experts following us. One of them – I won’t say which one, so as not to embarrass him – told me he had followed us quite a bit (and Andrew had spotted him doing it) but he had second thoughts about following us any more after he saw us coming from the wrong side of a loop. It was just a bit of misinterpretation on Andrew’s part. He won’t do that one again.

We won the class on 56 penalties, one ahead of another Novice crew that I don’t know. And as the results haven’t appeared on the website yet as I’m writing this I don’t know who it was. There were a few new names to me, plus some that I have got to know only recently. Results should be on http://www.nuitblanche.org.uk/.

I heard Peter and Dougie Humphrey (TR6) non-finished because of illness problems. Try Kwels. I hear they are the best. Or maybe a smoother driver? Only joking, Peter.

Two cars came to blows near Gorebridge. One was looking for a slot right off the A7 while the other began an overtake manoeuvre. The slot appeared. Oops! The crews were O.K. but both cars were out. One was last seen disappearing on a recovery vehicle, while I believe the other was just driveable. It didn’t need to go very far. Lessons learned, I hope.

Another car suffered a holed sump on a white. There were a few rather long and rough whites. If I had any cause for complaint I reckon this would be it. Despite taking it gently I still managed to get some noises off the bottom of my car. No damage as far as I know.

Gavin Lloyd/Steuart McCondochie (Fiesta) went downhill into a farm yard on the last section, only to get stuck for lack of traction on the snow, dropping 14 minutes. I saw them go in and thought, “Where on earth are they going?” Gavin was cursing me later for not hanging about to push him. Get some M&Ss, Gavin.

The downside is that they don’t feel as taut in normal conditions, with more roll and less steering precision, although in reality there is almost as much grip. They create more of a floating feeling in the steering, which means you don’t go as quickly – maybe no bad thing when conditions are varying from completely dry, through wet and icy, to lying snow. A bit unpredictable. But the positive side is that when you get lying snow these tyres are much better than any normal ones.

Another problem I had been suffering since fitting new M1144 pads on the front a few weeks earlier was that the front was locking up. So I decided to fit new M1144s and new discs on the back too after the Aquarius, and this transformed the brake balance, and my confidence as a result.
The car felt so much better, especially when compared with the reports of other drivers’ antics in the snow.