Monte Carlo Historique 2009

The Minispares-Mad Dog Rallying team race through a wintry France towards the Haute Alpes in a 1965 Mini Cooper S

I'm not going to do a full report on the Monte Carlo Historique this year. At least not just yet. I've promised a UK car publication, Mini Magazine, an exclusive. Although they haven't asked me not to blog about the event I think it only fair that they get first dibs.

What I will do instead is make peripheral commentary and add some video clips to convey a sense of realism. The first one is above. It's a simple transit or road section (not a stage) out of Valence. I wasn't calling times or corners so had time (just) to pull out the camera. While we are proceeding at a fairly orderly legal pace, the need to push on is evident and Bill blasts past two non-competing cars in grand style. I recorded this footage with my little Canon point-and-shoot in hand held mode. We did have a proper video camera fitted to the car but it tended to obscure the rear view and also access to the rear seats so it was removed. The straight cut gearbox whines like an overtired two-year-old who has dropped his ice-cream and the noise is very evident. Note also that we have lost 3rd gear at this point so changes are from 2nd to 4th. As you can imagine, I'm always hunting for ibuprofen after a day in the car!