Hi to all Monte Mini fans. This is the Blog site for the 2012 Rallye Monte Carlo Historique Mini team of Alastair Vines and Peter Moss in 1964 Austin Cooper S - 288. We have been successful in gaining an entry once more into this fantastic rally. Pictured above are Peter and I with CRX, and Peter Barker / Willy Cave with their Cooper S - DKG, after our jointly very successful event last year. Veterans Peter and Willy finished 21st oa., and on our first Monte Carlo Peter and I came in at 64th out of a field of over 320 cars. We were really chuffed. This year we have great support from Mini Spares who have made a significant contribution to helping us get to the start line. We are really very grateful to Keith Dodd and Justin Jefferies who for the second year running have got behind our team to provide much needed support. You can find them at http://www.minispares.com/ The Mini Spares team this year consists of three cars - Bill Richards / John Morrow - Peter Barker / Willy Cave - and ourselves. We all hope to improve on last years placings. Our preparations are progressing well. CRX has had alot of work done to it since last years Monte Carlo. A mishap in June led to a new gearbox case and some suspension work, and the desire to convert it to negative earth from positive earth wiring set up, led to a complete rewire of the whole car. The Rallye Monte Carlo Historique has become a thoroughly modern rally for old cars - no longer is it an old fashioned rally for old boys and their classics. The RMCH organisation insist that you carry a satellite tracking system in your car in order that they can follow your every move - they know where you are, how fast you are going and when you were doing it. To meet the requirements of the organisation and be competitive against some of the up-coming bright young things we need to run modern portable kit, and at least charge the mobile phone without it going "bang" while we are speeding along - for this we need a negative earth electrical system. My friend Paul Price has done a really fantastic job in re-wiring the car with a bespoke BMC Comps Works wiring loom, exactly how they used to be done at Abingdon during the 1960s. For your interest you can view our exploits on last years event. There are pictures and video - most of it is in car - at http://crx89b.blogspot.com/ which was our blog site for last years 100th anniversary (for the Rallye Monte Carlo - not me!) event. We shall take a Land Rover Discovery support vehicle with us again this year. Discovereys are absolutely brilliant for this job - you can get all the stuff you need inside them, tow a car trailer as if it did not exist, and travel in comfort with the benefit of 4WD if the going gets tough. Nigel Chetwynd and Simon Wheatcroft will once again work their magic and try to keep us going if "gremlins" appear or we venture off the straight and narrow. Here some pictures of our preparations this weekend. Nigel is busy covering the load bay in brown paper and cardboard in order to stop grease and dirt getting from spare parts onto the trim material. He is being ably helped by Pepper, the neighbours cat. The Disco looks fantastic now in its Mini Spares livery.

We have a good selection of tyres for the event. We bought some from our friends at BMC Auto in France - Francois Windeck runs the show and is a Mini specialist par exellence. Take a look at their web site at http://www.auto-bmc.com/site/ and you can see that he has a great business going on there. If you are not able to speak French then speak to Xavier in the shop as he has excellent English.

I discovered Andy Roelands of Mini Prep Ltd in the latter part of last year. Andy is a real Mini enthusiast with a significant motor sporting career behind him. He is passionate about the classic mini and knows a thing or two about tyres as well. He has been working with suppliers in Finland to successfully develop an excellent gravel tyre for stage rallying. Whilst this tyre may not be ideal for the Monte, he has come up with some alternatives. See the picture for some really aggressive looking tyres to tackle the worst that the French Alpine weather can muster. We have had to develop the stud pattern a little to comply with the Event regulations, and I can't wait to give them a try. You can find Andy at http://www.miniprep.co.uk/

That is all for today. I plan to do tyre testing in the coming week. I will let you know how it goes with our new tyres.