I would like to thank Roy for organising one of the best trips that the Club has done to date.

Not only did he organise and pamper to everybody's needs, but I owe him and his travelling companion Seb a debt of gratitude for all the help and assistance they gave me when my clutch failed on Friday evening while returning from the Track to the campsite.

Bearing in mind that I had track time booked in less that 15 hours time (Saturday morning) I thought my weekend was over, and started thinking on how to get the car transported with Euro assistance back to the UK.

Roy on returning back to the camp site would hear none of this and diagnosed the problem as thrust bearing, insisting that we set about removing the gear box there and then are you sure Roy !!

I contacted Chris Cole back in the UK late Friday evening to ask where I might source the required parts in France, to which he replied "don't bother" they are made up of three different parts Renault, Land Rover and Ford which would be impossible to find at such short notice.

An hour later the gearbox and seized thrust bearing was extracted from the car, much to the amusement and disbelief of everybody on the campsite. A big thank you to our French neighbour who kept appearing with glasses of wine to keep us replenished and then walking back to his caravan shaking his head.

Sure enough the bearing had seized solid even the Teflon spacer had melted and run into the bearing.

Roy & Seb hatched a plan that if I prepared all the spanners nuts and bolts in the right order of assembly they would shoot off to Le Mans first thing in the morning to try and find somewhere the could obtain the parts.

Off they went at 8am next morning to search for the parts needed, after a couple of phone calls from them asking for dimensions of the pressure plate etc. etc. they returned at 10am with parts that would hopefully do the job.

Now I would have been quite happy to have spent the rest of the weekend putting the car back together, while everybody went off and enjoyed themselves on the Club stand and track time.

Now Seb (being a F1 Maclaren engineer) was of the opinion that if they can change an F1 engine in 90 minutes putting the gearbox back in a Forty would be a piece of cake.

And sure to his word at 11.30 am the car was all back together running and on it's way to the Club stand to await the long awaited track time.

I would like to say Roy, Seb and all those that lent a hand a BIG THANK YOU.