View attachment 160871
We had a wonderful glide down from northern parts this morning. The Bentayga really is a tranquil place to be on motorways and makes each journey an event. Arrived back in time to watch the Moto Gp sprint from Misano. That brought back some memories of an enforced stay at the circuit in 1978.
The event before was in Enna in Sicily and a mechanic an I drove up Italy from there. Well almost all the way, as when my lead footed friend was driving the A series Luton van decided to throw a leg out of bed in the horrible York diesel engine. We were towed the last few miles to the paddock on a short chain behind the furniture van of one of the other F2 teams. That was probably the most scary few miles I have ever done. Zero visibility and no assistance for the brakes. Even if you tried to pull the steering column out as hard as you could, the retardation was much the same as dragging your foot on the floor
However, I did survive and was on a plane back to the UK a day later to source a crank, some rods, pistons and shells.
These were the days when you could carry a crank as hand baggage, I've even carried a 2M sports car rear wing as my fellow passenger....
I spent a 'glorious' few days in the paddock at Misano rebuilding the York engine with our team manager Alan Docking. Fortunately I've almost forgotten how black you can get working on old diesel engines.
After the race I started out for the UK alone on a Sunday evening, and all went well for the first few miles until the high pressure oil line to engine exploded. It was probably the first time it had seen real oil pressure in decades!
I was very fortunate that one of the Pirelli trucks stopped to help me, and dribbling copious quanities of racing car oil, he lead me to a local hydraulics shop who made a series of adapters from imperial to metric, a short piece of pipe, more adaptors and finally a secure route to the engine. All this on a Sunday evening!
I was home the next day.
I few things have happened since then. The circuit goes the other way round (!), I've tried to stop doing such stupid things and I now like diesel engines.
Especially when they are as torquey, powerful and unobstrusivly lovely as the one in the Bentley.
