Here in my car I feel safest of all...

Gary Numan, and it fits in perfectly with todays post.
The Nemadji trail Rally is less than a week away. I've spent my time busying myself learning how to read course notes and Dan has been working hard preparing the car.
I've been measured up to fit in the seat, yet I haven't actually sat in the seat while the car has been moving.
Until today, that is.
Today was shakedown day.
The chance to see if everything was working after the fitting of the limited slip differential, and more importantly, how I was going to cope with a car driving at speed on a gravel road.
But there were some other tasks to sort out before we could get out there. Principally the installation of the in car camera, after all, you all want to see how I cope out there don't you?
In car camera is actually a requirement on a national rally, not so at a regional level. But it's easy to see how invaluable they are to any crew, enabling them to see how well they work together; the co-driver calling the route and the driver following the instructions. After throwing some off the wall ideas out there that at one point involved a live stream we settled for a GoPro mounted behind the crew, like everyone else.
The other task was to adjust my safety harness.
But let's just stop there a moment and take a step back. To put the safety harness on you first have to get in the car.
You open the door and...

The door bar of the roll cage impedes my entry.

There's a bloody great big Red bar in the way! The door bar of the roll cage. All of a sudden a task you don't have to think about becomes difficult. Left foot first? Right foot first? The first time I got in the car I had no idea what to do. After a couple of visits to the car, getting in and out isn't that much of a problem anymore.
When you're only used to regular seat belts (or in the case of my Studebaker, lap belts) a six-point harness is a horse of a very different colour.  But after 20 minutes or so of loosening and tightening the straps in various combinations. I ended up tightly, but comfortably held in the seat.

Yours truly, well and truly strapped in.

It is a very different sensation being restrained by a six-point harness. You'd better make sure that anything you need is within arms length, because you can't lean forward to reach anything.
Now at last, the next task was to fire up the car and get out there.
For me, there wasn't any feeling of claustrophobia strapped into the seat surrounded by a heavy roll cage in a stripped out car interior devoid of carpets, stereos and other such luxuries you take for granted these days. Inside it was pretty noisy when we were accelerating and the experience did leave me with something of a pounding headache, but I'm assured that with crash helmets on during the event this background noise will barely be noticeable.
Driving on gravel roads and other loose surfaces, even after nearly 20 years in this country still makes me nervous. They are not something we have in England. So I'm always happy to turn those duties over to someone else. Some snowfalls in the days previous meant that there were slippery patches in the shaded parts of the roads, which would make me double nervous if I was at the wheel but Dan clearly knew what he was doing driving on gravel roads in these conditions and I felt very at ease with him in the driving seat. I once glanced up at the speedometer to see we were traveling at... let's just say we were going at a speed considerably faster than I'd ever consider driving on such a surface and I wasn't bothered. So I clearly trust him at the wheel of the car. Now all I have to do is get him to trust my instructions. That might take a while.

Car#958 after its shakedown run.

The next time I'll be in the car is but 6 days away as I write this. 
I'll be counting down. "5-4-3-2-1. Go. Three hundred. Right four tightens..."