Last year I told the story of how we prepared and raced the first vintage Volvo ever to be invited to Race at the prestigious Goodwood Revival meeting in the St Mary's Trophy. Here is the story of our return.

American flags abounded everywhere. A great row of Stars and Stripes at half mast flew all along the pits straight. Lord March described how he had agonised over the decision, but in the end the Goodwood Revival Meeting of September 13th to 16th 2001 was to go ahead as planned. Later, when 71,000 people stood motionless for a three minutes silence and the wind blew across this old airfield in the weak autumnal sunlight, I felt for sure it had been the right decision. It was a moment so moving that none there will ever forget it, and a chance to consider friends far away, past, present and future.

And so it was a privilege to be there and to remember, and for us the calling came late. After a respectable showing last year in the sedan race known as the St. Mary's Trophy and overcome by the generous comments of some supporting "Volvisti," I was hopeful we might get invited back. Our chances looked to have improved further when we heard the organisers were eliminating cars produced after 1963 and lengthening the race to a two driver, twenty lap mini-enduro. 1963 was the most successful racing year in Europe for the 122S, winning its class in the European Touring car championship, surely they would remember this? We would then sign up a famous Scandinavian driver and be ready to roll. Except the invite was not to come until it was almost too late.

After some indecision earlier in the spring, I had decided to press on developing the Amazon in 2001. A compression test had shown the cranking pressures to be down on all four cylinders so I decided to pull out the lump and rebuild the bottom end with new oversize pistons, plus a more modern camshaft than the old factory R type we had used hitherto. This and some other stuff would hopefully make up some of the missing power we were lacking against most of the competition Fords, Alfas and Jaguars.

For parts I looked to Sweden and eventually plumped for a "Phase 4" camshaft from Mike Aaro at Unitek&ST, who was also able to supply us specially lightened lifters and the rare oversize Mahle pistons we needed as well. Unfortunately, courier delays meant I had to miss the first event of the year and with work pressures interfering, I engaged the help of local friends and classic Alfa race preparation experts Andrew Thorogood Classic Cars to reassemble the engine and oversee the machine and balancing work. The cylinder head was to remain to the same specification as before, only this time I measured the combustion chambers and then increased the compression ratio to 11.4:1. The machine work dragged on through the early summer as niggly problems kept holding us up, but I also took the opportunity to get the flywheel lightened, replace the clutch and put a better baffle in the sump. Mike was keen we commission one of his modified cylinder heads, but budget precluded it just yet and besides I had reasonable confidence in the old one. In the meantime I had entered another Top Hat race at Spa Francochamps in Belgium, but things were running later all the time and there was no opportunity for proper testing. We should have pulled out. I decided to go anyway and it proved to be a big mistake.

The week of the race I was still running-in the new engine. It had been to the rolling road and shown a good 130 bhp at the rear wheels, which is what I had hoped for, but the driveability was just awful and we could not find an pair of SU needles that would work cleanly through the lower rpm range. It also showed signs of running hotter than before. Danish Volvo dealer Jens Jepperson had agreed to come and co-drive the car in Belgium and I reminded myself how reliable she was as a rule. At this point I made an error of judgement and decided it would be okay to drive the old girl the 300 miles there on the road as a final running-in period, in the knowledge that a friend was taking out an empty trailer, so if things went wrong I could always get back. The day I left, he phoned to say he could no longer take the trailer.

After an eventful all night drive to get there, I at last met up with Jens and we successfully completed practice. However, I noticed a strange misfire that had cropped up over 6000 rpm. The usual checks offered no solution and we spent the rest of the day changing ignition components and measuring fuel pressure to no avail, before I eventually retired to the hotel still baffled. The following morning dawned a beautiful day and after checking the levels as usual, I dozily drove into Spa town to get gas. After filling up I gave a sleepy yawn and started her up to be met with the most awful sound. Clack, clack, bang... clack clack clack. I couldn't switch it off fast enough. Pumping with adrenalin, I soon whipped off the rocker cover to see nothing amiss; was I dreaming? Unfortunately, taking out number three plug revealed an awful truth as the combustion chamber was full of water. Whatever had happened, it looked pretty terminal.

With no other options, it was to cost me $600 to get the car recovered back to London by a bunch of pirates who also managed to break the ignition key in the lock. A weekend to forget, believe me, and especially for poor Jens who had driven over 10 hours from Denmark. Lifting the head revealed one of the inlet valve guides had disintegrated and the pieces had bashed up the head and a couple of the pistons. I found a piece the size of a coin where the inlet manifold meets the carburettor! All the other bits were reduced to something like metallic sand. Furtehrmore, marks on the pistons looked suspiciously like the threads of screws, remarkably similar to the type that are from the dashpot of an SU. Strange, because we run tight foam filters and I could not easily think how something like that could have got in.

By now sick of the whole business and with no invite from Goodwood, the family racecar was parked up and we prepared to go on our family holiday in the family station-wagon. Fortunately this was still to include some racing, as I had been kindly invited by German racer friend Rolf Stockerbrand to share his Mercedes 300SE in the "Oldtimer Marathon" two-hour race at the original full size Nurburgring circuit. This was a rare treat indeed and driving this big sedan around the old track in the rain was an unforgettable experience. Volvo-wise I came across two Amazons and a P1800 in our race. It was for mixed pre-'65 Sedans and GTs, with 130 starters in two simply huge grids. The (Dutch) P1800 really flew and passed me in a straight line going up a long hill, which was quite a surprise. They finished a very impressive 13th overall.

When we eventually got back home, it was to find a voicemail message from Goodwood. Would we now like to enter after all and who were we proposing as a celebrity driver? However, by now there were now only three weeks left to go and we had no driver and no working engine.

On the driver front, I had been having some friendly telephone chats with Rally legend Hannu Mikkola in Finland, but he was finally to prove committed to a job on the same weekend in the USA. Stanley Dickens, the only Swede to have won Le Mans, was approached by an intermediary but was already booked to another race. Then Jens suggested Tom Belso. Tom had been a Williams F1 Grand Prix driver in the '70s, but had started his career racing works-supported Volvos in Scandinavia before becoming a works Ford driver in 1968. He had last raced in 1998 after a 20 year retirement and seemed chuffed at the idea when I eventually spoke with him. His last lap of the circuit had been in a Formula 1 car in 1974!

So now we needed an engine. Engine builders Andrew and Joe removed the engine and stripped out the remaining damaged parts. Fortunately the bores and the block surfaces had escaped unscathed. Mike Aaro located and dispatched some more pistons from Sweden and we were left with the issue of how to deal with the head. Chances of a repair were dashed when a crack was discovered in number three combustion chamber. I had a standard spare, but it only had 40mm inlets and no major porting work. After a week searching for options, I was fortunately offered a used full race head by Dave Methley Motorsport from one of their GT racing Marcos Volvos. The price was paid and we set about bolting it on, but therein lay some complications. This was a 2-litre big valve head and the valves just very fractionally would not fit down our 1800 bores! It took two attempts at fitting to get the block relieving correct, plus we had to drill out our rocker pillars, since the head had been modified to take oversize rocker shaft bolts. Despite these and a box full of other niggles, it eventually all came together, but at the last minute. To get a set of hand-filed needles for the SUs, we were actually forced to visit a Rolling Road on the way to the circuit. This was the establishment of the remarkable Tom Airey near Winchester who runs his BHP tester from the side of his house and was quite unfazed by tuning our engine at 6:45 in the morning.

Once at the track, things started to go much better and I started to feel all the expense and sheer hard work of the previous few weeks might prove worthwhile. The news of September 11th had naturally effected everyone tremendously, but the general feeling was were right: to press on and make the most of the event, for who knows what the future might bring. Support and tributes to America were everywhere to be seen and while some U.S. visitors were missing, many key guests, like top lady driver Lynn St. James, had made it across in time.

Once again I had Nick Morgan as crew chief ably assisted by Volvo expert Dave Wright and sculptor/race preparer Micky Bolton. Tom Belso and his wife Barbara proved an absolute delight to have on the team. Tom was soon back into the swing of things and the competition light burnt bright in his eyes. Like all professionals, his initial comments were accurate and inciseful, if not entirely surprising. "You need a 2-litre engine, lower final drive, higher third gear, less weight and lower tyre pressures," he said stepping out of the car after his first drive. We were more than willing to agree, but apart from the tyre pressures could not offer much to help.

Tom had started his career beating Lotus Cortinas with a PV544 racing in Scandinavia in the mid-'60s. This led to an invitation from Volvo to visit their competitions department near Stockholm. Here Tom was presented with a brand new Amazon and as many competition parts as he could fit in the car to drive away. "It was an Aladdin's Cave for me," he said, and for racing this was just about as much factory support as you could get in those days. Eventually the Amazon was outpaced by the Fords and Tom was to change camps to become a works driver for the blue oval, before ending up in F5000 and then finally F1. He kept us highly amused with tales of dealing with Frank Williams, which mostly unfortunately cannot be repeated here.