AS HELEN SITS SHIVERING ON THE GARDEN, SHE ASKS JUST ONE QUESTION - SO WHAT NEXT?

One thing that is finally happening to me, sitting out what would be my 5^th season, is the tiny voice that is starting to demand some power. We have achieved a great deal without, but it’s starting to gnaw at me. Nobody is paying any attention to a roadgoing class car punching above its weight, they just assume you’re cheating.

I know from conversations with others in the class that they all think there is big power hiding under Helen’s bonnet, ignoring her true abilities, but she doesn’t have what they assume. It’s 248 bhp, on a good day.

I would, finally, like some more. I know I can drive a quick(er) car, ten minutes in Christine at Snetterton told me that, in fact I still wonder now whether an hour in that car and a bit of setup time would have shown her to be faster than she eventually went, I’m starting to itch to get my hands on a really quick car and show what I think I can do.

The race in Vanessa merely whetted my appetite, because we only finished that car's development off after I raced it, and I had to keep it pristine and intact, I didn't get to go mad. Mind you, I was a bit rusty. That we handed it to someone who promptly said thanks a lot and won the race did niggle a bit! I just want to wring something's neck, really throw it, get back that feeling of "Jesus, I'm still alive" after a corner, the terror of a serious go at it.

We’ve all become accustomed to Helen being able to collect a podium. We forget that no other F class does that, and that it’s actually hard to do. I almost feel as if people should be reminded, I’m learning that understatement in racing circles is not actually appreciated, it merely means no-one takes any notice.

If you don't shout about your accomplishments, nobody does. It's not very classy, not at all immodest, but sadly the way of the world now seems to be that you must shout about your most unimpressive achievements, and if possible Tweet, blog, Facebook and publicise every breath you take.

The Bear gets the glory these days, end of 2010 he was collecting race wins like party favours, and given I’d bankrolled the whole deal, it was starting to nag at me a little, the plan sort of went wrong. Start out in class D, move up after you’ve learned to drive, but we put him straight into class E, leaving me nowhere to go and somehow funding the whole thing for both of us.

Numbnuts forgets that our success was based upon my now-empty bank account, and the pair of us now out of action having bought the 2010 clean sweep at the expense of extensive testing and a large pile of tyres that took a large chunk of my financial security. It is the part that gets left out of the tales of heroism told in the bar late at night.

Were I funding just the one car, make no mistake that I’d now be out there in a blue-painted class E multiple race winner, instead of a blue-painted class F multiple race winner, but I’d still be out there now going for the wins. Instead I'm watching from the sidelines. The epic duel for the race wins between me and Stewert, something we’ve long spoken of as inevitable, that’s what should now be happening. But it can’t. So I need to go faster with what I’ve got.

After a year off, I think I'm better for it. Some objectivity has been added, and without the obsession of running my own car, the chance to look about and see what people are up to, how they organise themselves, how they prepare, how they drive. I'm probably more ready than before.

So, not enough cash to build the class E car I need to get out there in to try and show the way, but a well sorted class F heavyweight going well enough to nip at the heels of the top cars. Not quite enough, I can’t quite race them, they have moved on, and I need a substantial upgrade to bring them back into range.

I need someone to race with the car I have, and that means either getting caught, or catching someone, because there’s no-one in that time-slot that I used to occupy, even after a year off.

Or at least there wasn’t, it might be different with saloons to race now, but the problem there is I’d still recognise that I’m not racing them really. I need an XJS to chase, back to those full-on desperate days haring hell for leather after another car giving it everything, right on the edge and driving on my wits, not counting points.

To chase down the class E cars again I’d need about 300 bhp. I think that with that sort of power, even at full class F weight and with all the restrictions to that class, I could seriously upset a lot of cars. Is that do-able within class F regs? No. But we can get closer to it. Even a bit closer to it will make class E a lot more unhappy.

No-one has ever fully exploited the extent of the class rules. I have a whole list of things I think can be done legitimately within them. It's long been assumed that we've already done everything that we could, and then some. The rumour I heard that Helen had cost £100000 to build was hilarious. Truth is, we never scratched the surface of what could be done, and I had bits to try that never got fitted. Time to fit them.

As I’m trapped in the class, it's time to take a look at using the rules to their fullest extent. I don't want to bend or break them, to do that would be self-defeating, I won't cheat myself, it has to be done legally or I'm not playing. The plan then is to uprate the car, and then go and drive it on its doorhandles.The goal is to find a second per lap. Everywhere.

And, in addition, the car wants to look better than ever, we need to raise the standard again. Helen raised the bar when she first appeared, Christine took it further, then Eleanor got her respray, and West Riding took it to another level. I can't match their concours style, but I can make Helen sparkle more than anything else class F can produce. So we shall.

Helen’s 2012 rebuild is underway. The parts have started to arrive.