I used to plan my holidays around the rallies but Alan had to go with his parents to somewhere in the countryside. Nevertheless halfway through his holiday he travelled back by train in time for the rally. We had a great day racing and placed second in the finals.

At the end of the 59 season we had the opportunity to put one of our models in a wind tunnel at Handley Page, overall the model was aerodynamically clean but they said there was no need for a high gloss finish at the speeds we were racing at it just added weight better to add lightness.

In November we were invited to a meeting at Bedford Products. Ken wanted to see the engine in the air so I offered one of my models as a test bead the engine was installed upright.We meet at our test site on a very cold January morning we had to clear the snow to takeoff! We made three flights with the prototype engine - we knew we would be testing and racing the new ETA 15 so the new airframes would be as light as possible and the prototype weighted in at 16 ounces with engine. This was achieved by the lightest grade balsa drilling holes in engine bearers and all alloy parts. The fuselage got its strength from the box section,then I covered the model with blue tissue spraying only the fuselage blue and one coat of fuel proofer. One idea I had saved 11/4 ounces and involved attaching the u/c to the engine. When I told Ken my idea for the new mono wheel he said the crankcase will never stand the stresses of landing, I then told Ken the model had been flight tested for 300 laps with no problems.Ken said the engines would be run in at the factory and after the race I would return them on the Monday for servicing. 1960 was dogged with teething problems the biggest problem was the crankshafts breaking they were originally for the ETA 19 glow motor, they couldn't withstand the diesel ignition and broke the crankshaft we had to wait for all the old 19 stock to be used up before we got the new shafts.The first production ETA was entered at Enfield and timed at 98mph but the model was written off by pilot interference in the first heat.