I’m hoping to guarantee a faultless trip to & from Le Mans by getting the car serviced, so it was off down to Mr Chivers for some TLC for the Mantis. Apart from the service, Dave also fitted the new stone chip guards which look the dogs danglies, but I didn’t half wince when he wrenched the old ones off (taking half the paint with them!) – I am far too scared to treat the car like that! We examined the roll-bar positioning to see if there was any way we could counter the slightly off-center positioning caused by the chassis location, but it would have been a lot of work for a little gain; I have decided to live with the hood frame rubbing the nearside section of the rollbar. Chassis also liberally doused with waxoyl. Tried to fit the accessory built sent by MHS (discovered a spare in the boot as well – Doh!) to replace the squeaky one but however we strained it was just too short. Gave up eventually. The main achievement was the windscreen however! Dave removed the T-piece & scraped the windscreen surround down, revealing numerous holes in the seal where you could put your finger through to the inside of the car! Amazing the car didn’t leak more than it actually did really, but still pretty poor work by MHS when they fitted it a couple of years ago. Anyway sealant was duely reapplied then allowed to go off overnight, which seemed like a good excuse to stay over & go to the pub! T-piece re-fitted Sunday morning & looked sweeeeet. On the way home I called in at Redline Sportscar where Jeremy, the factory salesman, now operates the numero uno Marcos showroom. Despite just having locked & alarmed the building, when Dave C & I turned up in the two Mantis, JK opened everything up again so I could look round, & even responded to a casual enquiry about stock by taking the dust covers off each car & talking me through them. What a tremendous chap, and dammit, if I hadn’t already got one I would’ve bought another! I soon had the opportunity to test how successful we had been in resealing the windscreen, as the heavens truely opened as I drove back up north from Wiltshire. I must admit I was a little too stubborn about getting the hood up this time, & only stopped to reluctantly erect it when I realised that I had left the motorway & gone up a sliproad without realising, at which point I had to admit that I couldn’t see a bloody thing! Touchingly several people risked pneumonia themselves by winding down their windows to jeer at me as they shot past – fair enough!