[CentOS] Adding patch to Centos Kernel - early build failure

Hi Guys

I'm trying to add the patch mentioned in this thread to the plain Centos 
kernel

http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2008-August/062845.html

I've followed the directions on the wiki for building a custom kernel, 
but after applying all the patches it fails with:

make[1]: *** [nonint_oldconfig] Error 4
make: *** [nonint_oldconfig] Error 2
error: Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.74263 (%prep)

RPM build errors:
    Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.74263 (%prep)

Can anyone help with this? Or is there an easier way to apply the patch, 
as I'm not wanting to change the config of the kernel in any way?

Thanks

Dunc