Tuesday 23rd June: A super Summer Nationals.

After another excellent weekend's racing, we were all happy with the event win, but we all knew that the car had so much more in her. The 6.42 we ran was effortless and my old man was off it at about 1000 foot, as the slicks were rubbing the body badly (new brackets to be made asap), so, as stupid as it sounds, we were very happy with the win but unhappy with not running faster. But it's because are all out racers, we want to win and want to race as fast as we can every round of racing.

Anyway, a few thank yous to our superb sponsors and all associated with Bennett Racing, and a big thanks to the Santa Pod track crew; the track was faultless, the best track we have raced on for years as the picture below proves!

Just a note about our website too. I have updated the Merchandise page with a newer fresher look and also added a Relentless Fuel Altered Anatomy page.

As a bit of a change for the rest of this blog entry, I have asked two of our crew members to write something for the blog. First up is Alan Scott's entry.

It's been a week since crewing on the Bennett family Relentless Fuel Altered at the Summer Nationals. It was only my second event with the team, and it's the first team I've ever been involved with. I can tell you it's a whole different ball game being on the pit side of the track. For one thing, I go home knackered; the amount of maintenance one of these cars commands is surprising. I could do with Mondays off.

After leaving work at 5.00 on the Friday night, getting home and having a quick bite to eat, putting the camping gear in the van, driving for two hours to the Pod, getting there about 9.30pm, putting up the tent, then helping the team set up (the amount of stuff you need for a weekend!), that takes you to about 12.30am. We crash out in the tent and I think to myself I'm getting to old for this.

Come Saturday though and you've had a cup of tea and a bacon roll and everybody's done what they have to do and Frank climbs into the hot seat, Luke hooks up the starter motor, spins it, then that blown and injected methanol burning baby cracks into life, man it's worth all the effort just to feel that methanol tingling at the back of the throat and trying to pull the tears from your eyes. When I was spectating I never thought methanol could do that, not like nitro does, but it does when you're under a canopy.

On Sunday with everything done, after running well the day before, we were ready to go, but we weren't running until about 1.00 to 1.30, so we had a bit of down time which is good sometimes, because you know you'll probably be thrashing later. And we were, because we went out and laid down a 6.4 a new PB. Brilliant, but we'd only got a two hour turn around to the final. Sweat was standing on my forehead (it was a hot weekend weather wise), they were waiting to warm the motor and I had got the allen bolts the wrong way round D'oh! A bit of a Homer moment there, but it was soon sorted. We towed the car down to the staging lanes; all the rushing about and we still had a bit of time. We were up against Dave Grabham in Freddy's Revenge. Frank did his burnout and beat Dave with a 6.5 at about 196 m.p.h, another trophy going in the Bennett cabinet.

One thing about being with a team - you get to stand next to the concrete barrier and there, you get a real sense of how much power these cars have. The best thing though is we can do it all again at Shaky in a few weeks.

Now, here's Joe Riley's piece.

After a very busy week doing A-Levels, a bit of racing at the Summer Nationals was exactly what I needed. I unfortunately couldn’t get to the track to help set up our pit on the Friday night, but bright and early on the Saturday morning I jumped out of my bed quicker than Frank can cover the quarter. I Couldn’t wait to get there; for some reason I never feel tired the morning of a race weekend getting to the track. I can tell you it’s a bit different to getting up normally.

No sooner had I arrived I was cracking on with the car. Our first run was not for a while, so we could have a relatively leisurely start (still very busy though) getting the motor ready. My main job along with Alan is to check the rear end of chassis, change wheels and make sure the car looks pretty for everyone’s viewing pleasure. Along with the infamous side panels (zeus clips do require amazing technique) we got our jobs sorted. After a nod from Luke we fired up for a warm-up; as always the car ran sweet as a nut. We were ready to go.

I got a little job to do this weekend different to what I did at the Thunderball, Luke handing me the starter and lead after firing ready for a run. It may sound simple, but having to take care with it and putting it in the van while Frank trundles around, and then once in having to leg it to get to my place does get your heart racing. Needless to say I know exactly where to put the starter now.

Frank hopped in and immediately ran a 6.6, not bad for the first run of the weekend. This would set the trend for the rest of the weekend, the second run of the day being another 6.6. After a rather bizarre sleep in my car we went into day two with quiet confidence. On the first run on the Sunday, Frank set down a true marker with a 6.4, our best ever ET but with a lower terminal speed than expected, giving us yet more optimism. The following two hours before the final can only be described as manic; we all worked so hard to turn the car round and with not a lot of time to go, we pushed out. After my Olympic standard running to get a couple of bits and bobs (the fire up road is remarkably long when you sprint it) we were up against Freddy’s Revenge in the final. Managing to drive round that car was the icing on the cake. A 6.5 was still ultra consistent but the win mattered.

What a way to round off another fantastic weekend's racing. Two wins out of two races this year can’t get much better. We were all really exhausted to say the least, even Adam was feeling weary! But as always with the Bennetts, I had the best fun, we were working even better as a team than at the Thunderball and no doubt we will get stronger thoughout the season. Now exams are all over, a great summer lies in store, with another round being only a short time away. Just one thing to end on...has anyone got any skyhooks?

Tuesday 10th June: Sadness and joy.

Nearly a month since I last updated the blog, and its been a nice month off to be honest. Sadly, we had the unexpected death of my Nan to deal with, and the funeral, three days before the wedding. We all went and paid our respects and it was a hard day. A few days later, a completely different day, totally opposite emotion, and I think perfect timing for all involved, as we all really needed a good knees up.

The wedding was superb, couldn’t have been better, and I wouldn’t change a thing. We were married on the 16th May and luckily for us, the weather held out, so we were chuffed.

As you can see from the photo, the Bennetts don’t scrub up too badly!

Also, below is our stunning wedding car, a 1950 Cadillac Fleetwood, what a motor, the sheer size of the thing; Lisa loved it.

We had a couple of days in a Spa and then we were off to Cyprus for our honeymoon; we stayed in our own villa and we cannot recommend Cyprus enough. I had been before but it was Lisa’s first time, and we really didn’t want to come home.

Back to the racing, we were gutted not to be able to attend the Main Event and glad it all went ok for the NFAA racers that went, especially to the Wrattens, well done. It's a shame they're not going to be at the Summernationals so we can give them a race. After missing the Springspeed Nationals and the Main Event we are all desperate to race again and really looking forward to this event. The plan is to carry on where we left off at the Easter Thunderball. As you will have read we ran a 6.63 at only 181mph, as my old man was off it early with the chutes out, as it was only our second proper full power pass.

What I have in mind if all goes well is to come away with a 6.2 ET. We know the car has the power to run these numbers, we just need a few runs to get them. Other than that, all is well here. I have now decided that I am now going to build a blown motor for the Devil's Advocate Bantam too; it will again be a 511 cubic inch big block Chevy, but we will run it very gently to start with. The plan is for 7.5s for now.

As for my brother's slingshot, we have got our hands on a Nissan Skyline turbo into which we are going to fit the current Pinto motor. This will make it capable of 10s and will be a good engineering project for us all.

Tuesday 12th May: Pain and pleasure.

A bit of a long overdue blog entry but didn't feel right writing this until now. As many will have noticed due to the numerous E-Mails and texts I got (thanks to all) we didn't go to the Springspeed Nationals. Unfortunately this was due to a death in the family. My nan of only 67 died on the Friday evening after a twenty-hour spell in hospital with a brain haemorrhage. Needless to say we didn't go to the race. As you would expect we are all totally devastated but it has really hit my mum very hard. The only good thing is that Nan didn't go in pain and that my mum was there when she passed away.

On a brighter much note I get married to Lisa (lucky girl) on Saturday and am then off on honeymoon for a few weeks, hence we are not running at the Main Event. We were very glad to be invited but we had to turn it down as we always run and stick together as a family. We wish the racers going all the best, and a safe and fast weekend, and we really hope that they put on a good show on behalf of the NFAA.

Thursday 16th April: Victory at the Thunderball.

Well what a meeting, considering the grief we had, to come home winners made it very special indeed.

We got there early Friday morning, got the car out, set up the pit area and got cracking getting the car ready to run. My brother Adam and I put the lash in and all was going well until I noticed that one of the rocker stands was about an 1/8th of an inch higher than the others. Obviously we had to investigate further, so we pulled the rockers back off and found it to be another broken lifter. Needless to say we won't be buying that brand again, anyway that was that, we had a spare but we felt that if two had already gone then how long before the rest went? So the decision was made to change the full set, but we didn’t have a spare set so we were basically going home even before the car had been on the track.

A huge hunt around the pits for another set was started but I knew there wouldn’t be too many sets about as we use hemi size lifter bore for more strength. Anyway, it turned out that Bob Glassup had a set but as he has switched to hemi they were back at Richard's workshop in Somerset.

So on Friday night we had to remove the cam and install a new one, after being up since half five that morning. Concentrating on that was hard work but it went in without any issues, and more importantly we got the lifter out.

On Saturday morning Steve, one of our crew members, arrived after two hours of driving and then had the news that he had to drive a 400 mile round trip to get the lifters; nice. Thanks Steve and Adam for the drive.

Steve and Adam had a cuppa and then got on the road. While they were gone the plan was that we would do every other job so that all we had to do was install the lifters, fit the blower, do the lash and run it up. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as we got so many other jobs done that we had been meaning to do for ages. Also the fact that it was raining (and sorry to the other racers), but it helped us massively as none of the other NFAA teams got to run.

Steve and Adam got back with the lifters, at about five o'clock, I think and we dressed them up a little and fitted them; they were Crane lifters and looked and felt so much better then the others, got them fitted and ready to run.

We also had the new injector that we had made and so we leaked down the barrel valve and we were ready to fire the motor after making sure we had good oil pressure. The car fired but soon died, not enough fuel, tried again, still not enough, a couple of flats on the barrel valve and it ran but was very lean on idle to I added another ten flats on the barrel valve. I could not believe how much fuel this motor wants on idle, considering we had already set the barrel valve to the same set up as the 'big and ugly' was. The motor sounded very strong, fat as hell but safe, and in one piece so we were very happy. I gave the signal to switch it off and then got a nice round of applause so thanks to all for that.

On Sunday, the first run ended up being at about fiveish and the track was very tricky and cold. The track crew had worked themselves silly trying to get the track dry, so thanks guys. Anyway as we knew the lifters and cam were all fresh, we took it very easy and ran an 8.13 at 128mph against The Mob.

The next run was at about half eight and again the track was slippery, so we launched from idle and just took it easy to get the points and fight another day, I think it ran a 9.46 at about 98mph.

Next day, we all felt much happier as a team and were raring to go. Bear in mind we still hadn’t made a proper full pass to get any indication of what this car will do. The first run of the day was against Bob. We were gutted when they couldn’t get into gear, as without Bob, Richard and Lee’s help with the lifters we wouldn’t have been running at all, so I waited as long as I could but had to pull round due to the heat of the motor. It was a nice little burnout and the track was a lot better so a nice gentle pass was in mind. It left ok, nice and straight, a few pedals and still a 6.90 at only 184mph. I was happy.

Back to the pits and a proper check of the motor; everything was spot on, so we were very happy. We left the tune up the same, as this was still only our baseline tune up as we had not run a full pass.

We had made the final too so we were happy. We were against Tony Betts who had earlier ran a 6.50, so we knew we needed a good pass. We towed down and seemed to wait for ever to run; eventually we did at about six I think. We pulled round, a nice burnout and backed up. The motor sounded very strong, and in the back of my mind I knew that, if my old man cut a good light, we could beat the nitro car as the tune up was capable of a 6.5 at worst. Anyway, he left so well and straight and our car won as it just didn’t stop pulling. We were still testing (only our second full run) and he came off it early with the chutes out and it still ran a 6.63 speed was only 181mph, so gives a clear indication of what was there. The team and I were over the moon, considering that on Friday we were going home. To repair the motor and then win was brilliant.

Thanks again to Xtreme Racing for helping us out, and for the huge applause from everybody when we came back to the pits.

And, like I said at the top, we came away from this meeting very proud.

Wednesday 8th April: Ready to race.

Well it seems that everything has came together just in time! The new injector is finished and polished, we are really pleased with how it turned out, it should definitely give us more power that our previous injector and as such will help us to run faster. We still have not had the time to get the stickers made for the butterflies, so if there is anyone out there who can cut vinyl we need 3 x 5 inch discs cut in Kawasaki green.

The valves arrived and they were spot on, such an amazing difference in weight should make a huge improvement on engine response and valve spring wear. We also got new titanium retainers. These were all fitted this week with no issues so the car is ready to pick up where we left off last year. The plan is to make a gentle pass full first of all just to make sure all is well and then gradually pick up the revs and hopefully come away with an ET we are proud of.

Regarding sponsorship, I am still working away with a few companies but as ever I am looking for more so if you would like to get your name on three separate race cars then E-Mail me at info@bennettracing.co.uk or give me a call any time on 07843 619724.

Hopefully the next Blog or news I will write will be good news, and who knows maybe a new Personal Best for us.

Thursday 5th March 2009: Workshop update.

It's been a few weeks since our last Eurodragster Blog entry but Bennett Racing have been very busy on all fronts. The new injector that we are making is well on its way to completion and coming together nicely, it should look good and more importantly it will give us more power and give us the means to achieve the ETs and MPH that we want to get this season.

The new valves and retainers are now on order and so we are looking forward to getting them and getting them all fitted, this will also allow us to rev the motor harder and obviously with the reduced valve train weight helps the valve springs out too.

On the sponsor front things are harder than usual and as everyone will know things are very tough at the moment but we are working hard to secure more sponsors to add to our impressive list of current partners.

On a separate note we are still looking for new crew members to help out with the team, as we have said before all we need are people who are committed, honest, trustworthy and most importantly enthusiastic, knowledge is something that you can learn as you go. We provide entry, food and drink to events. All you need to do is E-Mail us at info@bennettracing.co.uk with a few details about yourself and we can go from there.

Monday 2nd February 2009: Getting shirty.

Bennett Racing would like to introduce their new 2009 season T shirt very kindly provided to us by Slick Attire.

Slick Attire (previously known as N138 Clothing) was established in 2008 with the aim of offering stylish apparel for the discerning petrolhead. The label’s philosophy is to create high-quality garments with designs inspired by the whole spectrum of motor sport and car culture, from 1920’s Bentley Le Mans racers to wild Fuel Altered Dragsters such as ‘Relentless’.

They have been involved with Bennett Racing since 2007, producing two designs, ‘Severely Altered’ and ‘Relentless’. The design of the new shirt has been heavily influenced by the livery of the updated and more outrageous than ever 2009 spec car.

We would like to thank Slick Attire for their design, which we all love and hopefully so will our fans. They are priced at £16.00 (inc. P&P inside UK), £17.85 (inc. P&P inside Europe), £19.35 (inc. P&P to Rest of World).

This is also a very good time to mention Slick Attire's obvious skills at producing stunning designs that sell, if anyone reading this is after some T shirts then get in touch with them at dan@slickattire.com or visit the website www.slickattire.com.

Wednesday 28th January 2009: Exit Robo.

This Blog entry from all at Bennett Racing is to pass on our thanks and gratitude to Robo who crewed with us for 2008 and is returning back to the USA as he has had enough of England! Robo helped with the build of the Relentless Fuel Altered and also with lots of the work at the track during the meetings we attended in 2008. We all wish him and his new wife Sam the best of luck in the future together.

Robo is completely and totally obsessed and in love with drag racing so returning home was not a hard choice...I think he will have six tracks all within two hours so we're not jealous at all obviously. During his time with us he worked on the rear of the car, making sure all was OK with everything back from the gearbox, and always there to help with anything else.

Over Christmas people may have noticed that we posted a Parts Wanted advertisement a wanted advert for an aluminum Buzzard. The reason for this is that we are going to make our own design injector hat. As the NFAA rules state no carbon fibre, we're gonna design and make our own design to complement our Kobelco K9 hi helix supercharger and the DMPE spacer plate. It will include a few innovative ideas that we have had and will hopefully give us some more HP and lower ETs.

Other additions for this year will be that we will finally fit our AIM-sponsored data logger, this will also help with tuning and keeping the motor safe.

On another note, due to Robo's departure we will be needing some crew members for the 2009 season. Anyone reading who would like to crew with us E-Mail me at info@bennettracing.co.uk. All you need is enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. We provide entry, food etc.

Sunday 14th December: Charlie in the pink.

We regularly go down the pub, one of our sponsors, with the local racers and always have a good chat about what's going on and new stuff in the sport. A few weeks ago we were down there as usual with the Drapers and Charlie's work phone was going mad. On this particular night it was -1 outside so, having to keep going in and out all night, Charlie got cold. So his best idea was to go on to the toilet, nice and quiet.

And pink.

By this time the whole pub had noticed that Charlie had gone into the Ladies, and promptly gathered around the door ready to greet him on his way out. When he did he was none the wiser, until he looked round at the door and it clicked. As you can imagine we all laughed a lot and Charlie was a tad embarrassed, we still laughed about it last night down there too.

Nice one Charlie.

Friday 5th December: Looking to 2009.

It has been a long time since I have written an entry to our Blog but things have been very busy with the Bennetts. I recently had an important hospital appointment and no new tumours or anything were found so all is good, just got to have blood tests every three months for two years now. Been a hard year but the support of fellow racers and fans has helped a lot. So thanks to all.

The Relentless Fuel Altered will have a few changes for next year; we will be switching to titanium valves as we intend to up the revs for next year as we haven't pushed the motor at all yet and have only ever revved to 8,200 rpm. And with the Kobelco on there too the power is in abundance so more revs will be even more power. Other changes will be mostly cosmetic and also we will be fitting our data logger as we have run without one until now, and tuned by reading the parts on the car. AIM supplied the data logger and we will run it with exhaust gas temperatures, fuel pressure, oil pressure, blower boost, engine rpm and input shaft rpm. This will give us bigger clues as to what the motor and clutch are doing and will aid in fine-tuning.

We should also hopefully have a new set up next year also, including a new lorry, new awning, new tow van so our pit should look smarter and more professional, important to keep and attract new sponsors.

Although we didn't do anything notable ET wise this year for us we sorted a huge amount of problems on the car and learnt a lot too, we are always learning and never assume that we know everything as with these motors there are always new things to learn and improve.

We were chuffed with the performance of the car though, the best time was a 7.66 half pass as the speed was only 133 mph, we also got our first 0.9 sixty feet too on the car's first pass although the car decided to take off soon after with all four wheels off the ground.

Our aim for 2009 is to win the NFAA Championship and I think it will be the hardest year by far as many of the cars in the class are not easy to beat and will be tough competition, but this is the way it should be we are pure racers at heart and all we want to do is race as fast as possible.

Monday 13th October: Supporting those who support us.

Bennett Racing regularly donates to Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research UK. We also do a lot of fundraising for them at shows and at the track.

Since December 2007, when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer, Macmillan provided me and my family with excellent support and knowledge about the illness and chemotherapy.

The Bennett Racing team are now trying to raise as much money and awareness for Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research UK as we can. Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It's also the most efficient way to sponsor us. Macmillan Cancer Support gets your money faster and, if you're a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure that 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

So please sponsor us now at www.justgiving.com/bennett_racing.

Wednesday 17th September: As far as third.

A long overdue entry for our Blog but we have been totally flat out working on the Topolino or at hospital appointments, the good news is that all my chemo is done with and I am now onto the blood test every three months stage, a huge thank you again to everyone that emailed, phoned or has asked how I have been getting on.

The Open Sport Nationals event was a bit of a let down, unfortunately we broke a lifter link bar but luckily for us the lifter didn't spin as my old man heard it go at the top end and clicked it off straight away, this also meant that it didn't hurt the block which was good, but the cam was scored and we were not happy to run it so packed up on Sunday morning. The two shakedown launches on Saturday were very promising, with a safe baseline tune up in the car we went out and run our first 0.9 sixty foot, but the motor was far too aggressive for the track and it turned right at about eighty feet out, so was off the throttle and coasted through.

The next run we wanted to run to the 330 foot marker but again about eighty feet out the car turned left very hard and once he got it straight, shifted into second and touched the throttle and picked the wheels up at half track, this motor is making upwards of 500 horsepower more than last year's engine. It was at the end of this run that the lifter broke and we were done for the weekend.

Next event was the Hot Rods Drags. For this meeting we took some clutch and timing out and fattened the motor up a little to take some power away, and hopefully get the car straight and off the line. The car had other ideas, on the hit of the first run on Saturday the motor spat both head gaskets out but again dad was off of it very quick and we didn't touch the heads or block. If this had been further into the run then a different story...

We then thrashed all Saturday night striping the motor and then trying to source some O-ring wire, a big thanks to Frank Griffin and Wayne Allman for the wire. We replaced the o right wire in the liners and it turned out that the o-ring wire that the liners came over with was not really up to the job to say the least. Anyway the car was boxed up and finished in the morning and we fired the car up and were ready to run again. First run on Sunday the plan was a very easy checkout pass to make sure that all was ok, launched off idle and ran a slower 1.03 sixty foot, but at least was a bit straighter and off the throttle before the eighth and ran an 8.0 at 123 mph. The afternoon's run was for against Havoc for third. We were glad to be running and as we were still worried about head gaskets we weren't going to do a full pass but run it through first and second and into third to just run through soft. It ran OK in first, short shifted into second, then lifted as turned right, back on it, and into third then a stab of the throttle at about 1000 feet. It ran through with a 7.6 at 150 so we were chuffed.

The next meeting is the National Finals at Santa Pod, looking forward to it.

Wednesday 13th August: ready for action.

Bennett Racing would like to say thanks to every fan, sponsor and racer who has checked out the team web site. We have now had over 102,000 visits and counting and I am chuffed that so many people have the time to look at our site. If anyone has any suggestions of things to add to the site then let me know at info@bennettracing.co.uk. Also a big thanks to Tog and the team for letting us put our news etc. on Eurodragster.

In other news we are entered for the Open Sport Nationals and we can't wait to get the car on the track for some shakedown runs. We have already fired the car at the Damn Yankees show and got all the little problems out the way (not many for once) and even though I will sound over confident the motor sounded very strong and crisp. Now we have the new block and new liners we don't have 70% plus leak downs and with the new blower can make some proper power for this year. If anyone out there has any photos from the Damn Yankees show then please E-Mail me.

The plan at the Open Sport Nationals is to make three shakedown passes on the Saturday so that we are still able to compete properly in the class as fast as we can. In an ideal world what we are aiming for is a six second run on the first full pass.

Sunday 3rd August: A brief history.

As this is our first blog on Eurodragster (thanks to Tog), the best place to start is with a brief history of Bennett Racing. We started racing back in 1981 with a Ford Pop called Phantasm which we raced until 1987 when we imported an NHRA alky funny car called Cape Codder, formally Boston Strangler. We spent a few years building the car up as we didn't buy the motor and since we used small block Chevy power in the Pop the obvious choice was to go big block in what was to become a Fuel Altered. We then competed in Top Alcohol with the other altered of Tony Betts and Mickey Moore/Ollie Burns, we did this for a good few years but due to our extreme budget we were never gonna be a force in the class. We ran an iron 427 block, standard GM forged crank, iron heads, and a blower that probably made about five pounds boost on a good day. Then in the late 1990s, I forget the year now, we started to race in a new class, the Supercharged Outlaws in which we had great success and really enjoyed every single event. Then in 2001 our crank of twelve years had enough and broke in the best possible way, everything out the bottom and it didn't touch our new ally block thank god.

We then didn't have the budget at all to get back out until a new sponsor found at the Xtreme Wheels show in 2005 brought us back out and ready to run in the newly formed NFAA, which so far is best class we have run in. Every single member of every team is always out to help everyone else and with the crap news I had at Xmas with this poxy cancer stuff the support in general has been amazing, not just NFAA racers and crews but fans, sponsors and people from all over world, it's all nice to get and I thank everyone for asking how I am.

Which gets me back to 2008. As a few have seen already the car is a little bit different now and our intention is to run low sixes at 210+ mph. We stepped it up from last year's motor as we knew the class was gonna get faster and that there were the cars and the potential to run fast and consistent, shown by the Wrattens with their 6.46 at Summernats, hats off to them and Charlie for running it, and also to Lawrie Gatehouse and John Wright with the 6.19, that car has a five in it without a doubt.

Anyway I'll keep sending stuff in to Eurodragster.com as usual and if people read it then great if not then at least I'm keeping my brain ticking over while im off work. If there is any thing you wanna ask us then E-Mail info@bennettracing.co.uk.