Annette asks that no flowers are sent but tells us that donations in memory of Stuart will be split between National Association for Bikers with
a Disability (NABD) and the National Canine Defence League.
Go shopping, buy a Top Fueller. 29th June: The Carbon By Design Top Fuel Dragster and Fuel Funny Car team
is breaking new Fuel ground this weekend as Patrik Pers is making demonstration passes in Lithuania.
Stay tuned for more from this weekend's event in Lithuania.
Who's for a Three? 29th June: The latest round of the
Toyo Scandinavian Dragracing Series starts today (Friday)
at the Aros Nats in Västerås and Johan Samuelsson
says that the spectators will get "A hell of a show".
Swift snippets. 29th June: This coming Monday, July 3rd, is the last chance to add your name to the petition
to bring drag racing back to The Netherlands' Drachten Airfield before it is presented to the local authorities.
If you have not already signed this petition then we urge you to do so at
www.dragracedr88.nl or click on the logo at the top right
of our Home Page.
Swedish Top Fuel Bike racer Peter Ström tells us that he is aiming to contest the Veidec
Festival at Mantorp Park at the end of July. "There is a lot of work left to do before the bike is ready and
there is no room for gremlins", Peter told Eurodragster.com.
With the continued difference in weather patterns affecting most parts of the country, organisers of this
weekend's NSRA Nostalgia Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway have been in touch to confirm that the event will take place rain
or shine. Although parts of Worcester and the surrounding areas have been hit by flash flooding, the Raceway has remained unaffected but, with the
weather warnings issued by the Met Office in the last twenty four hours, it is strongly recommended that you bring suitable clothing and footwear as
well as the regulation sun screen, shorts and T-Shirts as is customary with this event just in case.
Santa Pod Raceway are holding a Run What You Brung tomorrow (Saturday) which then becomes the FastFest
in the afternoon and into Sunday. Gates open for RWYB at 8:00 am tomorrow and for the FastFest at
12:00. Entry to the RWYB is £10 and £20 and the production of a valid DVLC licence will
buy you as many runs as you can fit in. For more information about the RWYB check out
www.rwyb.com and for the FastFest check out
www.fastfest.co.uk.
Big CC Racing are organising a Super Street Bike Shootout at Santa Pod Raceway this weekend.
Eurodragster.com is posting £50 for the #7 qualifier and we will be at Santa Pod to cover the
Shootout live in association with American
Car Imports. The Webster Race
Engineering/MPM Oil webcam
will be on-line and will be broadcasting a picture every sixty seconds. You can access the
Big CC SSB Shootout coverage index by clicking
here or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com
page.
Not Wild about the weather. 28th June: UK Super Comp racer Andy Williams and team took the Wild Child
dragster to the weekend's Danish Midsummer Nats at Vandel only for rain to stop play after Andy had
got through a round of eliminations.
Top Fuel in London. 28th June: After a rain-hit first round of the FIA European Championship left UK Top Fuel Dragster racer
Andy Carter in third place going into round two in Finland, fans will have a
chance to see the Lucas Oil Top Fuel Dragster at the London Drag Racing Show on 7th-8th July, says PR Derek Todd:
The London Drag Racing Show will be held at the London Motor Museum
in West Ruislip where the Lucas Oil Top Fuel Dragster will take pride of place. The car will come with the usual bunch of enthusiastic Lucas Oil super
crew who will answer visitors' questions (within reason!).
Andy will of course be in Alastaro that weekend for the second round of the FIA Championship with the race car. Le'ts hope that the rain stays away and that
Andy and the team can get the win we need to put us on our way to securing a third FIA European Championship.
Another honour for BDRHoF members. 28th June: The British Drag Racing Hall of Fame
in conjunction with main sponsor USAutomotive has designed and had produced a
a one-off lapel pin which will be presented to each member of along with their "Bootsie" award.
"Ironically, Brad from Reher Morrison called the day after to let Tommy know that the new engine was ready to ship. He was sad to hear what
had happened, and is now holding the shipment of the engine to give the team time to order some body parts to go with it.
"This was an annoying setback for Leindahl Pro Stock Racing. Although everybody is doing their best there is not enough time to get everything
ready for Finland, but we will surely be back on track for Veidec Festival at the end of July."
Swift snippets. 26th June: Bike racers from all over Europe are invited to the Finnish Drag Bike Association Speed Weekend which
takes place at Alastaro on 14th-15th July. "We can expect the track to be in fantastic condition one week after
the European Championship race" says Asko Määttä. FDBA Speed Weekend is a part of the Finnish
Championship series and entry fees for foreign racers are €70 for Street Harley and Street Bike and €100
for all other classes. You can find out more in Finnish or English via the Calendar page at
www.fhra.fi.
Racers attending the FHRA Nitro Nationals are invited to the first FHRA Nitro Nationals Golf Tournament which will
take place at 17:30 next Thursday, 5th July, at the new Alastaro Golf Course. Forms of play will be individual seven hole Stroke Play,
Scratch and Stableford over holes 10-15 and 18. An official handicap is required. Included in the entry are green fees, club facilities, dinner
and shower and sauna. Non-playing guests can take advantage of golf instruction whilst the competition takes place. If you would like to register
then please E-Mail the FHRA at fhra@fhra.fi, call +358 9 2515 250,
or write to Tiilenvalajantie 6, 02330 Espoo, Finland by Monday 2nd July.
UK Super Pro ET racer Martyn Jones has asked us to thank Mark Flavell and team
for their kind hospitality at the weekend's Danish Midsummer Nats,
and particularly Mally Rigg for the cooking. "The excellence of
the sleeping quarters and the food was, unfortunately, not matched by the
weather", says Syd. "I would also like to thank Dave Bryant of the Shockwave
Funny Car team for the loan of a somewhat bruised TFX block which will allow Kev Cerusale
of RCCS to continue building my new Super Pro ET dragster chassis."
If you tried to tune in yesterday morning you will have noticed that Eurodragster.com was
offline for a couple of hours. We had a word with our ISP Selfnet and they told us that
a disk drive failed. As our web server is in Ohio it was a lot earlier in the morning there
and the Selfnet tecchies had to get out of bed in the very small hours to sort it out.
Suffering a continuing problem with web domains is Ian Turburville who tells us that turboville.com
is temporarily out of service but that you can get his full web service from
www.turboville.co.uk.
The Carolina Classics web site at www.carolinaclassics.co.uk
has been updated with links to UK drag strips and a free advertisement service for car sales. Nigel taylor also tells us that CC are offering
twenty per cent discount to all readers on in-stock service and repair items. For more details contact Nigel on 01264 321170 or via the
web site.
The diet is working! 25th June: UK Supertwin Gas racer Chris Mott has had a great season so far, clocking Personal
Bests on each outing and taking the win at the SPRC Summernationals. Chris tells us that a diet was the route to
success:
A few thank yous: Gavin Cupit for all his help and hard work with building the bike and motor; Dave Branch for the great frame; Keith Baker at
Classic Cycle Works for the great paint job at very short notice and his continued
support; and Steve at Motorshack for the help with the race gas.
A great job last weekend from all the track crew at Santa Pod who worked non stop on the track to get us racing, and thanks to everyone at Eurodragster
for the great reporting (Thanks, you're welcome - Ed). Thanks to everyone in the Supertwins for their support and enthusiasm and keep an eye on
the new ET class which was really well supported last weekend and will get bigger still. Last but not least a big thanks and a well done to my wife Yvonne.
Thanks for all her hard work and understanding, and well done on her own diet - she has just lost four stone. So the diet is definitely working!
Stanley heads for a size zero. 25th June: Conrad Stanley and Trevor Graves of UK Super Gas and Junior Dragster team
Panther Racing UK have been in touch to
let us know that, whilst they would never consider bowing to the disturbing pressures and trends that run within today's
modern fashion world, after the extremely close call against Jon Morton at the SPRC Summernationals Conrad is under
strict instruction to drop a dress size or two.
"Our congratulations go to Jon and the team for their win", said Conrad. "It's what drag racing is all about and just goes to show
that it's every aspect of any race that can make the difference. It's the burn out, the pre-stage, staging the cars, the reaction time
and the run - they're all important. We mean business. Size zero here I come, Kate Moss eat your heart out."
A couple of days late but a very Happy Birthday for Saturday to the team's technical and IT adviser Wayne Graves. Hope you
had a great day Wayne.
Norwegian Blue. 25th June: Jeff Rainbird says that the UK's Nova Blaze Sportsman ET team did not have
a very good weekend at the SPRC Summernationals:
Swift snippets. 25th June: Many thanks to David Powell for letting us know that UK Top Fuel Bike racer
Steve Woollatt's appearance at Motorcycle World at Beaulieu on Saturday was unfortunately curtailed
by the rain. Not all was lost, though. "Some of the bikes were moved inside the Motor Museum and Steve's bike
managed to get a spot at the front", says David.
Indian John of the Dutch Hot Rod Association has been in touch to invite racers to the Belgium Summer Nationals
which takes place at Sint Truiden on 7th-8th July. For more details or to register check out the DHRA web site
at www.dhra.nl, or click
here for the event flyer.
Adam Charnley says that he will be running his Talon Legend at next weekend's NSRA Nostalgia
Nationals. The car has been painted (right) but Adam is looking for help for the finishing touch. "We
are looking for a bit of pinstriping on the car so if anyone is attending the event and could do it on site
and would like to use it as an advert, then please let me know at
cougarracinguk@hotmail.com. Well done
to Turbo on the new PB, I'm glad to see the bike and rider are finally gelling and I can't think of anyone
else who deserves good luck more than Ian."
Ian Turburville tells us that he is now selling deluxe racing picnic packs so that fans can sit on the bank or in the
stands at the track and watch the action in luxury. For racers, uniforms have now moved into a new era and Turbo can now supply NHRA-type 'sublimation'
shirts in small numbers. "These were previously only available to the Pro teams and you had to have a hundred shirts done at great expense! Check out the
news at www.turboville.com/turbo-7/stop.htm and watch out for Team Turbo's
wild new shirts at the next event."
Importing records at SCR. 25th June: At Shakespeare County Raceway last weekend, leading Front Wheel Drive import racer,
CPL Racing’s Guy Chamberlain, stamped his authority all over the Jap Racer FWD
class by breaking the ten second barrier not once but twice during round three of the Warwickshire drag strip's in-house series for Japanese
imports, writes SCR’s Marketing Manager Jerry Cookson:
Although having to take it easy on first two attempts to bed in recent improvements, by the time Guy’s third run of the afternoon came along
the CPL Racing Honda Civic wound up its 2.3 litre turbocharged engine to produce a stunning time of 10.999 taking both ends of the track’s
class record - which stood at 11.1 - with a terminal speed of 137.56 mph.
And if that wasn’t enough, Guy’s fourth run of the day ninety minutes later produced an even quicker 10.976 coupled with a faster 137.73 mph terminal
speed placing his name in the record books as the first ever Front Wheel Drive powered Honda Import overall to run into the tens in Europe, the UK
and at Shakespeare County Raceway. From all at the Raceway well done.
Keith Cowie, the man behind RB Motorsports incredibly quick eight-second GT-R32
Skyline, last Sunday used Shakespeare County Raceway’s Shakespeed event as a rolling test in preparation for his attack on the Ten of the Best
competition which he won several years ago at Elvington.
On the back of his 8.868 set the previous month at the Warwickshire drag strip, during his fourth run of the day Keith equalled his previous best
with an 8.853 on street tyres, but it came at the expense of a split intercooler pipe at the top end. Was Keith down hearted? No, not in the slightest,
specially as he had run an incredible 1.362 sixty foot time which was cited to Jerry as the quickest-ever for a UK based Japanese import racer.
Both Tim Webster and Andy Barnes ran 1.4 sixty foot times during record breaking runs earlier this year.
There wasn't much to say about the previous round at Shakespeare County Raceway apart from "It rained"! From the onset of Friday afternoon it
was looking like the Summernationals was going to be much of the same, though the guys upstairs eventually had enough of throwing down the wet
stuff and come race day the sun did shine.
Friday's Peak Performance Day started dry and warm, just the ticket to get some last minute practice in. Shaun Spiers (Team Breakout) took full
advantage. Like the 'other half' trying on dresses in the shopping centre; one minute he was trying on his 'Busa the next the Katana was out, finishing
the day with a best 9.55/144. Chunk (Martin Walker of Team Hyena) was also out there getting to grips with his Busa, performing a little skyward
action as the bike well and truly dug in off the line. Andy Haley was up on the Friday, put in a 10.12/137 experiencing some issues with a newly
installed two-step that was eventually taken out of circuit. Carl Atkinson likewise had caught some of Andy's gremlins with his air shifter packing
up, though Grumpy Watson intervened later in the event proceedings to sort it out. I myself managed only a couple of runs and chucked in a 9.7
and 9.8 respectively, though the clouds had gathered and decided to open up later in the afternoon: which put paid to that day.
Saturday, qualifying...chance would have been a fine thing, The track crew was busy, relentlessly arm-wrestling with the weather, ducks were enjoying
the event, and we all battened down the hatches, or even donned scuba gear such were the torrents. Though the day was not totally without event,
Boycie (Chris Reed, Team Hyena) for one took a walk through the deserted fun fair and met with an equally disgruntled punch bag machine. Not being
one to take any stick and being an avid exponent of the ancient marshal art of Drunken Stupido (along with those famous words "Bet you can't do this")
put in his money and set about the machine taking what can only be referred to as a cartoon athletics kick at the menacing and five feet in the air punchbag.
A spin, a crash, even a yelp and lots of laughter and the bout was over. See right for what emerged Sunday morning - though the bleeding cuts cannot
be seen - Boycie is at a loss to explain the tyre tracks up the front of his person (click on picture for large version). Feel free to send in captions.
Amongst the noteworthy exits were 'Fast Harry' Julian Harris who Red lit -0.259 against a seldom seen in 9.50 Bike Andrew Mansell. Andrew went
on to race Steve Ashby in the second round. Steve rolled back out of stage just as the lights dropped, voiding his run and handing the win to Andrew.
So on to the third round where Richard Hann took on Andrew's winning ways. The lights went and Andrew got the drop on Boss with a 0.076 reaction
against Boss' 0.139, and took the win again, as Boss limped up the strip unable to change gear. It turned out that the chain on Boss' Bandit had sawn
through the air shifter wiring. Andrew subsequently went out and put down the next six numbers at his local lottery shop (allegedly).
Meanwhile Andy Burfitt had taken out Greg Skett with a 9.70/135 to a 9.81/139, giving Andy a bye into the third round, seeing off John Kirby. I was
chopping up the ladder on the other side, came up against Richard Sawatzki in the third round and although we both had 1.5 sixty foot times I
caught him napping on the lights with a 0.077 to a 0.245 reaction and took the win. This had me up against Andrew Mansell and once the three prophets
of doom had left my pits I took the win with a 0.048 reaction against a 0.101 and I was through to the final against Andrew Burfitt. A well done to Shaun
Spiers too, having got through to the semis for the first time he had a cracking event.
So here I was, for the second time this year - ever, if the truth be known - but I was having a great time of it and looking forward to the race. Lane choice
was made and in we went. Both pre-stage lights were lit for what seemed like an age, with neither racer wanting to go in first. I eventually got settled and
moved up to full stage, followed by Andy not too long after. The lights dropped and we were off, not considering what was going on, the bike was away
and straight, half track I took a look over my shoulder to See Andy some half dozen bike lengths behind. Unbeknown to me Andy had got the drop with
a 0.09 to my 0.11 but had dug in and pulled up the front end allowing me to get away and off to the win. Slight confusion at the top end with the timing
tickets was quickly cleared up (cheers Tog for spotting that one) and that was the event.
Despite the weather it was a cracking day's racing. It's getting very close at the top of the Championship with only three rounds to go. At this stage it's
anyone's so should make for some great racing to come, as if it was anything else. See you all at Shakey for the next round.
Summernationals Pro ET review. 25th June: We are also indebted to Carla Pittau for forwarding us her report on the Pro
ET action at the SPRC Summernationals:
We couldn't believe a third rainy meeting this year, what rotten luck, the second time I take the wheel too! So Saturday was quite miserable,
although Pro ET was one of the lucky classes as at least we had one go on the track. The Santa Pod crew seemed to work even harder than
usual - if that is possible - and the weather cruelly laughed at their brave efforts to get the racing going and again and again it turned on the
wet stuff as soon as the track was dry. What can I say guys, if not a big thank you for not giving up.
So on the rainy day some impish genie was playing with Pro ET's normally incredibly close qualifying, so the whole field seemed to run
unpredictably and slower than usual, with numbers that would be better not to disclose! The only unlucky DNQ at the Summernationals
was the unfortunate Phil Toppin with his new ride Pony III, a 460 ci motivated Sierra, which was pushed back in the one shot qualifier
and didn't get another opportunity to make a run. Heaven & Hell was running slower at the weekend and meagre consolation was
gained by seeing that most everyone else was also off-beat. We also added another - thankfully minor - problem to the list of "Things to fix
during the big gap in racing": a baffling smoky cloud which emerged from the loud pipes when we started the engine after warming up, which
was puzzled out only after consulting Kenny Coleman of EDA who gave us the simple answer on a plate: oil was being sucked down through
the rocker stud threads. Phew, an easy one for a change, and one that I wouldn't have thought of, thank you Kenny!
So the lukewarm qualifying and the surprising first round results started to reshuffle the championship hopefuls, with Steve Bolton in the lovely
wheelstanding black Scamp qualifying bottom and going out in the first round with a red light, closely followed by #2 (yours truly) at the wheel
of the Heaven & Hell Camaro, who snoozed on the line with a 0.09 reaction which Neil Hunter in the Mopar-motivated Capri obliterated
with a 0.01 footbrake launch. Hey, if most other racers were a bit off, Neil for sure wasn't, my rotten luck to get the one who was fully awake
and alert despite the night before! A good race to the top end which we unfortunately could not win, even avoiding a breakout by tapping the
brakes and dumping him twenty feet before the line, but it quashed our hopes of getting to lead the points. Other first round upsets included
Chris Hodgkins in the SBC-powered silver dragster, who fell prey to Paul Baynton's CAPRIcious blue ride, Paul as fully awake as Neil who
prevailed with an 0.01 reaction. John Atkinson in the rapid blue Cortina pulled a cherry (an oh-so-close seven thousandths one!) against Mike
Lacey, Nicky Frost in the gorgeous bright orange '67 Camaro who pulled a red against Gary Springford's returning Shogun which was running
mid nines on half throttle and which Gary says he is still testing, the power potential being perhaps a tad greater than the car length can easily
handle. Gary snoozed in the second round against Tig Napier.
It was great to welcome Tig and Cath Napier with their lovely purple Challenger sporting a brand new 572 ci engine. The Mopar mill has
propelled the big street-legal 3800 lb Dodge to 9.94 during testing at Shakespeare County, and Cath was disappointed that it would only run
ten-zeroes at Santa Pod. Tig had never raced at the Pod and the last time he was there was in 1994, but we hope he'll be back to play with
us some more. The 10.00, however, were seriously consistent, and Tig used Cath's precise dial ins to go four rounds and to put away
three of the Paul Marston Racing entries in the process - no mean feat - being finally defeated by Neil Hunter's Seven Year Itch
Capri in the semis. Gino Bernardine's bright red Escort behaved herself for most of the meeting, the size of his engine surprising a few
punters who couldn't believe a two-litre four pot could run mid to low nines. It was good to see him go a few rounds and to the semis too.
Unfortunately he didn't get as far as the finish line in his fourth round against Keith Herbert, the car capriciously refusing to play and denying
him a chance to fight for a place in the final.
Mike Lacey in the Metamorphosis Camaro did us all proud in Pro ET by organising a live
band, The Hoggz, who lifted everyone's spirits by braving the rain and playing some great music on the Saturday night.
After such a miserable, wet day, the band managed to cheer us all up with their humour and their skill. Drummin' Man Joe Kellett should
also be commended for surprising us all with his drumming abilities, with Mustang Sally being much enjoyed by all.
A considerable crowd, given the weather, gathered up around the band and everyone was bopping with their brollies despite the rain, and
soon enough music and booze drowned our sorrows. Mike should seriously consider a career as event organiser, because if an evening
where everything was against successful entertainment went as well as it did, well, I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to organise a
piss-up at the International Convention of Teetotallers. A thank you to Carl Burton and Charlie Chivers too for helping to organise the financing
by collecting donations and raffle tickets, there were a few cries of "Rigged!" when we collected our second prize (mind you, we bought a
million tickets) but if it's any consolation drunken Rick grabbed the sherry bottle thinking he got hold of the Jim Beam...well, his mum will enjoy it!
The raffle was a great success and together with the donations it covered the cost of the band with some surplus being set aside to go towards
the Pro ET End of Season Bash.
Mike didn't just manage the Pro ET entertainment division though, he also found the time to go two rounds, putting away John Atkinson in the first
and Liz Malcolm in the second, being stopped in the third by Neil Hunter in his march to the final. Ian Brown, busy as usual with his double entry
also won two rounds, being stopped by his red light against the ineffable Keith Herbert also on his way to the final.
And so we get to our two finalists, Neil Hunter used his good RTs against Heaven & Hell in the first round, then grabbed a bye in the second,
put Mike Lacey away in the third and stopped Tig Napier in the semis. Alas, Neil used the RT he should have gallantly used against me only in the
final against Keith. As for Keith Herbert in the Hillingdon Speed and Spares Super Stock replica, he used the meeting to barge unannounced
straight into #1 spot in the National Championship points, displacing Steve Bolton who dropped to #4. Not content with upsetting everybody, without
any concern for other racers' hurt feelings, he decided to go for overkill, unashamedly qualifying number one with a staggering five hundredths off
his dial-in (normally not even good enough to get you in the field) and then not satisfied with snatching the generous prize money and vouchers
offered by the Pro ET Sponsorship Scheme, he went for total overkill by also winning the meeting, defeating Neil in the final with a 0.11 reaction!
I mean, the guy has no manners!
UK Real Steel Street Eliminator team Silver Fox Racing has a revamped web site courtesy of
Chris Jackson and the latest update is a report from last week's SPRC Summernationals at which
Ian Jackson took the class win. Check it out at
www.silverfoxracing.org.uk.
We will of course bring you Pat's funeral details as soon as we receive them. TJ has asked for time to grieve on
his own so if you would like to offer help or support then please call Matthew Wright on 07980 211869.
We are sure that everyone will join us in sending our love and deepest sympathy to TJ, to Pat's sons Stephen and
Richard, to Pat's parents, and to all of her family and friends. And don't you worry Pat, we will look after TJ
and we will never forget you.
I would like to thank all my crew for getting us there, we have managed to trim at least 0.2 seconds off our new car's ETs at each outing, so if we carry
on like this we should be in the fives by the European Finals next year. If only it was that easy!
Unfortunately our Super Pro ET exit did not quite go as planned. I have thought long and hard how to best describe our exit and whilst I do feel
quite strongly that the situation has to be explained, mainly so that this sort of thing does not happen again, as it results in engine damage and also
slows up events, but perhaps my views should not be aired here so if you would like our full report please go to our racing web site
at www.goldrvracing.co.uk/news/news_220607.htm.
Congratulations to our good mates Steve and Pat Johnson on the event win, the old guy has still got lightning (And expensive - Ed) reactions,
and can run consistently quick numbers too. In one of the best finals I have seen in Super Pro ET, Steve won by a matter of inches.
The crash occurred on 20 September 2006 while Mr Hammond was driving the Vampire, a jet powered modified drag racer
at Elvington airfield, near York, during filming for BBC TV's Top Gear programme. The car was owned by Northants-based Primetime
Landspeed Engineering (PTLE), who also provided Mr Hammond's training.
The immediate cause of the accident was a catastrophic failure of the Vampire's front offside tyre at 288 mph on the seventh
high-speed run of the day. Examination of this tyre and video footage showed that the tyre was damaged, as a result of an
object (or objects) having entered the sidewall immediately adjacent to the edge of the tread, during the latter part of the previous
run. A blister was visible in the tyre's outer side but this appears to have subsided and was not apparent immediately before the
final run commenced.
HSE's investigation team pursued three lines of enquiry: the planning and preparation undertaken by the BBC and PTLE, the
training given to Richard Hammond, and a technical examination of the vehicle and its tyres. HSE acknowledges the assistance
provided by the BBC and PTLE during this investigation, and the support provided by North Yorkshire Police.
The investigation used evidence from the BBC's filming of the day, up to and including the accident, and telemetry data recorded
as part of the filming. Specialist evidence was obtained from within HSE on ergonomic issues, from the Transport Research
Laboratory Ltd on the tyres, and from North Yorkshire Police on the vehicle and crash scene.
Principal Inspector Keith King, who led HSE team, said: "The investigation identified several safety features, which in combination,
almost certainly saved Mr Hammond's life. These included: the structural integrity of the Vampire, which survived the crash intact; the
design of the driver restraint arrangements; the crash helmet selected and the emergency rescue services on site at the airfield.
Other precautions adopted included the decision not to deploy camera crews along the margins of the runway.
"The investigation also identified failings in the BBC's safety management systems relating to risk assessment and the procurement
of services from others, and by PTLE in their risk assessment for the services they provided to the BBC at Elvington. These failings
and other recommendations are being pursued with the two parties involved. However, when viewed against HSE's enforcement criteria,
none of these failings merit prosecution."
The investigation has identified wider issues for the broadcast industry about the preparation and training of presenters for such activities.
HSE is passing these findings on to the Joint Advisory Committee for Entertainment.
Eurodragster.com asked the BBC for their comments about the HSE report and we received the following statement:
"We have received the HSE's report and will be considering it with great care.
"The BBC's own internal investigation process is nearing conclusion and we will be publishing the recommendations of that investigation shortly.
"The BBC places the highest priority on safety. We intend to ensure that all the lessons learned from both the HSE report and the BBC's own internal
investigation are applied across the whole of the BBC production community as soon as possible."
"As you can see our high standards of driver training and the integrity of our engineering have been acknowledged by the HSE in their report.
We will ensure that Julian and Roy Webb, the new owners of Split Second receive an equally high standard of training from us and we
are looking forward to working with them.
"On a more cautionary note we strongly advise any newcomers to jet car operations to ensure that they also learn from the HSE report and ensure that:
Their equipment is appropriate
Their Risk Assessment for various activities that they undertake is in place and updated as required on an ongoing basis
They can provide proof of having had professional instruction
Experienced operators can also learn from the events of recent months and we know that as professionals they will be keen embrace the
recommendations made in the HSE report.
"We believe that it goes without saying that any further reportable incidents involving jet cars may attract a higher than normal amount of attention from the HSE.
"On a wider front, we hope that our experience might assist the drag racing community at large, and will be pleased to share with any interested parties what
we consider to be the key elements which we have ourselves discovered as a result of this near-tragedy.
Vampire was one of a pair of jet dragsters operated by PrimeTime Land Speed Engineering whose principals are Colin Fallows
and Mark Newby. In July 2000 Colin Fallows set the current Outright British Land Speed Record in Vampire at an average speed of 300.3 mph.
In July 2006, Colin Fallows posted an average speed of 310 mph in Vampire and Mark Newby posted an average speed of 339 mph in
the team's other jet dragster Split Second at an official record-setting event in the UK.
In both cases the times/speeds were officially recorded by the governing body of motorsports, the Motorsports Association. Each car posted
a terminal speed considerably in excess of its average: in the case of Vampire, over 330 mph and in the case of Split Second over
350 mph.
Ignoring their previous drag racing experience in the world's most powerful piston-powered vehicles, between them the team partners Colin
Fallows and Mark Newby are the most experienced jet dragster operators outside the USA, and have more than thirty seven years and 3,000
accident-free jet car runs between them.
The team had successfully and safely trained ten other drivers to drive Vampire, amongst them a salesman, an energy consultant, a
seventeen year old, a housewife and a professional motoring journalist.
The team's experience, standards of operational excellence and unrivalled safety record are sufficiently high for them to have been approved
at the highest levels within the MoD, the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force to perform with their cars on one of NATO's key
European assets, the runway at RAF Fairford, just weeks before the Top Gear crash.
All of the team cars are designed, built, maintained and constantly updated to embrace or exceed all current standards and recommendations
for operational use. Not one of them has ever failed to pass scrutineering by the Motorsports Association, nor have any of them ever needed to
have rectification work of any kind performed in order to pass these inspections.
The team's reputation for putting safety first is well known in drag racing, airshow and speed record breaking circles. The safety of the driver, team
members and the general public has always been the primary concern of the team. Both team principals have aviation backgrounds and the
disciplines employed in the operation of their cars are just as rigorous as those they have embraced throughout their equally safe and accident-free
aviation careers.
It is this self-imposed discipline and attention to training, detail and constant learning which has allowed them to perform more than 3,000 runs in
their jet dragsters without an accident.
The safe operation of jet dragsters requires that all drivers remain within the briefed operating parameters at all times. Because of the rate of
acceleration and high terminal speeds involved, any deviation from the required operating procedures will be penalised instantly and often without
hope of recovery. These are almost certainly the most unforgiving cars in motorsport and are intolerant of the slightest mishandling.
Comments on the HSE Draft Report
The HSE report represents a thorough investigation into a high speed incident. It contains some errors, and completely omits some matters.
Our view is that, whilst not being perfect it is a fair view of the events of the 20 September 2006. The HSE have reported on an accident which
took place in a very specialist area, and there are no independent experts with relevant experience of such high speed events available to
assist. We will discuss with the HSE what we view as the controversial aspects of the report. The report draws no conclusion as to blame
for the accident, and we concur. It is for others, in a different forum, to interpret the report and other evidence to apportion blame.
The report confirms the high standards of driver training provided by the team, evidenced by comments made to the HSE by both the BBC's
driver and a professional motoring journalist who was also trained to drive Vampire.
The report accepts Primetime's tyre selection and finds the type of tyre used on Vampire suitable for Elvington.
The tyres were bought new not long before the crash. The rear tyres fitted at the time of the crash had just two high-speed passes on them
and the two front tyres had no passes on them prior to the crash date. The suppliers did not indicate the date of manufacture to PrimeTime.
The report mentions that the track was inspected and cleaned prior to the commencement of filming, but does not mention that the track was
also inspected and cleaned again prior to every run the car made on the day.
The report commends the design, construction and maintenance of the car as being key elements in assuring the drivers survival of the
highest-speed crash ever seen in Europe.
Although the report mentions a pre-event visit to the Primetime workshops by a colleague of the BBC's driver, it does not state that the person
who visited on behalf of the driver was actually present on site at the filming day itself.
The report states that it takes longer than 0.4 seconds for the driver to remove the right hand from the steering wheel and move the parachute
lever to its 'fully back' (i.e. deployed) position. We can prove that it can be done in this time.
The report confirms that when the tyre blew, the BBC's driver made no attempt to reach for the parachute lever with his right hand, employing
it instead to steer into the skid.
The report confirms that when the tyre blew, the BBC's driver applied braking.
The report states that the driver's "Instantaneous reaction to the tyre blow-out seems to have been that of a competent high-performance car
driver, namely to brake and try to steer into the skid".
The report confirms that the BBC film crew removed their apparatus immediately following the removal of the driver from the wreckage.
Summary
The HSE's recommendations to Primetime have been noted and will be actioned accordingly. Being of an administrative nature, none of their
recommendations impact upon the causes of the accident.
We are sure that the BBC will respond positively to the relevant criticisms and recommendations contained in the report.
The BBC's driver had showed an above average ability to learn how to drive a type of car which is totally unforgiving. We were satisfied with
his progress, encouraged by his obvious desire to be as professional as he possibly could, and pleased to see him respond so positively to
the established training procedures. That is why, under our tutelage, he was able to run a peak speed of 314 mph.
It is regrettable that a previously unheard-of type of tyre damage subsequently occurred and that this triggered the most awful episode in the
lives of all concerned.
PrimeTime still remain uncompensated for the loss of an Iconic vehicle, which had been lovingly cherished by the same hands for twenty five
years, and which still holds the outright British Land Speed Record.
The report reveals lessons to be learned by all, and we are delighted to see that the BBC's driver appears to have made a complete recovery.
We wish him and his family well.
Swift snippets. 21st June: Further to Tuesday's news item about the Xtreme altered,
Lee Pike has been in touch to let us know that he and Jerry Denning will also be appearing at the
California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield with the Honky Tonkin' Gasser.
"We have an eleven-strong crew to cope with all the excitement", says Lee. "Flights, shipping and logistics on the other side are now almost complete.
Roll on October! We would like to thank So Cal (John Reid), Tony Thacker, Steve Gibbs and Julian Balm for all their efforts to make this possible.
We will also have Honky Tonkin' T-Shirts with a Chris Frogget design out soon."
The next outing for Chaos is at next week's NSRA Nostalgia Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway
and taking the wheel at the event will be Nick Davies of Eurodragster.com Main Sponsor
ICE Automotive. Nick has six-second
altered experience from the Havoc blown-alcohol altered but told us that he has always wanted to
drive a nitro car. "This will be a one-off and I am very grateful to Lawrie and the team for the fantastic
opportunity", said Nick. "We have been asked to get Havoc back out for the FIA European Finals."
We are indebted to Andy Marrs of TSI Timers Europe
for forwarding us the official timing data from the weekend's SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway.
You can check out the timing data by clicking here or
by clicking on the Timing Data link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page.
Luke, Adam and Amy Bennett have asked us to say a very Happry 27th Wedding Anniversary to their parents
Frank and Louise Bennett. No sooner said than done, guys, have a great day Frank and Louise.
We are the mods. 21st June: The first ever Shakespeare County Raceway Race Wars event for modded
motors took place in perfect sunny conditions on Saturday during the Warwickshire-based drag strip's Shakespeed
'07 event, writes SCR's PR Jerry Cookson.
This month editor Richard Nicholls features Wayne Hiscock's unique Super Pro '71 Chevrolet Chevelle in all its glory plus a full round-up report from
the opening round of the Real Steel Street Eliminator at Santa Pod Raceway. Other features include Steve Bolton's US muscle car, a look behind the scenes of
USAutomotive, the AACI Spring Nationals, and a very rapid G-Force Cuda. American Car World is available at all leading newsagents priced £3.60.
Back to Fotopic galleries and Richard Smith has updated his gallery with shots from the Ultimate Road Car
Challenge at York Raceway. "The latest round of the American Super Stock series was won by Al Platt in his Camaro, who is now
gaining on current points leader Lee 'Cookie' Chiles", says Richard. You can check out Richard's pictures at
richardsmith.fotopic.net.
By way of a blue screen behind and 'movie magic' the few seconds' scene will be seen by audiences entirely at another angle. It was
an interesting diversion from the nearby straight-line action and with the movie shortly coming to your local cinema the pictures can now
be shown.
Productive PMR. 21st June:Paul Marston Racing
had a most productive and successful outing at the SPRC Summernationals, says Paul Marston, but Paul and the team would like to start with
a vote of thanks:
We would like to express our thanks and gratitude to all the Santa Pod track crew who never gave up and got the job done. The weather has
certainly played its part this season and without the hard work and dedication of Darren Prentice, Ian Marshall, John Cross, the startline crew, fire crew - the
list goes on - the event would not have happened.
Paul Marston Racing, fielding five entries for the Summer Nationals, had plenty to celebrate. Firstly Gary Springford had another outing in the Hulk Shogun,
ably supported by Dave Catton wearing an Incredible Hulk fancy dress costume (that was a costume? - Ed). This was quite a revelation as we always
had DC pencilled in as a quiet retiring, responsible type, after all he is a senior airline pilot. Obviously painting himself in green paint has a strange effect, similar
to that of the Hulk! On seeing a Hulk sitting in Hulk Shogun Drag Race Engineering proprietor Gary Springford was for once speechless. We are still not sure
if it was because Dave Catton was dressed like the Hulk or the fact that he had hair! Gary capped his weekend with a still untested race car by going two
rounds in Pro ET.
Steve Bolton had one of those weekends, with a new transbrake button fitted to his Plymouth Scamp. A small mistake with the button gave Steve a red
light in the first round, which did nothing to help his points tally in Pro ET as prior to the event Steve was leading the National Championship. We will just
have to wait and see how bad the damage is. Steve, ever the sportsman, took it on the chin and is looking forward to the next event.
Tethys in the Ugly Stick dragster fared about the same, electing to run just one class at the Summernationals. The dragster was awesome, but after
an unusually slow reaction time, Tethys day was done in the first round of Super Comp. Disappointing but Super class racing in the UK has evolved and
become so competitive that a small mistake on the start often leads to an unrecoverable position, better luck next time my friend.
Mick Howling, driving Grumpy's Dodge enjoyed success double classing in Super Gas and Pro ET. In Super Gas Mick went two rounds, taking
the win in round one against Steve Wells then bowing out in the second to a resurgent Brendan Clancy, in a classic Super Gas doorslammer match-up. Mick
went even further in Pro ET taking out Darren Hulkes in his beautiful Blown Camaro in round one, Carl Burton in the English Rose Sierra in round two and finally
falling in the third round to a peculiar start line occurrence which gave Mick a cherry and his day was done.
I stood in for usual Whoopass Monza driver Dave Catton, who was busy Hulking it up. I double-classed in Pro ET and Super Gas, the same as
Mick. One-shot qualifying actually suited me as I have not driven the Whoopass Monza for nearly a year and not competed in Super Gas for nearly
eight years, it made it a drivers race in both classes. Super Gas was great fun, it's a real tough class and always has been. I got a bit lucky and got to the semi
finals with the car finally behaving itself and starting to show its true potential. I was more than happy with the performance of the Monza, we now have a firm
handle on it and the sixty foot times were comparable with Grumpy's Dodge for consistency. In Pro ET I went to the Quarter Finals and succumbed
to one of those nasty red lights, every racer hates them. This one was entirely my fault: I was just a little too keen, shame really as I thought I had my best
chance in Pro ET and the one-shot qualifying worked against me in this case. It's a very fast-reacting car and I just had not had time to pick my spot on the
Tree, on my qualifier the motor stumbled going on the chip so my reaction was 1.2 seconds! In the first two rounds of elimination in Pro ET my lights were
way slow, I knew I had to tighten up, so I took a shot and it was too much. But with the kind of success we had over the weekend I really could not complain.
So now it's the Summer break, all efforts are now on the Calibra in preparation for Bug Jam and its entry into the Super Modified wars. It's currently in the
Drag Race Engineering workshops ready for its upgrades and tagging for Super Modified.
Up to twenty British Truck Racing Association teams will compete at Santa Pod Raceway on Saturday 14th and
Sunday 15th July. Weighing in at around six tonnes, these trucks perform spectacular wheel-spinning burnouts,
and can accelerate faster than a Porsche 911.
The UK Truck Show is an ideal introduction to the famous home of European drag racing for any first-time Santa
Pod visitors. Unlike dedicated drag racing meetings, in the event of wet weather, there will still be plenty of
action and entertainment for all ages.
Entertainment includes the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight with the historical Lancaster Bomber and Spitfire
planes, car-crushing monster-trucks Slingshot and Podzilla in action, 300 mph Jet Car Fireforce, Crash Rescue
recovery show and lots more.
Other attractions include a funfair and plenty of trade stands for all ages. For show information see the official
web site at www.uktruckshow.co.uk or call
organisers Event Developments Ltd on 01775 723723.
Ex-Boyzone TV star Shane Lynch will be appearing at the event on the Sunday to meet fans and sign
autographs. Shane has a passion for motorsport, and is also an accomplished racing driver in the British
GT Championships.
Hundreds of the best trucks in the UK will be on show at the event, competing in the National Show
Truck Championships. The winner will receive a monumental trophy at the show and will feature within
Trucking magazine. Entry is just £30 per truck but must be booked in advance to be eligible
for judging by the panel of experts at the show. Vans and other light commercial vehicles are also permitted.
Admission is just £10 for adults and £5 for children (ages 5-15), with under fives free.
Discounted tickets are available in advance (24-hour day ticket hotline 0870 0603798). Car parking is
free and gates open at 9:00 am each day. Family camping is also available, call for details.
All things considered we are satisfied with the weekend, and we are looking forward with confidence to the
next race in Finland. Thanks to Chester Houghtaling at Progressive Performance and to Steve Schmidt at Steve
Schmidt Racing."
A baptism of water. 20th June: If you were tuned in to Monday's news update you will recall that
Robin Shone was Race Director at the weekend's SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway. Robin has been in
touch to give us his thoughts about the weekend and to thank those who helped:
I was eagerly looking forward to my first event as Race Director, however monitoring the weather forecasts leading up to the event I
wasn't certain that I would oversee much racing action. For a change, the forecasts proved to be accurate and Saturday became
a long and frustrating day for most people at Santa Pod.
I think it is appropriate at this point to thank all of the Track Crew who worked so tirelessly on Saturday to try and get the track in a
go condition. There were people drying the track from 05:30 until I called it a day at 18:00, and during that period I cannot think of
a time when there wasn't a sweeper, tractor or jet dryer doing laps. To all of the crew, a massive thank you for your efforts.
The day ran through relatively smoothly with few incidents of note, whilst I tried to put into practice what I had learned over the last three
years. It was whilst completing my duties of the day that I came across an issue that made me start writing this review. Whilst signing off
several competitors' MSA licences for upgrades, it became apparent that the paper counter part that records the Race Director's signature
is now located within the MSA Competitors' Yearbook as a tear-out card. Can I remind any drivers that when completing observed runs in
the future they will need to present this card for signing and that without it the Race Director will not be able to endorse you licence.
And so that was the SPRC Summernationals. My first event as Race Director completed with all the help that you would expect from our drag
racing community. I'll be handing the reins back over to Darren Prentice for the FIA European Finals but will be back in the 'hot seat' for the UK
National Finals at Santa Pod - see you there!
Why Craig went after Mum. 20th June: UK Super Modified racer Craig Gibbs has been in touch to explain what happened
during qualifying at the weekend when he appeared to try to run mum Tina over on his way towards staging and
then suffered a nitrous burp.
"Congratulations to Andy Kirk and the team on their event win, and also to Ian and Sue Jackson on the stout times and event win - well done!
Thanks to the whole Santa Pod crew, staff and officials for sticking with it as long as they did on Saturday in their valiant efforts in trying to run
a race meeting. I would also like to thank everyone who helped us out with bits."
Clutch plate fry-up. 20th June: UK Pro Modified racer Ray White tells us that it was another miserable weekend for the
Lethal Zephyr team:
I would like to thank all the crew for their hard work: Steve, Steve, Chris, Jeff and of course my wife Jacky
who keeps all of us fed and watered. I would also like to thank the Pod crew who just would not give up even
in the rain, up and down that track, well done guys and girls. A big thanks to all the other drivers for putting
on a good show. People just don't realise how much money and effort goes into running these cars. And remember Danny,
it's just a hobby.
Back in black. 20th June: UK Super Gas racer Ricthi Smith says that it is good to be back on track, after what seems
like an eternity since crashing his Ventora.
"Perhaps in hindsight I should have kept the Zephyr but hey you can't look back, plus Neil Grant was unrelenting in his quest to own her.
It feels good to be back, wheels up!"
Redeemed at the Summernationals. 20th June: UK Supertwin racer Ian
Turburville went to the SPRC Summernationals eager to try out the settings which he had put into Mister Spokehead for
the eliminations which never happened. The settings worked out as Turbo kicked his Personal Best ET into next week:
We had been making good progress and the top end of the runs was already covered but we desperately needed a good sixty foot to be in the programme.
The Pod crew worked their magic and despite there being an inordinate amout of water embedded in the track, they quickly gave us a racing surface so
the call went out, surf's up!
Brum was away on business so we roped Rush in to help but Steve, despite his damaged leg, worked tirelessly to get us ready and I must thank
Adam Charnley of Cougar racing for his help too, thanks guys, you are the best. It was one-shot qualifying so no time to test, just go for it. We had
Steve Woollatt in the other lane and we knew we didn't stand a chance against the Pumas if they were running right, but hey, anything can happen right?
The bike sounded good and the burnouts are getting better by the minute but no more sixty foot over the line jobs, back to the more professional short
blast up to the line. That's all that's needed with modern tyres really. It is hard to race a TF Supertwin against a four-cylinder bike as they have a totally
different, and much longer, starting routine. I have to watch the other teams and try to remember their routine otherwise if I start my bike at the same time
as them I would be sitting in pre-stage, getting hot, burning lots of fuel, for far too long. Anyway, we got it just right and staged together, got the ambers
on the tree and hit the throttle. Wow! I cut a good light as usual but the bike left the line like I had been trying for all this time, a proper drag bike! Bang!
The big kick up the backside and straight onto the bars then much fiercer acceleration than I had felt before. The clutch was working at last! I got to mid
track quicker than ever before but then the second stage of the fuel system kicked in and it pulled even harder which caught my by surprise and it suddenly
lurched towards the wall so I had to pedal it which was a shame. The result was a 1.2 sixty foot instead of the usual 1.4, a massive difference. Put that
together with the 192 mph from the main Event and we have a serious run going on!
As fate would have it we had Steve Woollatt in our first round also, and the same lane, so it was going to be a re-run. We staged together but then Steve
accidentally deep staged. OK now we were set, I staged and the race was on. I snapped the throttle as hard as I could, cut a good tree again and the bike
really jumped, great! This time I was ready and kept the bike nice and straight but at three quarter track the clutch really locked and the fuel clicked in
making the bike jump even higher on the bars, then everything got very surreal, so this is what a proper run feels like! The rear slick must have unloaded
slightly when it went harder onto the bars at that point and there was a bang and shudder through the chassis, something I had never experienced before.
Steve was well in front so I clicked it off and put it down to experience. Better to live to ride another day was my motto on that run. The timing ticket showed
all my incrementals up to that point were better than anything I had run before and I still ran a personal best of 7.46 seconds but I had slowed to 173 mph.
The perfect birthday present, and the bike was all in one piece! A great weekend with good people, good waves, good food, great racing and lots of fun.
There were lots of great performances from the other riders and racers, like Neil Midgley, Dave Peters, Shamus, Chris Mott, Andy Kirk, Dennis Wratten
and the rest of the NFAA (great show) and Mike Lacey's rock party in the pits was fantastic! Nice to see the new ET class in NAST working so well,
great win for Pete Harrison.
Good weekends at Sundsvall. 19th June: Kenneth Lorentzon took his Pennzoil-sponsored Fuel Funny Car to Sundsvall
Raceway last weekend in an attempt to complete Håkan Fällström's licencing.
"The race track and the whole facility have huge potential, and SHRA Sundsvall are doing a great job with it",
says Kenneth. "This is the second year we been there and we still have the track record with Tommy Möller's
5.26.
"I'm getting there with my tune-up, close to a breakthrough. The engine is really stout and was way too aggressive
for the track even though I took out masses of power. It still ran 0.92 to 0.94 to sixty foot which is quite a
good time for a Funny Car. The car was uncontrollable for Håkan as the front wheels were still up
at 200-250 feet and then got out of the narrow groove and went up in smoke.
"Ola was number one qualifier 0.680 under the D/A index with a 7.72/174 mph", says Thomas. "In the semi final Ola was up against Tage Avander's
fast Camaro. Tage won that race also won the event.
"But we have solved some problems with the car, and we also had some help this weekend. We would like to thank Jari Konola, Ulf Stadig, Conny
Johansson and Willy Hjort for their help. We also would like to thank Jeff Taylor Performance for supplying us with good parts and good HP in the
engine and Mike Corvo Jr for chassis parts from RJ Racecars."
Had a great night on Saturday, won a dodgy prize in the raffle thank you Carla. Big thanks to the hippy for
sorting out the band. You know what we normally call you."
Swift snippets. 19th June: Thanks to Ole Marthinsen for getting in touch to let us know that entry forms
are now available for the NDRG Drag Challenge which takes place at Amcar International Raceway at Gardermoen
on 3rd-5th August. You can download the entry forms at www.ndrg.no.
Bob Roberts of Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor Robinson
Race Cars says that Pro Mod racer Andy Robinson has run better and achieved less at many meetings. "I guess our luck was in
because we had quite a severe gearbox problem all weekend and we were lucky not to do major damage let alone win anything", says Bob. "Still we have time to
sort things out before the car and driver go on the ferry for the long haul to Finland. There are some pictures and in-car video at
www.robinson-race-cars.co.uk, and look out for some damaged bits in our E-Bay shop soon."
UK Super Street Bike racer Steve Venables' 198 mph Suzuki will be on show at the Royal International
Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford on 14th-15th July. You can find out more on the event's official web site at
www.airtattoo.com. Thanks to reader Steve Billings
for the good spot.
Collin Morrice has asked us to thank Stef Pateman and Lee Tucker for going round the pits with the Diabetes UK collection box at the
SPRC Summernationals. "I would like to thank those racers and spectators who gave so generously!", says Collin. "I think this proves
how much the racing community is like a family! I would like to say a very special thank you to Steve Dunn and Jon Evans for donating their
Perfect ET Award money to the charity, I cannot thank you enough! Thanks to all those who helped. The weekend coverage was once again
great (Thanks - Ed) and a massive Well Done to the track crew who never gave up all weekend! Finally Happy Birthday for
today from all the family to my dad Sandy."
Also in touch with thanks is UK Tech Inspector Geoff Martin who unfortunately broke his leg before the SPRC Summernationals
but was given the use of one of Santa Pod Raceway's golf carts (How's that for irony - Ed) for the weekend.
"The golf cart allowed me to operate normally around the pits so thanks to Santa Pod", says Geoff. "Alas it's another four weeks before I am allowed
to swing a club". Best wishes for a rapid recovery Geoff.
Ready for the Show... 19th June: With just a few weeks to go until the London Motor Museum, venue for the London Drag Racing
Show on 7th-8th July, opens its doors to the
paying public for what promises to be a worthwhile, well-attended and drag racing-promoting exhibition Wayne Corbitt of UK Super
Gas and Junior Dragster team Panther Racing UK has taken the opportunity to visit the venue and meet the team at the heart of
the UK's newest automotive venue. Wayne gave us his thoughts when he returned home:
Firstly, given that the setting is in London - not my favourite place in the world to get to, I set off from my home in South Wales
contemplating traffic snarl-ups, the M25 and then all I had to do was find the place. It was going to be real chore so it had better
be worth it!
Well, what can I say. I went from my doorstep to the location in West Ruislip in two and a half hours. No hassle, no grief. A really
easy place to get to. Question: Well, was the trip worth it? Answer: Absolutely!
With around forty race cars on view, and the proud teams stood alongside them, and with a selection of trade stalls the London
Drag Racing Show is bound to be a great event. All the people here at Panther Racing are keen to promote the team, but more
importantly the sport whenever we have the opportunity. This is definitely one of those opportunities.
It's an impressive set-up to say the least and a great venue for our drag racing brothers and sisters to show off their teams,
their cars, their pride and joy! Personally, I only came to be involved with drag racing and the Panther team in the off-season late
last year. I've learnt a lot, seen some excellent cars, heard some good stories, met some great people, it's a brilliant atmosphere
and I think it would be great if we used this as a real chance to shout out about a sport and family we love to be part of.
In closing, we all know that its brilliant to have so many captivating cars in one place at one time, but it's the audience that really
makes a show. Why not take the time to visit the museum web site at
www.londonmotormuseum.co.uk and whilst
you're on the internet, take a look its sister site Total Kustom Organisation at
www.tkolondon.com. Then come and visit us, the Panther Racing
UK team, at the London Drag Racing Show on 7th-8th July. We'll look forward to seeing you all there! It'll be a great weekend.
The London Motor Museum is based at the former RAF West Ruislip, Aylsham Drive, off Ickenham Road, HA4 7DZ.
Web site updates. 19th June: Our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has updated his Fotopic gallery with
pictures from last Friday's Peak Performance Day at Santa Pod Raceway. You can check out Peter's pictures at
peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net.
Dan of the UK Drag Bike Forum tells us that he has sorted out the problem which users (especially on
AOL) were experiencing and that the whole has been sped up. To talk Drag Bike racing check out
www.ukdragbike.co.uk.
Only forty minutes of qualifying took place on Saturday before heavy rain started to fall, curtailing
the day's activities (right, picture supplied by Pete Smith). The rest of a single cycle of
qualifying and all eliminations took place in one day
yesterday and the SPRC Race Officials, the track crews and the racers deserve a big pat on the back for
getting the event run. As readers know we would not usually single out any one person but in these
circumstances we must say a big Well Done to Robin Shone, usually Assistant Race Director, who was Race
Director for the weekend and must have wondered what he'd let himself in for as the clouds gathered on
Saturday. Robin was unflappable and did a great job with the backup of usual Race Director Darren Prentice
and the team.
You can check out our American Car
Imports-sponsored Event Coverage by
clicking here, or
or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any
Eurodragster.com page.
Our colleagues Hanski in Finland and Tezzii in Sweden struggled with network problems whilst updating from the
FHRA Kamasa Tools Nationals and Deep Forest Nationals respectively but you can check out all the news
from Alastaro at www.fhra.fi and from Sundsvall at
www.eurodragsternorth.com.
Editor's note: Please, no more E-Mails about the Pro Mod exhibition in the USA. We do
read web sites other than our own, and we will not be running a news item about it. Check out the
Euro bit of Eurodragster.com.
"This deal with the Hannas started as a business relationship and has turned into a friendship and we are
really enjoying ourselves". Firestorm's next outing is at the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals at
Shakespeare County Raceway on 30th June-1st July.
Danish Midsummer Nationals update. 16th June: More than two hundred teams from nine nations have signed up for the Danish Midsummer
Nationals, says Holger Dueholm:
The Danish Midsummer Nationals will be wicked action from one end to the other. On 22nd-24th June Vandel Raceway near Billund in Denmark
will turn into an inferno of burning rubber and screaming engines.
One of the main attractions is the Top Fuel duel between Stig Neergaard and Rene Hersland pushing their 6000 hp monsters to the limit reaching
more than 500 km/h on the quarter mile. The Danish Midsummer Nationals also features Over The Hill Racing with Jörgen Jonsson from
Sweden in his record-setting TMFC, and Yngve Solberg from Norway and Mark Flavell from England will bring their methanol dragsters
At Vandel drivers from all over Europe are competing in the Toyo Scandinavian Drag Racing Series and Nordic Dragracing Series so there is
plenty to see here.
But Vandel Raceway is about more than four-wheeled racing dragbikes race the quarter mile too.
One racer is Finn Asserbo with his two Top Fuel Bikes. The new bike with a four cylinder Puma engine, and the old bike with the only six cylinder
Honda CBX based nitro engine in the world. And just today we have made a deal with Gerd Habermann who will make demonstration passes and
go for the world record with his Jet Bike on Saturday and Sunday.
Vandel is huge, and there is plenty of room for tents and caravans. There are bathing facilities with hot water and there is a family fair for the youngest.
Besides the quartermile there is a drift challenge, American car show, Dyno Test and dB Drag . Entrance for the whole weekend is €35
including free camping right next to the track, and party with live bands in the evening. Lots of food and beer at reasonable prices.
"Some eagle eyed spectators noticed and commented on the CTM decals on the DRE Calibra at the FIA Main Event", says Paul Marston. "CTM
were looking at re-establishing their presence in drag racing, being one of the original true innovators and performance tuners. Their cylinder head
work is second to none and has an international reputation.
"Nearly fifty per cent of CTM's work involves customer Vauxhall engines, which made the DRE-backed Paul Marston Racing
entry very attractive. Competing in a heads-up class like Super Modified allows CTM to showcase their work on the track. CTM will also be
attending events with Paul Marston Racing on a consultancy basis and will be on hand to advise any racer how they may improve their performance.
"Paul Marston Racing thought long and hard before starting to put together a programme to enable them to compete in Super Modified. This is a long-term
commitment. We believe that there is a massive future for Super Modified, it has a firm handle on its costs to the teams. That in a heads-up class is key to
its long term future.
"Paul Marston Racing would like to acknowledge and thank the Super Modified Racers Association for their openness, as PMR's DRE-backed Calibra
will be running naturally aspirated. The Association are looking now into how they can allow this combination to have the potential to become competitive
for the 2008 season. At the moment the results speak for themselves, there are some very professional well funded naturally aspirated competitors who
are just not regularly making it past first round. The SMRA know that more parity is needed for fair competition and to attract more teams into the class.
Would you like to run your modified motor flat out over the quarter mile for the first time?
Check the web sites and the magazines for drag racing procedure then get your mates or club together for some friendly 'grudge' races, find
out whose is the fastest car in town! Special trophies will be awarded for most improved novices, and for the spirit of hot rodding.
Make this the event you get involved in nostalgic drag racing.
There will be hard fought competition from the Fuel Altereds, Outlaw Anglias, Wild Bunch, Flathead Meltdown, Outlaw Flat Four and Gasser
Circus, as well as display runs from the amazing Firestorm Jet Car.
Along with the friendly family atmosphere add the hot rod and custom display, trader village, funfair, free pit access, live music marquee,
clubhouse with evening disco and full camping facilities, it's more than enough for racers and spectators alike.
Admission (under 16s free): Saturday £18, Sunday £18, weekend £25 or £22.50 in advance for NSRA
members (includes camping). Run What You Brung track fee is £18 per day or £30 for the weekend (both for unlimited
runs). For advance tickets call 01789 414119 and for track information call 01789 720180 or visit
www.shakespearecountyraceway.co.uk. For NSRA
information call 01205 310885 or visit www.nsra.org.uk.
Editor's note: Apologies that the rest of today's news did not materialise as promised - the Peak Performance Day
just kept us too busy. We will do the rest of the news from our hotel tonight and post it first thing tomorrow morning.
Bartlett on Fuel FC. 14th June: If you were tuned in on 5th June
you will have read Carbon By Design Team Owner Knut Söderquist's comments about Fuel Funny Car at
the FIA Main Event. Santa Pod Raceway CEO Keith Bartlett has been in touch to give us his own views about
Fuel Funny car and Fuel classes generally, which we present verbatim:
I have read with much interest the comments made by Knut Söderquist on 5th June regarding the nitro Funny Car class. It is
most unusual for me to make any public comments regarding my own and my company's drag racing and business activities,
plus those of you who know me are aware of how cautious I am not to become involved in multi person discussions over the
internet and world wide web. However as I feel that there are points made in that article which are incorrect, plus misleading
to the general drag racing fans, I feel compelled to make some comment.
Before going on to say anything I must make clear that fuel Funny Car has been and will always remain my favourite class in
drag racing. My days of seeing thirty two car fields (I never saw a sixty four car funny car event) in southern California will
remain with me for ever. It is as much for these reasons as any other that we have persevered with the class for so many
years at Santa Pod Raceway, despite it not making commercial sense or in fact being a good show.
The remaining events that we have planned to run Funny Cars at, the Main Event, European Finals and possibly the Flame and
Thunder, we have offered a normal class elimination structure, based on four car, six car or eight car fields. This carries a full
prize fund similar to that posted for other pro-classes, with added performance criteria. The criteria set were not high for a Fuel
car, with ET bonuses offered on all runs under additional performance criteria. In my opinion this was a very fair prize fund with
bonuses, for a class which has not performed for over three years. All Funny Car teams are running for the same prize structure.
Perhaps it should be made clear that this year the purse on offer to the Funny Car teams is the best for many years. This is especially
true for 2007, as in the past few years we have based the prize fund in Funny Car on performance, which in reality has meant we
have paid out practically no prize fund at all. So at least in 2007 all the teams competing in Funny Car can win prize money, on
a much lower performance criteria, plus more bonuses if they run even faster.
We at Santa Pod are the ones trying to get away from match racing, as that belongs to the past, especially with Funny Cars.
Whichever way you wish to dress it up, the bottom line is that the Funny Cars have to perform before they can move forward as
a class and make more demands on the promoters, just like any other pro class. A leaf out of the Pro Modified book would
be a start. First they built the numbers of cars up to above sixteen cars (average entry at major International and FIA events is
now more than twenty two cars), followed by a superb show and performances, next they applied for higher prize money and
finally got FIA Championship status as a result of that development.
Looking back at the Funny Car class it is fact that the class has not had any more than two or three cars at the most during the past three
years and they have not really performed at all. The public and drag racing fans at Santa Pod are very aware of this and for the class to
develop it has to be able to perform. Even Top Methanol Funny Cars have been running faster and more consistent times for many
years. With that said I have to say that Bob Jarrett and John Spuffard, along with their whole team, have been brilliant ambassadors
to the class for many years, with their appearance, attitude and enthusiasm to move the class forward. They have also been a major
reason for us keeping the class alive.
How the class progresses from here is very debatable. In my own opinion, currently there is not really room for two full nitro classes,
which are Top Fuel and Funny Car, especially in the FIA European Drag Racing Championship. Many of the promoters cannot afford
to have both Top Fuel and Funny Car (in sufficient numbers to put on a good show in both classes) and it is no good these cars just
running at Santa Pod if it is to develop into a series, official or not, they have to run at other tracks and the parameters remain the
same, that is just fact. Funny Car has to develop in the same way as the Pro Modified class, that is begin to work together, build
the number of cars, find a class sponsor, start performing, form a series and then with the promoters and organisers of
Championships like myself, build the series. That is just my view and it is not necessarily how Funny Car should or will go forward.
Also we have to consider that if teams begin to change to Funny Car from Top Fuel, all that principally will happen is that Top
Fuel will dilute from the current ten to twelve cars down to say around six cars, while Funny Car will increase from two to three teams
to say around six cars. This will then make both classes far less exciting as all the teams in both classes will know that they are sure
to qualify for the eliminations and get paid their prize fund. It is most unlikely that there are enough new teams with sufficient budget,
skills and available crews with the experience to form new funny car teams, without the exodus from Top Fuel. Even in the USA where
several years ago (1980s / 1990s) teams would switch from Funny Car to Top Fuel and vice versa, the two classes see-sawed
between good car counts in varying years just purely as a result of these switches and costs.
It has taken me and my team years to build the Top Fuel class to where it is now seen as true competition, where teams and drivers
know they have go out and cut it to stay in the show. As a result of this the whole spectacle and the performances in Top Fuel have
gone up several gears, with records being set continually at many events. The class is now exciting to watch, with run after run and
very few teams are now inclined to sit out runs just to save money. This in turn has meant that the team owners and drivers have
gone out and raised sponsorship, recruited pay-for-drives to carry on competing at the next level. Of course some of the slower
underfunded teams will drop out of the class. And here lies another problem. The slower teams who cannot cut it or often fail to
qualify in Top Fuel, either through lack of budget, or maybe a lower level operation, lack of skilled crews etc, then drop out of Top
Fuel and could move over to Funny Car where they are sure to qualify and get prize funds on a six car field for example. What may
then happen (although not for certain by any means) is those low budget teams who cannot make it Top Fuel move over to Funny
Cars, yet still fail to perform for the same reasons as when they were in Top Fuel. This would have the effect of lowering the
performance and standards of the new cars into the Funny Car class and as a result holding back the class performance and
development. In that situation if it was to happen, then the Top Fuel class would then loose the car count essential for
sponsorship and TV.
All I am saying that it is my view that in the UK and Europe we do not currently have the budgets, resources, crew members
with the right skills, to run and develop two nitro classes side by side. This applies to the teams and the promoters and
organisers. It is just a little too soon, but given time I am sure that will come about just as it has in other classes. I have personally
been very involved in the development of both the Top Fuel and Pro Modified classes over the past ten to fifteen years and I feel
the results speak for themselves.
Happy Habermanns. 14th June: Germany's
Team Werner Habermann Racing were happy with their
performances at the FIA Main Event:
Timo tested his Top Methanol Dragster with a clutch and B&J Transmission for the first time at Santa Pod Raceway the weekend before the FIA Main Event
the results were good, running 6.6 on his second run after being on the throttle for only eight hundred feet. At the race one week later
their good friend Spike Gorr of Gorr Fuel Systems tuned Timo's and Dennis'
dragsters for fast passes.
Werner Habermann Racing would like to thank their sponsors Uni-Fit Katalysatoren, GJD Gebäudemanagement, Autokrandienst
Habermann, Exide Batteries and Norfolkline, and would like to say a special Thank You to their good friends
Spike Gorr,
Jon Webster,
Barry Paton and Ronnie Picardo.
Swift snippets. 14th June: Tuesday 26th June is the deadline for normal entry to the Veidec Festival
which takes place at Mantorp Park on 26th-29th July. You can download entry forms from the Veidec Festival web site
at www.veidecfestival.com/2007/forms.htm or contact
Mantorp Park at info@motorevents.com or on +46 142 29 88 50. You can use
the same contact details for queries or advice. Electricity must be ordered when you enter. You can fax your entry form to
+46 142 29 88 69 or post it to Mantorp Park, Veidec Festival 2007, SE-590 17 Mantorp, Sweden.
UK Junior Dragster racer Rosie Hunt has asked us to say a big Thank You to Holland's Shark Attack Drag Racing Team
for their hospitality during their trip to the weekend's Speed and Glein show in Amsterdam. "They kindly invited us over to display our car and
make some demos in the indoor karting arena, the public loved it", says Rosie. "A special thanks to Top Fuel Bike rider Rene Van Den Berg
and family for their kindness which was second to none. These people have a passion for drag racing and after the closure of their track at
Drachten have to travel to England to test and race. Please sign the petition at
www.dragracedr88.nl."
Media update. 14th June: Nostalgia Fuel fans had better get some pennies ready for the next issue of
Vintage Fuel magazine, now available from American Auto Mags, writes Jerry Cookson.
Funny Car fans can enjoy pages of nostalgia with legendary Hall of Famer TV Tommy Ivo, a look at Brian Nitro Bennett's restored Rambunctious
'71 Dodge Charger formerly owned by Gene Snow, and the latest new old car builds from the Nostalgia Funny Car Association. For Altered fans, the
mag takes a look behind the scenes of the Outlaw Fuel Altereds Championship, and so as not to be left out the Performance Racing Tools slingshot fueller
of Tim Martinelli gets the centre page racer profile treatment along with a nice two-pager outlining the history of the UK's Crazy Chris Hartnell and his
Backdraft Junior Fuel Dragster. This and other great titles are now available from
www.americanautomags.com priced at £4.25.
Alastaro Pro Testing. 13th June: Our good friend Hannele Hoyden says that almost all of the Finnish Pro teams will this weekend be undergoing final testing for the FHRA Nitro Nationals which is going to be a really huge event from 5 to 8 July.
There will be plenty of new drivers coming, in Super Twin Top Fuel, two new racers, Risto Toikkanen and Kari Rajala, are going to show what they can do and bring the number of Finnish riders in this class up to four.
The race report for this weekend's testing will be linked from the home page on www.fhra.fi and, for bikes, look at Jouni's site
www.dragrace.fi
Hooligan's thanks. 13th June: Outlaw Anglia racer Mark Pointer is delighted with the performance of his Hooligan Fordson van running a best of 7.428 at the Main Event and he says it's time to thank those who have played a part in his remarkable performances:
It's very unusual for me to make public my feelings, but I think it is time for me to thank a few key people for the very "large" input contributed to The Hooligan and my racing.
Firstly, we have Trev, Steve and John from B&H Autokraft, Doncaster, who constucted the chassis, designed, built, and developed the evil Pro-Charged motor that has made The Hooligan the monster it has become. Thanks, guys.
Then, of course, we have Mr Jon Webster and the gang at WRE that assembled the mess of bits that I picked up from Steve Kellet's shed, and proceeded to turn into an 8 second car in just five weeks, in 3 passes, I might add. Good Boy!
John and Sharon Hogarth! You have got a lot to answer for also, you introduced me to Chevrolet, performed excellent chassis work and, I have to say, unrivalled paintwork that has made The Hooligan as popular as it is. We had some "mild" handling problems at Easter Thunderball, some of you might remember. John dropped his other work in the shop, identified, and rectified my chassis, including a beautiful new set of wheelie bars. He did such a good job, they don't actually touch the floor now. Now the van goes straight and true, well, almost - hey, I like it that way.
Jeff Bull, what more can you say, what a star. Jeff sold me some Powerglides, that unfortunately got a bit battered by Trevor's nasty engine. Lo and behold, Jeff did me two more free of charge. Jeff has always been there for me at home, at meetings, whatever, nothing is too much trouble for him, thanks Jeff, Good Boyo!
Confirmed exhibitors of cars and bikes include Top Fuel Dragster, Funny Car, Pro Mods, Super Mods, Sportsmans Classes and more.
The UK's leading Drag Strips, Santa Pod and Shakespeare County Raceway will have a presence and visitors will be able to test their reactions on the Shakespeare County timing light Tree.
Organiser Paul Knight reports that the response has been phenomenal. "The preparations for the show are progressing very well and he would like to thank all those who have pledged cars and bikes and to the many who have dedicated their time, efforts and invaluable services into making this show a success and promoting Drag Racing to a wider audience."
Exhibitor spaces and Trade Stalls are being snapped up. Spaces are still available but to avoid disappointment, anyone wanting to show off their car or bike to promote the most thrilling of all motorsports, or participate in any way, is advised to contact Paul as soon as possible. Contact Paul Knight on 07821 139945 or e mail pknight@tiscali.co.uk. If you would prefer to talk to Paul personally about any aspect of the show he will be at Santa Pod this coming weekend for the Summer Nationals.
The London Motor Museum is based at the former RAF West Ruislip, Aylsham Drive, off Ickenham Road, HA4 7DZ.
Swift Snippets. 13th June: We are grateful to Paula Marshall for sending us running orders for Saturday and Sunday at this weekend's SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway.
You can check out the running orders by clicking
here or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the letf hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and then
selecting the SPRC Summernationals.
Paula also reminds racers who are intending to run at the Peak Performance on Friday that they must bring their DVLC licence for this day, as Comp Licences will not be accepted on Friday - they will however be required for the weekend.
Outlaw Anglia racer Mat Cooper is looking forward to the Nostalgia Nationals at Shakespeare County where he will be out testing his new car (see photo).
He says, "It's taken a bit longer to finish than we thought. We've really missed racing over the last year or so and are looking forward to being back trackside with the rest of the Outlaw Anglias. I would like to thank my father Robert Cooper and brother Adam "Victor" Cooper for their continued support on the project. Unfortunately my girlfriend wasn't up for posing with the car, so here's my brother trying his best."
Web Site updates. 13th June: Sportsman ET racer and Northampton Evening Telegraph drag racing correspondent Nigel Holland has updated his photography site with images from the Main Event as well as images from last weekend's Classic Ford Show.
Performing several engine start-ups during the day, to great applause from the festival onlookers, was home-town racer Chris Hodgkins
with the www.ojzengineering.co.uk/www.587racing.com
383 ci Small Block Chevy Pro ET dragster. Also on display, proudly showing off his UK National Sportsman ET Championship trophy, was Geoff
Cowley. Always looking for a photo opportunity, Geoff took time out explaining the finer details of drag racing and the performance his street legal
Z28 Chevy Camaro, affectionately known as Candy's Camaro, can achieve over the quarter mile.
Several Ford Pops also joined in the display including Martin Rock's flat black '54 Pinto-powered Pop, a race-chassised twelve-second 350 SBC
Pop brought down by local street racer Arthur, and completing the trio was the Intergalactic Custom Shops purple Pop owned by Jan and Wayne Allman.
On Saturday we made a couple of checkout runs and found that we had to take out a lot of power to get
any sort of traction. We had a bloody good night on Saturday, starting with BuySellCortina and a barbecue
at which I had to pull a name out of my own very big Mexican hat for a passenger ride. They also had a
raffle for our charity, the Macmillan Cancer Trust. Next was the Fuellers bar where Classic Ford held a
Quiz with all proceeds coming to us again. Then it was talking and partying with everyone.
Our Photo Editor Roger is no stranger to having race cars pointed
at him (I'm looking at you, Mick - Ed), readers with long memories will remember the
Let's Get Tog Club, and now Eurodragster.com Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has
received the Chicken treatment, from Pro ET racer Keith Ridley at the Classic Ford Show at Santa Pod on
Sunday. You'll be able to see more when Peter posts his gallery of shots from Sunday at
peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net.
This just leaves our Pit Notes reporter Simon to be targeted, which would be quite some feat.
Summernationals Perfect Awards. 12th June: This weekend's SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway is the latest
event in the Eurodragster.com Perfect Awards Scheme. A total of £225 is on offer for perfect performance.
Eurodragster.com/LA Racing Parts decals must be carried on both sides of the vehicle to qualify for the Perfect ET Award.
As with other contingency schemes the decals are available from the signing-on office.
Should the winner of the Perfect ET Award go on to win the event then a bonus of £100 will be paid
by LA Racing Parts. As a one-off extra this weekend, if a Pro ET racer wins either Perfect Award then Eurodragster.com
will contribute £20 to the soirée which has been arranged in the Pro ET pits this weekend.
Cost? Well, quality doesn't come cheap, but how can you quantify the hours
and hours of work required to produce such a quality piece of kit? Anyway
if it wasn't spent on drag racing it would only be wasted.
New car problems with the transbraked Powerglide prevented any startling
times but if the burnouts are anything to go by then the Street Eliminator class will soon have
another car knocking on the seven second door.
Steve would like to thank Trevor and Stephen Hirst, Jon Webster, and his wife Jane for putting up
with everything.
Butch takes the Challenge. 11th June: UK Pro ET racer Antony Wilkins has joined the list of UK drag racers
who have appeared as one of the resident experts on the UK Channel 4 programme Scrapheap Challenge.
"I can't say much about the programme yet but will keep you informed of the viewing dates."
Summernationals RSSE preview. 11th June: UK Real Steel Street Eliminator racer Colin Lazenby says that one or two hopefuls
may not make this weekend's SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway, including his own Team 56
Chevy.
"Our transmission was temporarily 'misplaced' on the way out to Rosslers, taking eleven days to arrive", says Colin. "Amazingly it was delivered back to
us last Wednesday, the return leg taking just five days - no, I don't understand this nonsense either. This weekend Garry Coull and I sweated our way through
the installation in the height of the Scottish midday sun - no really, it was way too hot to work. Luke Robinson also has a number of jobs to clear, and he's right
in the middle of his University exams. I did tell him that he can go back to skool any time, missing it did me no harm.
"To all the teams who make it, well done. To those who aren't quite ready, crack on, the
Bug Jam is absolutely nuts and well worth the effort.
Here's to quick, fast, and safe racing - hopefully we'll see more than one or two of you there on the day."
Swift snippets. 11th June: The UK's Ultra Racing Top Methanol Funny Car team are aiming to
be on-track within the next couple of weeks, says Garry Pilkington. The former CC Racing Avenger
will be piloted by Trace Froome with tuning from Tony Pearson and is currently in the final stages of
engine build. You can stay in tune with the latest from the team on their new web site at
www.ultraracing.org.
UK Wild Bunch racer Sarah Howells would be pleased to hear from Claire Hunt who
visited the DASH Racing pit at the Yanks American weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway. "Claire's lads had a sit in the
Ramraider slingshot", says Sarah. "Some pictures were taken and E-Mail adresses swapped, but Claire's address doesn't seem to
work! If you are reading this Claire then please contact me at
sarah.howells@tradeteam.com and I'll gladly send on the shots
of the lads in the car."
Congratulations to our good friend Jemma Harrison on the birth of her son Luke Nathan who
arrived before being called to the pairing lanes yesterday, weighing in at six pounds.
Jemma says that she and Luke are doing fine despite his early arrival.
Rat Fink seeking crew. 10th June: Kirk Motorsport, campaigners of the UK's Rat Fink Super Modified Camaro, are looking to hire new
crew members.
"What with work commitments and location difficulties of our present crew we need to make moves to bring in some new blood", says Andy Kirk. "We
have to look at the logistics for the rest of this season but also seasons to come.
"We are based in Nottingham, so if you're in the Midlands that's even better but we are not expecting someone who can work in the week so wherever
you live will work fine. If you think you fit the bill and fancy a shot please either E-Mail
kirk.family@btconnect.com or phone on 07814 009562 and ask for Andy."
"But I went home with a smile on my face and a promise to try again."
Swift snippets. 10th June: Werner Rüchel tells us that fifteen racers are lined up for the next round of the
Supergaschamp Drag Racing Series which takes place at Vandel in 22nd-24th June.
For more information check out the Series web site at
www.supergaschamp.com.
Turbo also tells us that a unique matched set of drag bikes is for sale in the form of Ian and Jake Carruthers' Supertwin and
Junior Drag Bike. "If there are any father and son teams out there that want to have a go this set-up is ready to go at the end of the season, all freshened-up
and made for good family sport", says Turbo. "Jake has outgrown the Junior now and Rush is going to concentrate on his blown, parallel Twin project.
They may take a Harley road bike in part exchange but the pair will be very affordable anyway!". More details at
www.turboville.com/turbo-7/classifieds.htm.
Magazine update. 10th June: This month it's a cracker of an issue for Custom Car magazine with nearly half the
hundred-page edition devoted to drag racing, writes Jerry Cookson:
With new layouts, new colour and extra pages you'll be able to catch up on the latest photo reports from Shakespeare County
Raceway's Springspeed event and the NHRA Powerade series, former editor Kev Elliott and Kiwi Steve Dennish look at the
world's fastest Jago '32 Sedan from the Bonneville Salt Flats, a restored NHRA H/stock '56 Chevy belonging to national
record holder Jim Lamatrice, Stan and Paula Atkin's eight-litre 'shotgun hemi' Ford 100E, a pair of Swiss-based doorslammers -
Stefan Winter's big block Chevy powered Mercedes gullwing and the '56 Chevy Corvette of Beat Rechsteiner - and a look at
the aerodynamics of a Top Fuel Dragster's rear wing by Brackley based company Advantage CFD: should it stay conventional
or is the monostrut the way to go! Oh, and by the way there's plenty of hot rod stuff too.
The aim of the BDRHoF is to recognise and honour the pioneering and deserving individuals associated with British drag racing.
Nominees are selected by a panel of recognised experts, and those chosen for induction into the Hall of Fame are subsequently
presented with a special trophy at an annual gala dinner.
"We are delighted to have KJ Partnership Ltd assist us with our media interests, and I have no doubt the company will help us
convey a more professional image of the BDRHoF to the media and to the general public," says Stu Bradbury, one of the leading
lights behind the organisation.
KJ Partnership Ltd includes automotive media stalwarts Graham Jones and Andrew Kirk, who between them have over thirty years
of PR experience in the automotive and motor sport industries. During that time, clients have included Formula One and World
Motorcycle Championship teams, plus major motor manufacturers. Today, the company lists among its clients Champ Car World
Series competitor Minardi Team USA, the Minardi F1x2 Team, Carroll Shelby, USAutomotive Ltd, and a number of companies
requiring PR assistance on an ad hoc basis.
If you can't wait until Sunday then Santa Pod Raceway are holding a Run What You Brung tomorrow.
Gates open at 8:00 am and the fully-prepped track will be open between 9:30 am and 5:00 pm.
Entry to the track is £10 and £20 and the production of a valid DVLC licence will
buy you as many runs as you can fit in. For more information check out
www.rwyb.com.
If you fancy last-minute testing in National Event conditions before next week's SPRC Summernationals then
Santa Pod Raceway are still taking bookings for their Peak Performance Day next Friday, 15th June, immediately
before the race. For more information about Peak Performance Days again check out
www.rwyb.com or call 01234 782828, or to book your place visit
www.santapodshop.com.
Editor's note: Apologies that the rest of yesterday's news update did not appear as scheduled. This was due to an
emergency which arose in your News Editor's day job just as his lunch break started.
PMR's new landmark. 8th June:Paul Marston Racing enjoyed a most successful
FIA Main Event, says Paul Marston:
The weather was pretty much a foregone conclusion according to the internet weather sites, although do you try to ignore them. Friday and Saturday were actually better
than forecast by most but Sunday and Monday never changed, it was going to be wet!
The FIA Main Event was a new landmark for PMR, entering nine drivers in six race cars - our most yet and a really tall order. I am proud to say that
although stretched a little on Friday the team coped very well. The pit crew, the backbone of Paul Marston Racing, were very professional and rose to the task.
The drivers also tried their best to not cause any problems themselves by keeping temperatures down and doing as much between-round maintenance themselves to
help share the load on the pit crew.
With the weather in mind both Gary Springford, proprietor of Drag Race Engineering, and I decided that we would treat the event more as a Test and Tune, with Gary running
his beautiful alcohol injected Hulk Shogun in Pro ET and me driving the DRE-backed Vauxhall Calibra in Super Pro ET. Both Shogun and Calibra are still in early
development, National Event conditions seemed the perfect opportunity to iron out some bugs, taking the ominous approaching weather into consideration.
This does seem to have been the correct tactic and both Shogun and Calibra ran bests, Hulk Shogun with an effortless 9.77/118 and the Calibra with an 8.33/162.
Mick Howling driving Grumpy's Dodge in both Super Gas and Pro ET had another solid outing with both driver and race car being the picture of consistency.
A special thanks goes out to Mick for all the enthusiasm he brings and also for always being the first up in the morning, you can't keep a good man down.
Dave Catton, double classing in Super Gas and Pro ET in the Whoopass Monza, was fighting an inconsistency which we think we have identified and rectified but
we will have to wait to the SPRC Summernationals to find out.
Steve Bolton in the Dark Destroyer Plymouth Scamp is still top of the pile in the Pro ET National Championship, increasing his cushion over Carla Pittau and Rick McCann
in their Heaven and Hell Camaro to 200 points - not much, but no harm done to Steve's Championship aspirations. But there is still a long way to go. The SPRC Summernationals
marks the mid point in the 2007 National Championship season. To be competitive against the very best teams in Pro ET and all the other Sportsman classes is an aim which the PMR
Drag Race Driving School-trained drivers have reached. To be consistently competitive, qualifying well and going rounds is their next goal; we to work extra hard on that.
In our third season of competition with our more seasoned drivers, it is good to see a maturity, an unspoken confidence, and a more business-like approach, with knowledge and
experiences being passed on to our new crop of rookie drivers who are currently crewing with us whilst going through the PMR Drag Race Driving School. After all, that's where
every single one of us started and it's what the School is all about really. Anyone who has an ambition to race with us or who just needs some advice, stop by at a National Event or
contact PMR through the link on Eurodragster.com. Come and discuss your ideas from a Passenger Ride or half day driving experience to a turn-key race car.
Our continued thanks go to Santa Pod Raceway for their belief in what we do, to Drag Race Engineering (020 8597 9484) for their support, Shakespeare County Raceway for
finding the Grumpy Bike, the Ramraider Wild Bunch crew for the safe return of Paul's Grumpy's Dodge pit bike, Black Box London, CTM Engineering (020 8592
1180), London Road Tyres, Custom Car, ACW, and all our associate sponsors and friends, and of course the fans. A special thanks to everyone at Eurodragster.com, we owe you
big!
This week's edition of Drag, Rod and Classic Review magazine at www.drcreview.com is a bumper
issue with five features for drag racing and hot rod enthusiasts. Included are reports from the FIA Main Event at Santa Pod, an interview with Kev Slyfield about his Pro Mod
Willys Sedan, a feature on the restoration of the legendary Mondello Matsubara Fiat altered and a preview of the forthcoming NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion at Columbus, Ohio.
For street rodders, there's a report from last weekend's NSRA Billing Fun Run and the chance to win a cool new book about the less well known hot rod shops.
The official web site of the UK's Venom Racing Fuel Altered team has been updted with a video clip of
Tony Betts' 6.68-second pass at the Springspeed Festival at Shakespeare County Raceway. You can find the video
at www.venomracing.co.uk.
"There is a lot more to come from the turbo V8 motors in the future. Since the nitrous teams are no longer competitive in FIA Pro Modified
perhaps the rule makers should look in another direction. There are several turbo race cars being built around Europe with great potential in the
near future."
You will be able to stay in touch with Johan and Paolo's progress this weekend as well as the rest of Top Doorslammer and all the NDRG Summernats
news courtesy of our colleagues at EurodragsterNorth.com.
Meca Winternationals deadlines. 7th June: Christer Håård has been in touch with important information
for racers wishing to take part in the Winternationals at Malmö's Meca Raceway on 13th-16th September:
The last day for entry to the Winternationals will be 31st August. Please note that SRIF
will not be able to handle any entries made after this date. The last day for payment is also 31st August, by mindight, and the money has got to
be in SRIF's account at midnight on 3rd September, at the latest. This goes for all teams whether domestic or foreign.
Foreign teams should pay directly to:
SWIFT: HANDSESS
IBAN: SE4460000000000193573628
Handelsbanken, Malmö City
Södergatan 10
205 40 Malmö
Sweden
For those teams whose pits are wider than 6.80 metres, there will be a 100 kr fee for every extra ten centimetres. If you would like a wider
area assigned for your team then this will have to be notified and paid in advance, no later than 31st August. Teams who haven't applied for the
right pit size and paid the fee in advance will have to pay double fee (200 kr per 10 cm) on the spot even to be able to start at Meca Raceway.
Note that everything will have to fit within your pit square: tow cars, trailers, mobile homes, mopeds, tents, race cars and so on.
Thomas Cronemark is in charge of pitting and he will answer any of your questions or opinions at
thomas.cronemark@srif.se.
Meca Raceway will be closed on Wednesday 12th September as we're preparing for the Winternationals.
Thanks to Tezzii of EurodragsterNorth.com for help with translation.
Gary will get acquainted with Chaos at next Friday's Peak Performance Day at Santa Pod Raceway
before entering Nostalgia Fuel Altered Association competition at the SPRC Summernationals.
We're sure that everyone will join us in wishing John Wright a very rapid recovery.
The incredible journey. 6th June: If you are a regular Eurodragster.com News reader you will recall that
Norwegian Supertwin racer Hans Olav Olstad had more than his fair share of problems getting his bike
together over the off-season. Just when you thought Hans Olav must have run out of bad luck we received
this incredible account of his attempt to get home after last week's FIA Main Event at Santa Pod
Raceway:
It was only a three hour drive from Santa Pod to the ferry, and we had eight hours.
We were travelling with Arvid Grødem, the Norwegian Funny Car driver. At 18:00 on Tuesday,
we were about to join the M1 motorway when the bus engine stopped on one of the roundabouts. There
was nothing we could do, except to drain the battery of power as we desperately tried to start
the engine again. There was a lot of traffic around us. Arvid left us and headed for the ferry.
We rigged up the warning sign, and started to empty the bus to reach our tools. Soon we discovered
it was a fuel problem, and thought that maybe it was a blockage in the fuel line.
At 18:30 we called Gjensidige, the insurance company in Norway, to get help with rescue and we gave
them all the details about what, where and when. After two hours waiting with nothing happening, we
called back only to find out that Gjensidige could not get in contact with their partners in England,
but they were working on it. Another problem was they did not have any partners for rescuing big trucks
or buses. It was very nice to find that out stuck in the middle of nowhere and thinking that signing
up for rescue insurance is supposed to help you in these situations. Gjensidige told us to phone the
police to get help. We didn't have a phone number for the English police, and Gjensidige told us to
look for some phone boxes beside of the road.
At 21:00 we were just leaving the bus to find a phone
box when the traffic police showed up. We told them about the situation, they put up a lot of lights
and signs to stop the traffic running into us. The police called a CMG rescue team to tow us away.
Another two hours waiting and at 23:00 the tow car was on the scene. Another short break and Phil
the rescue man decide to blow air into the fuel pipe line to clean it properly and get diesel to
the engine. When the lift pump, supposed to suck diesel and pump up pressured didn't work he
decided to put air pressure into the diesel tank to push fuel into the pump. Big disaster: the
tank couldn't handle the pressure and fractured. Three hundred litres of diesel was now on its
way out of the tank and onto the road. Another rescue team, for spillages, was called and showed
up immediately. Phil was running around and was nearly hit by cars at least three times.
To move the bus, we had to connect the air line from the rescue truck to the bus to release the
brakes. The connection didn't fit, but we solved that problem with a hose clamp. Then we had to be
towed with a pole, which was supposed to be connected directly to the towing points on the bus and
the rescue truck. Nothing fit, so shackles and joints were put together a bad way. I had to steer
the bus without any power, and use the bus brakes to avoid rolling into the tow truck: there was
one metre between the vehicles. It was just a nightmare to be towed five hundred metres across two
roundabouts and in to a bus stop. Phil drove me to the closest petrol station so we could get petrol
for our generator. The bus had a serious leak, and a big area around the bus was covered with diesel.
Phil left us about 00:30 and told us he would be back the next morning. We called Gjensidige again
and told them about the new situation. They wanted us to find a motel, but we just couldn't leave the
bus in a lake of diesel, with all the racing equipment on board. Just a spark could ignite it. We
stayed in the bus and watched the whole night.
In all the discussions we got in contact with a man who understood the problem. We told him that we had
arranged parts and people to meet us when the ferry arrived in Goteborg, and that he only had to confirm
the towing cost to the ferry, and from the ferry into a workshop in Goteborg. He gave us the thumbs up,
and we told the CMG rescue to tow us all the way to the ferry, about 220 km. Gjensidige got CMG's phone
number to confirm that they would cover the cost. Suddenly CMG said they wanted to be paid before they
wanted to do anything, and that just a confirmation of payment was not good enough. At 12:30 Phil left
us again with no result, and said that he could do nothing before his boss said so. Then he told us
that CMG wanted to tow the bus in to secure the payment.
At 18:00 Phil was back again with the truck to tow us to CMG. Another nightmare with the same towing
equipment as last time, and this time we had to be towed for about twenty minutes. Phil seemed be in
a hurry, he was towing the bus at a speed of 70 km/h, no fun at all. The towing point on the bus broke,
on a crossroads, and all the car drivers around sat on their horns. I told a man that I would look after
his horn so that he could help out to reconnect and move the bus. We finally ended up outside CMG's office,
with the feeling that the bus was tired in parts. The Gjensidige man was finish his day and we could not
get the money transfer until the next day, maybe. So again we had to stay with the bus.
At 19:00 we suddenly got a phone from Leif Andréasson. He told us he had seen us beside the road
with a towing truck, and asked what had happened. He told us to contact Lee Brown, a friend who runs a
truck workshop in Rushden. We called Lee, and told the story. He talked to the CMG people and promised
us to solve the problem soon as possible. But to release the bus, team member Sturla had to use his Visa
card and pay £1250 for rescue and towing, just to get away from the situation with CMG. At 21:00
CMG showed up with the proper equipment for towing and lifted the bus up bye the front wheels and connected
the bus in the right and safe way.
Lee Brown and Mark 'The Animal' Bodimeade were waiting for us when we arrived at the workshop. In their
eyes, this was no problem to repair at all. After a quick look at the lifting pump Lee said that it was
worn out and wouldn't work. Lee and Mark take Sturla and I out for a dinner at a nice Indian Restaurant,
where we ate a very good hot meal.
On the next morning Lee went to a local store to repair the pump. Two hours later, the pump was back in,
and the bus motor was running again immediately. Next was to remove the fuel tank for welding. There were
still a few litres of diesel left, and Sturla and Mark discovered this the hard way when they got it all
over themselves like a shower. I heard some fantastic new words in English I didn't know existed.
The tank was cleaned out and taken to a local welder. Two hour later the tank was welded. After a nice
lunch we put the tank back where it belonged, and about 18:00 we were ready for another attempt to catch
the ferry to Goteborg. There were no more problems with the bus on the way to the ferry, and it ran perfectly
all the way back home. Lee also called us to be sure that everything was OK.
A huge Thank You to Mark and Lee, we can't find the proper words to express our gratitude for all the help.
Another thanks to Leif Andréasson who put us in contact with the good guys.
Another incredible journey. 6th June: UK Junior Dragster racer Zak Johnson has been in touch to say a big Thank You
to Darren Prentice and everyone at Santa Pod Raceway for a great day at the Performance Vauxhall Show on Sunday. Zak and the
family's day didn't start out quite so well for Zak and dad Rick, though:
About six miles from the M18 on the A1 we found ourselves in the middle of a high-speed police pursuit, ending with the "chased"
ramming the rear end of our trailer in an attempt to escape - bad memories of good friend Wayne Nicholson came to mind. After a brief visit
back home we were back on the road within a couple of hours, no rear door on the trailer and a dubiously strapped on trailer board.
It was well worth everything for a fantastic day, where Zak was made to feel like a hero by the Performance Vauxhall fans. Zak and the car
were swamped all day by people young and old asking countless questions, and Zak performed brilliantly answering all of their questions and
running a new personal best of 8.8 (Don't be doing that at a race - secretly-pleased Ed).
A big Thank You to everybody who came and asked questions, and again thanks to Santa Pod for making a fantastic day of it.
Still on the subject of Ron Haslett and his wild Cortina, congratulations to Martin Ward of
Buckingham who has won the passenger ride with Ron in this week's Give-Away on Eurodragster.com. Thank you
to everyone who entered.
£200 cash, £160 in vouchers and a trophy for #1 qualifier are on offer courtesy of the Pro ET
Sponsorship Scheme at next weekend's SPRC Summernationals. "Thanks to our sponsors Metamorphosis Finance,
Sandy Scooters, Real Steel, Penn Autos, A1 Motor Stores, Toxico Clothing, Inkwell Printing, Alleyjax, WASP,
Black Bear Harley Davidson and Hauser Race Cars", says Carl Burton. "With another large field of cars the
prize will be well earned, as this year you have had to be bang on your numbers. Good luck everyone."
NSCC Round 3 update. 6th June: Excellent track conditions at Shakespeare County Raceway produced some very exciting racing in the
HotRod Gazette/John Sleath Race Cars National Street Car Challenge, writes Shaun Wilson:
A seventeen car field saw two racers qualify in the niness and four in the tens, with most of the drivers able to attend the evening cruise into the
Warwickshire countryside. During Sunday the eliminations saw a number of new Personal Best times recorded, with the best being saved until the
finals. Dave Sidaway in the street-legal Outlaw Anglia Fordson van recorded a NPB of 10.1 to lose out to Mark Todd's 1969 Pontiac. The twin-turbo'd
car scortched the quarter mile in 9.614 seconds to take seven hundredths of the previous record, held by Russ Pursley. In true sportsmanship,
Russ was one of the first people to congratulate Mark on his achievement (presumably now having the perfect excuse to put a bigger cam in the Dutton!).
With the show season about to come into full-swing there is plenty of opportunity for the slower cars to pick up additional points in the Challenge. Russ
Pursley currently leads with his 350ci Dutton, ahead of John Osborne's 427ci 100E Ford and reigning Champion, Graham Bell in his 427ci '67 Mustang Convertible.
For a full list of points standings check out www.hotrodgazette.com.
Further round the bend! 6th June: An invite to the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) and Guild of Motoring Writers' (GoMW)
Trade Day at Rockingham Motor Speedway saw the incorrigible journalistic duo of Andy Willsheer and our very own Photo Editor Roger
Gorringe (right, click on picture for large version) make their way to Corby to partake of the organisation's generous
hospitality, writes Andy Willsheer.
Goodridge - the performance hose and fittings outfit - was one name well-known to the quarter-mile fraternity, though the majority of
exhibitors on hand were more into the roundy-round and circuit racing scene.
Supported by Carter & Carter Group plc - a major provider of outsourced support services and learning solutions to major corporations - the
day's arranged activities included the offer of rides for guests around the 1½-mile oval track that, incidentally, opened in 2001.
Eschewing the opportunity to take some chauffeured laps in, for example, chipped street cars, an Aeriel Atom or a variety of Formula cars,
the pick of their day was a 1922 Godfrey & Nash (G&N) - of later Frazer-Nash fame - that owner Mark Walker has owned for about a decade.
The rudimentarily-constructed sporty machine is used as a road car and also in sundry vintage and sprint events. Featuring a 1908 Riley
crank and two cylinders from a 1924 Salmson nine-cylinder radial aircraft engine, the chain-driven old-timer was put through its inimitable
95 mph paces with more than a modicum of verve, leading to much windswept merriment from both, ignoring the fact that there were
neither seatbelts nor roll bar, the only safety equipment being the track-supplied helmets, neither of which were particularly well fitting.
Although the Rockingham experience was enjoyable, neither participant is likely to forego the delights of 1320 competition, which still
remains their foremost motorsport addiction.
Söderquist: Pers knows his stuff. 5th June: Carbon By Design Team Owner Knut Söderquist was very happy with Patrik
Pers' progress in Knut's new Fuel Funny Car at the FIA Main Event. Unfortunately the weather destroyed
what could have been the best Fuel FC races in years.
"Patrik Pers' car with a very soft Alan Jackson set-up did exactly what I expected", Knut told Eurodragster.com.
"A very nice run down a tricky track. We had planned a half pass to start with, to check if we had solved the
problem we had at Easter. We are now running a dry sump instead of a wet sump and we have been struggling
hurting pistons badly. I have been checkign with a few people in the USA and this is a problem they all have.
There is not just one way to solve the problem. As we knew the weather was going to be bad for the rest of weekend
we decided to go to about three quarter track then check the pistons to see if the changes we made helped. It was
not perfect but I think we are going in the right direction.
"But I am optimistic about the future of Funny Car. Right now we are preparing the car for Sundsvall which
will be nice as I have not been there before, everyone tels me that it has the potential to be a really nice
track and that everyone at the Club there is doing a great job."
Swift snippets. 5th June: Holger Dueholm tells us that racers have until midnight on Friday for standard-priced
entry to the Danish Midsummer Nationals which takes place at Vandel on 22nd-24th June. Registration and payment after this deadline will incur
a late entry fee of €100. So 122 teams from eight nations are signed up. Online entry and the official entry list can be found at
www.streetfire.nu.
Congratulations to Denmark's Dodgeboys Team who won Pro Street
at the second round of the Toyo Scandinavian Dragracing Series at Meca Raceway at the weekend.
"We were #1 qualifier with 4.70/149 mph", says driver Mike Dyrlund. "We ran a string of low 4.7s all through eliminations and
won the race and lots of points, so now we lead the points race. Next weekend we are off to Gardermoen for TSDS Round 3
and our first quarter mile race this year."
Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall has kindly forwarded us the final version of the official
entry list for next week's SPRC Summernationals. You can view the entry list by
clicking here or by clicking
on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and selecting the
SPRC Summernationals.
Santa Pod Raceway are looking for race cars to make demonstration passes at the
Fast Fest on Sunday 1st July and the Retro Show on Saturday 7th July, and a commercial-based
vehicle to make passes at the UK Truck Show on 14th-15th July. If you are interested then please
drop Darren Prentice a line at darren@santapod.com
or call 01234 782828.
Also looking for race vehicles to help promote drag racing, this time on static display, is Paul
Croston of the UK's B'Sting Wild Bunch team who will be appearing at the
Jetstream Club's
Liverpool Aviation Fair at the old Speke Aerodrome in Liverpool. If any racers in the North West would
like to take part please contact Paul on 01706 662289 or E-Mail
lynne.croston@ntlworld.com.
Congratulations to Adele Atherton and Steve Woodbridge(couple at right in picture,
click for larger version) who were married in
California yesterday (Monday). Spencer Tramm and his family, George and Rachel Georgiou and Ady Goodier
asked us to pass on their very best wishes, which we are very pleased to do.
UK Super Gas racer Paul Spiers has asked us to say a big Thank You to Real Steel Street Eliminator racer
Ron Haslett for the loan of his car trailer to transport Paul's Super Gas car to the FIA Main Event. "It's fellow drag racers like
Ron who make the sport very special", says Paul. "Thanks Ron,and good luck with your passenger rides at the weekend."
On that subject, don't forget that you have until 23:59 tonight to enter for the chance to win a passenger ride
in Ron Haslett's nine-second RSSE Cortina in our latest give-away. For more details check
out yesterday's news update.
Thanks to those who have sent memories and tributes for our special tribute page for
Santa Pod Raceway's Barn.
Those who ignored the sentence in Saturday's news item
regarding rants about Health and Safety or SPR's management will hopefully realise why they have not
been published.
Web site updates. 5th June: The Save Dutch Dragracing web site at
www.dragracedr88.nl has been updated with the
latest information in the campaign to return drag racing to Drachten.
To win the passenger ride in Ron's Cortina this Saturday, all you have to do is to E-Mail
eurodragster.com@btinternet.com
by 23:59 UK tomorrow (Tuesday 5th) specifying Passenger ride as the subject and giving the following
details:
Your name
Your home address
A daytime contact phone number
That's right, no difficult questions to answer, you just need to tell us who and where you are.
We will pick one entry at random and that person will win the passenger ride.
We will not share your details with anyone, and we will explain to the winner why we require a home address.
The only conditions are:
Entrants are eighteen years or over
One entry per E-Mail address
The winner must make their own way to Santa Pod on Saturday and pay £10 entry to the track
Web site updates. 4th June: Our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has been in action at Shakespeare County
Raceway this weekend and has sent us a small gallery from the Yanks Weekend. You can check out Peter's pictures,
which are presented in association with American
Car Imports, by clicking here or via the
Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page.
Swift snippets. 3rd June: As promised we have set up a Tribute page to Santa Pod Raceway's Barn, which
is to be removed at the insistence of Bedfordshire County Council. You can check out the
John Woolfe Racing-sponsored tribute page
by clicking here or by clicking on the
Features, Interviews, Tributes page on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page.
If you would like to contribute a Barn tribute or memory to this page then drop us a line at
eurodragster.com@btinternet.com
specifying The Barn as the subject.
Congratulations also to Sharon Norris of Santa Pod Raceway's timing crew on the birth of
Finley Benjamin at 6:00 this morning. Chief Timekeeper Steve Horn tells us that Finlay weighed in at
7 lb 14½ oz and that both Finlay and Sharon are doing just fine.
Thanks to our good friend Fahad Taqi for letting us know that the sixth round of the Chevrolet-backed
Bahrain Drag Racing Championship takes place at the Bahrain International Circuit this
Thursday-Friday 7th-8th June. You can find out more at
www.bahraindrag.com.
It was a big gamble going in for the first FIM/UEM Championship round at Santa Pod Raceway but I figured it was now or never, although
I wasn't sure we were ready to face such heavy competition just yet. The prospect of having a British entry in Supertwin for the first time in years
seemed to excite a lot of people, so I bowed to pressure and went for it. This was going to be the race of my life if all went to plan!
European champion Ronny Aasen jumped straight on a plane and came to our rescue with some much-needed experience to help with our
tune-up and cooking, it was just so good to see him again. He immediately gelled with my crew Brum and Steve, so we all worked together like
a well-oiled machine! The nitro fumes in 'Fuel Bike Alley' were overwhelming at one point when we all wheeled our bikes out and warmed them up
together, quite a spectacle which drew large crowds! The atmosphere was great as we are all good friends in Supertwins and we spent the weekend
swapping parts and helping each other out. I think we all had problems of one sort or another but worked hard to overcome them. You have to remember
that for most of these teams this was the first time on the track since the Finals last year and with new set-ups to dial in.
Ronny spotted a big mistake straight away. He brought his fuel mixing kit and it showed four per cent difference to mine! We double-checked and, yup, we
had been running on ninerty four per cent all last year thinking it was ninety eight! We tipped the can and the bike loved it, although it was a far too cold for
our normally-aspirated motors on Sunday and Monday, so it was a good job we didn't have to run them.
We were first out on Saturday against new boy Roel Koedam which was fine by me. I had raced, and lost, against his Puma last Easter so wanted revenge!
Mr Spokehead sounded a bit 'lumpy' at first which worried me but as soon as it gained temperature the note evened-out and sounded strong again.
The burn-out went better than ever with the new set-up whilst Roel was having control problems in the other lane but we both settled down and staged in
front of an expectant crowd. On the green we were away almost together and the race was on! Roel jumped out ahead at sixty foot and I just hung on
waiting for my clutch to lock in harder. All of a sudden I leapt forward just as Roel's belt broke and I passed him accelerating hard but drifting towards
the centre line. No way was I going to pedal it now so I just shifted my weight and the bike steered smoothly back into line. The front wheel started
climbing slightly just as the finish line blurred past me. It felt like a normal run but then I realised the potato field was approaching faster than usual,
oh well, I had great brakes from Jay Brake so didn't worry!
Steve appeared on the 'Pit-Bull' tow bike, waving the timing ticket with a sly grin on his face so I had a quick look. "No you plonker, where is my ticket?"
I jibed. "That is yours" he said, laughing, " you did 192 mph but with the sixty foot time of a moped". A pretty cool start to the weekend!
The next one was going to be the killer of course...not! Round two was against Acka and I must have got a bit cocky as for some reason I did a big 'Fast
Freddy' type rolling burn-out, which seemed to go down well with the crowd. It didn't go down too well with Brum though as he had to push me all the
way back into a big cloud of rubber and nitro fumes which had us both choking. Acka had meantime been waiting patiently at the line but must have
decided to teach me a lesson and kept me in full stage for ages, guess I deserved that! By the time the light turned green I had lost the plot and when
I eventually woke up and hit the throttle it sent me into Acka's lane so I just went with the flow, I could see he was miles ahead anyway so no danger.
I did get brownie points for missing the timing blocks - does that count towards the Championship? (No - Ed) - and a slap around the head from
both Brum and Ronny. No damage though as my fabulous Simpson Diamondback helmet deflected both blows!
The lovely Carina didn't fare so well and blew poor old Klara Bella into Valhalla on her run so I donated a ballistic vest to save her from any future such
mishaps, god forbid!
OK, so the next run was going to be the killer! 200 mph was in sight although running a six on a high-gear bike isn't so easy, but, who knows?
Then it rained, and rained, and rained (we are talking monsoon here folks) so the race was called at Monday lunchtime. It did however give us lots
of time for socialising and bench racing which is nice! There were some stellar laps from many of the racers on Saturday and I would like to congratulate
them all, especially Steve Carey and Danny Cockerill, two performance jumps which shook everyone!
UK Super Pro ET racer Wayne Nicholson has dropped us a line to say that the Lucky Devil team made more progress at the
FIA Main Event. "Our first run was 7.49/188 which is two hundredths and seven miles per hour better than our previous best", says Wayne.
Not bad fresh out the trailer! Our next pass would have been quicker still as we were a tenth quicker by 330 feet then got a bit of shake and
had to pedal to run 7.9/179. Things are still going in the right direction, if it wasn't for the hellish weather! An indoor arena for drag racing?"
Also on the subject of The Barn, Martin Stanberry aka Rubber Chicken Man(right) would be pleased
to hear from Eurodragster.com readers with pictures of himself and Charlie the Chicken defying the Jet cars
in The Barn, for use on a web page. If you have any pictures of Charlie, or indeed of Martin, then you can
E-Mail Martin at
hayabusanutter@yahoo.co.uk.
Thanks to Peter Frost for letting us know that the post-FIA Main Event standings in the Nordic Drag Racing
Series have been calculated and are available on the Svensk Dragracing web site at
www.dragracing.se.
UK Pro ET racers Liz and Iain Malcolm have asked us to say a big Thank You to
Charlie Chivers, Sheila, Charlie Jr and Herb Andrews for their help dismantling what was left of their awning in the pouring rain at Santa Pod
last week. "The wind had bent the frame", says Liz. "Iain and I could not manage to fold it in on our own. A bigger Thank You for the hot cup
of tea afterwards. A new frame is on the way for the Summernationals, but let's hope that the sun shines for us all.
I thought that the new system for scrutineering worked very well, it was much easier to get the dragster back to the pits."
Norwegian Top Methanol Funny Car racer Arvid Grødem has been in touch to ask us to pass on his and
the Westside Racing team's best wishes to team member Pål Henning 'The Diver' Sørensen and his wife
Aashild who were married yesterday (Friday). "The whole team will be at the party today and we are looking forward to that", says Arvid.
We wish Pål and Aashild and their kids all the best for the future."
More thanks from Frosty. 2nd June: UK Real Steel Street Eliminator racer
Andy Frost tells us that his
Red Victor 1 Vauxhall reset the world pump gas record again whilst running in Comp Eliminator
at last week's FIA Main Event, and that he has a few Thank Yous to the people and companies which have been
involved in the project:
Next up for the team is this weekend's Performance Vauxhall Show at Santa Pod. Let's hope the weather is kind to us so we can show the
Vauxhall enthusiasts what real performance looks like.
Flamholc's first race. 1st June: Sweden's MMR/Glueharbor
Pro Stock team attended its first race at Santa Pod Raceway last weekend with Adam Flamholc driving,
Michael Carlsson as Crew Chief, and Robert Brodén, Johann Pripp, Fredrik Åkesson and
Daniel Ambryszewski working on the 2002 Firebird.
"Unfortunately we only had one day to qualify due to rain but our second and last qualifying run was a 7.05 which put us in seventh place before the rain started",
says Adam Flamholc. "Eliminations were called off due to the rain.
"The motor we currently use is built by MMR and is not entirely up to date with the latest parts, but should be able to pull off 6.9s with the current configuration,
which we think will put us in the top five in the series after which we will decide how to proceed.
"We put the car together on Thursday night then chilled for a while before trying to dial in a new combination. We ran a 9.8959 on our 9.88
dial to qualify #17 in the tightest field Pro ET has seen. 0.0760 was #31! This was to give us the honour of racing Pro ET Sponsorship Scheme
guru Carl 'Gangmaster' Burton in his top-qualifying Whole Lotta Rosie Sierra. Then the rains came!"
Swift snippets. 1st June: Jan Phersson tells us that important information about Simpson Top Fuel
and Fuel Funny car belts can be found in both Swedish and English on the Simpson Shop web site
at
www.simpsonshop.se.
UK Junior Dragster racer Rhiannon Bellenie has been bitten by the racing bug after her outing
at the FIA Main Event, says dad Pete. "A very big thank you to Ian and Paula Marshall of Santa Pod Racers Club", says Pete. "Ian even had Rhiannon's
name put on the car and was always there with a bit of help or advice. I would recommend that anyone with a child between eight and seventeen
who wants to have a go rents the SPRC Junior Dragster together with all the safety clothing etc. It's absolutely fantastic for the kids, and not as expensive
as you would think". For more details check out the SPRC web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc.
Lex and Gerda Joon and everyone at the MPM Oil Top Fuel team haev asked us to send their best wishes
to team member Hans Brings and his partner Caroline who are to be married today (Friday).
We're sure that everyone will join us in adding our very best wishes to Hans and Caroline for a
long and happy future.
Michael Fordham from the Blazing Wheels web site has asked if any
Eurodragster.com reader can help with a lift to/from Mantorp Park from
any of Stockholm's airports for the Veidec Festival at the end of July.
"I have not yet bought tickets so I can be flexible about which airport I fly to", says Michael. "I will also help for fuel costs. If
anyone can help please contact me through the web site at
www.blazingwheels.co.uk."
Editor's note: An abbreviated news update today because of pressure of work in your News Editor's day job
but tune in tomorrow for news from Ian Turburville, Andy Frost, Joe Bond and more, and keep those news items coming to
news@eurodragster.com.
And please, no more E-Mails about NHRA being taken over.
29th June: The Carbon By Design Top Fuel Dragster and Fuel Funny Car team
is breaking new Fuel ground this weekend as Patrik Pers is making demonstration passes in Lithuania.
28th June: Danish Top Fuel Dragster racers Rene Hersland and Stig Neergard had a hairy
moment in a match race at Vandel at the weekend when Stig's dragster crossed lanes in the second half of the
track in front of Rene who was on the throttle at the time. Rene told us how the "Crazy race" looked and felt
from his vantage point.
25th June: Conrad Stanley and Trevor Graves of UK Super Gas and Junior Dragster team
Determined Crew Chief Trevor Graves added "Rather than re-spray the car, Conrad will be having one less beer in Jon's pit
area of an evening. He'll be running around the streets of Chepstow instead, chasing chickens in alleyways, beating up sides of
beef in the local Tesco and running up and down the steps of the local library with rousing music playing in the background with
crowds of children in tow in an attempt to make that difference required to get that win."
25th June: Many thanks to David Powell for letting us know that UK Top Fuel Bike racer
Steve Woollatt's appearance at Motorcycle World at Beaulieu on Saturday was unfortunately curtailed
by the rain. Not all was lost, though. "Some of the bikes were moved inside the Motor Museum and Steve's bike
managed to get a spot at the front", says David.
Adam Charnley says that he will be running his Talon Legend at next weekend's NSRA Nostalgia
Nationals. The car has been painted (right) but Adam is looking for help for the finishing touch. "We
are looking for a bit of pinstriping on the car so if anyone is attending the event and could do it on site
and would like to use it as an advert, then please let me know at
25th June: At Shakespeare County Raceway last weekend, leading Front Wheel Drive import racer,
25th June: Peter Donaldson has updated his Fotopic gallery with UK drag racing
pictures from the early 1990s handed over by UK Pro ET racer Carl Burton. Peter would be pleased to
hear from any reader who can confirm the photographer; you can check out the pictures at
24th June: We are very sorry to have to announce that Pat Ginn died early last night (Saturday).
Pat developed a brain tumour last year but stood up to it cheerfully, bravely and steadfastly for those thirteen months
until it just became too much even for her strong character. Pat's partner TJ O'Brien told us that his princess died
peacefully in his arms.
22nd June: UK Super Pro ET racer Derek Flynn of Eurodragster.com News sponsor
We were very pleased to hear from Peter and Sören Svensson that Sweden's Billet Racing team is to return to Top Fuel Bike competition
after a break of nine years. "Our last race was at Indianapolis 1998 and our first test this year will be at Meca Raceway in Malmö on the 7th July",
says Sören Svensson. "This year we will be racing at the Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park followed by the Drag Challenge at Gardemoen
on 2nd-5th August. Our bike has gone through a big update to be competitive in UEM Top Fuel Bike and will hopefully run strong after some
adjustments at the tracks."
21st June: The first ever Shakespeare County Raceway Race Wars event for modded
motors took place in perfect sunny conditions on Saturday during the Warwickshire-based drag strip's Shakespeed
'07 event, writes SCR's PR Jerry Cookson.
21st June: As promised our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has updated his
Fotopic gallery site with pictures from the weekend's SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway.
Peter's update includes a sequence of Steve Nash's incredible triple wheelie and you can check it
all out at 
20th June: If you are a regular reader of Eurodragster.com news then you will recall
that Pat Ginn and TJ O'Brien have been planning to marry. The wedding was planned for Monday of this week
at Pat and TJ's home, but due to Pat's deteriorating condition the marriage ceremony itself could not be
performed. However Pat and TJ's wedding rings were blessed by Gretchen and Janet of Epping Registry Office
in a ceremony attended by 
19th June: UK blown-alcohol altered racer Bob Glassup and his team will be representing
UK altered racing in the USA later this year. Bob has been invited to race his 7.0-second Xtreme Racing
Topolino at the 
19th June: Kenneth Lorentzon took his Pennzoil-sponsored Fuel Funny Car to Sundsvall
Raceway last weekend in an attempt to complete Håkan Fällström's licencing.
Thomas Dahlblom says that everything turned out well for Ola Dahlbom and the 
19th June: With just a few weeks to go until the London Motor Museum, venue for the London Drag Racing
Show on 7th-8th July, opens its doors to the
paying public for what promises to be a worthwhile, well-attended and drag racing-promoting exhibition Wayne Corbitt of UK Super
Gas and Junior Dragster team 
At the head of the dedicated team here is Elo, a guy who made his fortune as a male model, who has wisely chosen to invest
hundreds of thousands of pounds in this venture because of his clear love of cars. You can tell just how keen this man is on his cars.
When you walk around the museum, the cars are on the carpet and the public have to walk around on vinyl walkways!
Up on the walls are signed football shirts from several Premiership clubs including Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool, where Elo
has supplied cars to a variety of international players.
19th June: Our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has updated his Fotopic gallery with
pictures from last Friday's Peak Performance Day at Santa Pod Raceway. You can check out Peter's pictures at
Only forty minutes of qualifying took place on Saturday before heavy rain started to fall, curtailing
the day's activities (right, picture supplied by Pete Smith). The rest of a single cycle of
qualifying and all eliminations took place in one day
yesterday and the SPRC Race Officials, the track crews and the racers deserve a big pat on the back for
getting the event run. As readers know we would not usually single out any one person but in these
circumstances we must say a big Well Done to Robin Shone, usually Assistant Race Director, who was Race
Director for the weekend and must have wondered what he'd let himself in for as the clouds gathered on
Saturday. Robin was unflappable and did a great job with the backup of usual Race Director Darren Prentice
and the team.
14th June: Germany's
13th June: Super Twin racer Hans Olav Olstad says that his luck improved, but only a little, at last weekend's NDRG Summernats.
The timeslip for the second qualifying run told us that we had a 1.15 60ft. time, and that was it. We tore of all the bolts in the drive pulley and torched the rear head badly. Not good at all. Our bad luck seems to never have an end.
With our 6.86, we were no. 1 qualifier. In the first round of eliminations, we were up against Frank from Sweden, with Ulf Nylen's old bike. It was another 1.15 60 ft. time, but the engine dropped a cylinder at 100 meter this time. We rolled to a 9.62 without seeing Frank. He deep-staged and got a red light.
In the final we were up against Per Bengtsson from Sweden. Everybody who knows Per, knows he always pulls something out of his hat, so we also wanted to find our rabbit. I went away first from the start line, had terrible tire shake from 60 ft. up to 1/8 mile and our rabbit seemed to be in the tyre, making the bike jump going up the track. It looked awful for a while. Per seemed to be catching me by the 1/8 mile. We had a side by side run all the way to the finish and, this time, it was our day, and finally we won the race with a 6.95 against Per's 7.13. I also dropped a cylinder 30 metres before the finish line.
Outlaw Anglia racer Mat Cooper is looking forward to the Nostalgia Nationals at Shakespeare County where he will be out testing his new car (see photo).
12th June: Amongst a mouth-watering collection of classic cars, motorcycles and autograss cars, the
Evesham Festival supported by the 
Our Photo Editor Roger is no stranger to having race cars pointed
at him (I'm looking at you, Mick - Ed), readers with long memories will remember the
Let's Get Tog Club, and now Eurodragster.com Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has
received the Chicken treatment, from Pro ET racer Keith Ridley at the Classic Ford Show at Santa Pod on
Sunday. You'll be able to see more when Peter posts his gallery of shots from Sunday at
11th June: UK Real Steel Street Eliminator racer Steve Kellett made his first
outing in his beautiful Mustang at yesterday's Classic Ford Show at Santa Pod Raceway.
Peter was at Santa Pod and sent us this report and pictures of RSSE's latest contender which
11th June: UK Pro ET racer Antony Wilkins has joined the list of UK drag racers
who have appeared as one of the resident experts on the UK Channel 4 programme Scrapheap Challenge.
11th June: The UK's Ultra Racing Top Methanol Funny Car team are aiming to
be on-track within the next couple of weeks, says Garry Pilkington. The former CC Racing Avenger
will be piloted by Trace Froome with tuning from Tony Pearson and is currently in the final stages of
engine build. You can stay in tune with the latest from the team on their new web site at
Danny Allen has been in touch to say that Real Steel Street Eliminator racer Ron Haslett
showed his bride-to-be Tracey a good time on a passenger ride at Santa Pod Raceway.
"It was an early wedding present", says Danny. "I only told Tracey why we were there on the way up Airfield Road!
Tracey was understandably nervous but Ron and his crew did a great job of calming her down. One she put on the firesuit and stuck
on the skid lid all her fear went and she was like an excited child. Ron did an awesome rolling burnout and went on to run a 10.1/127.
When they returned to the pits Tracey was over-excited to say the least - I think I've lost my race car drive now. Thanks to Big Ron
and the guys for the run and in such a good cause."
10th June: UK Pro Mod racer Ray White was one of many who went round the bend after the FIA Main Event,
but not everyone took it to the same lengths as he did.
Gavin Taylor taylor has been in touch to let us know that Ian Lloyd's legendary altered
Gonzo the Great (right) is set for a return to the track in 2008. In the meantime,
though, the car's existing engine needs to be sold to fund Gonzo's return and you can find
details on
6th June: In a last-minute change to the official
At 18:30 we called Gjensidige, the insurance company in Norway, to get help with rescue and we gave
them all the details about what, where and when. After two hours waiting with nothing happening, we
called back only to find out that Gjensidige could not get in contact with their partners in England,
but they were working on it. Another problem was they did not have any partners for rescuing big trucks
or buses. It was very nice to find that out stuck in the middle of nowhere and thinking that signing
up for rescue insurance is supposed to help you in these situations. Gjensidige told us to phone the
police to get help. We didn't have a phone number for the English police, and Gjensidige told us to
look for some phone boxes beside of the road.
In the meantime we were in contact with Gjensidige again to try to get a deal to get us back to Norway.
Gjensidige said that the insurance just covered the cost of rescue, not repair and parts, and they wanted
the bus towed to the closest workshop and leave it there and get us back home until the bus was repaired.
Again, we could not leave all our equipment, and we reminded him that we also had another Supertwin team's
equipment in a trailer behind the bus. We were lucky to re-book the ferry ticket from Immingham to
Goteborg, for two days' time.
On the next morning Lee went to a local store to repair the pump. Two hours later, the pump was back in,
and the bus motor was running again immediately. Next was to remove the fuel tank for welding. There were
still a few litres of diesel left, and Sturla and Mark discovered this the hard way when they got it all
over themselves like a shower. I heard some fantastic new words in English I didn't know existed.
The tank was cleaned out and taken to a local welder. Two hour later the tank was welded. After a nice
lunch we put the tank back where it belonged, and about 18:00 we were ready for another attempt to catch
the ferry to Goteborg. There were no more problems with the bus on the way to the ferry, and it ran perfectly
all the way back home. Lee also called us to be sure that everything was OK.
6th June: UK Junior Dragster racer Zak Johnson has been in touch to say a big Thank You
to Darren Prentice and everyone at Santa Pod Raceway for a great day at the Performance Vauxhall Show on Sunday. Zak and the
family's day didn't start out quite so well for Zak and dad Rick, though:
6th June: If you enjoyed our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson's gallery from
the weekend's Gary's Picnic/Yanks Weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway then you will be pleased to
hear that Peter has now posted his full set of photographs on his Fotopic gallery site at
Congratulations to Denmark's Dodgeboys Team who won Pro Street
at the second round of the Toyo Scandinavian Dragracing Series at Meca Raceway at the weekend.
"We were #1 qualifier with 4.70/149 mph", says driver Mike Dyrlund. "We ran a string of low 4.7s all through eliminations and
won the race and lots of points, so now we lead the points race. Next weekend we are off to Gardermoen for TSDS Round 3
and our first quarter mile race this year."
4th June: Eurodragster.com is pleased to offer a passenger ride in Real Steel Street
Eliminator racer Ron Haslett's wild nine-second Cortina (right, picture courtesy and ©Sharkman).
Ron is auctioning passenger rides at Santa Pod Raceway this weekend for a donation to
Also on the subject of The Barn, Martin Stanberry aka Rubber Chicken Man (right) would be pleased
to hear from Eurodragster.com readers with pictures of himself and Charlie the Chicken defying the Jet cars
in The Barn, for use on a web page. If you have any pictures of Charlie, or indeed of Martin, then you can
E-Mail Martin at
Norwegian Top Methanol Funny Car racer Arvid Grødem has been in touch to ask us to pass on his and
the Westside Racing team's best wishes to team member Pål Henning 'The Diver' Sørensen and his wife
Aashild who were married yesterday (Friday). "The whole team will be at the party today and we are looking forward to that", says Arvid.
We wish Pål and Aashild and their kids all the best for the future."
Lex and Gerda Joon and everyone at the MPM Oil Top Fuel team haev asked us to send their best wishes
to team member Hans Brings and his partner Caroline who are to be married today (Friday).
We're sure that everyone will join us in adding our very best wishes to Hans and Caroline for a
long and happy future.
