Super Series 2
Saturday (qualifying)

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21:00

Unfortunately due to the laptop and phone line problems that have been encountered today it is not possible to bring you the pictures from day one today. Hopefully they will be available tomorrow morning.

Here are the top two qualifier in each class at the end of qualifying for Super Series 2:

Super Pro ET (own dial-in): 1. Martyn Jones +0.049 (7.609/173.75), 2. Steve Green +0.052 (8.752/155.71)
Pro ET (own dial-in): 1. Al Golding +0.016 (9.046/150.00), 2. Steve Dunn +0.029 (9.949/133.14)
Sportsman ET (own dial-in): 1. Al Platt +0.001 (13.651/104.17), 2. Ian Jackson +0.080 (15.180/90.73)
Super Comp (8.90): 1. Tim Adam 8.971/150.00, 2. Phil Bennett 9.017/134.33
Super Gas (9.90): 1. Tim Adam 9.911/148.03, 2. Rob Long 9.939/137.61
Super Street (10.90): 1. Anne Peck 10.903/123.97, 2. Bob Lees 10.923/124.31
Super Street Rover (11.00): 1. Steve Law 11.066/117.80, 2. Paul Bracley 12.463/109.22
Junior Dragster (reaction time): 1. Tom Watts 0.594, 2. Phil Cook 0.600
Custom Car Street Eliminator: 1. Steve Pateman 8.993/168.54, 2. John Sleath 9.396/152.03
Wild Bunch (own dial-in): Colin Aldred +0.003 (10.683/122.62), 2. Andrew Goslin +0.007 (13.407/100.90)

Competition Bike: 1. Helen Curran 8.025/161.29, 2. Andy Newcombe 8.778/161.29
Super Street Bike: 1. Tony Clark 8.38/174.42, 2. Steve Venables 8.679/171.10
9.90 Bike: 1. Pete Cameron 9.915/142.86, 2. Sean Biddlecombe 9.925/129.68
10.90 Bike: 1. Ady Reade 10.904/112.22, 2. Lewis Honey 10.920/129.31
Supertwin Fuel: 1. Jamie Miller 10.639/126.05, 2. David Witts 10.806/138.46
Supertwin Gas: 1. Jerry Collier 9.612/133.53, 2. Rick Davis 9.900/130.06
Supertwin Modified: 1. Dave Bartz 10.467/137.20, 2. Simon Hodgson 10.745/133.14
Supertwin Street: 1. Hazel Williamson 11.302/118.11, 2. Les Harris 11.332/127.12

The following three classes still have one qualifying session to come tomorrow morning, these are the positions as they stand after two sessions.
Funny Bike: 1. Tim Blakemore 7.514/163.64, 2. Dave Holland 7.629/167.29
Pro Stock Bike: 1. Dave Beck 7.573/176.47, 2. Chris Hope 7.964/170.45
European Top Gas : 1. Job Heezen 8.54/166.67, 2. Scifert Axel 9.091/141.51

20:30

Well what a day its been here at Super Series 2. We must apologize for the complete lack of any updates until now, be the day started off with a complete and total failure of Sharkman's 2 month old laptop. With racing due to start the laptop had to be abandoned until the close of play. Thankfully Stephen Talbot has again arrived to rescue the situation by coaxing the errant laptop back into life. Stephen passed up the chance of going out for a meal to lend his assistance and Eurodragster is very grateful to him, thanks mate. Todays morning report is now available, at the bottom of this page.

On track its been even more eventful than the laptop situation, unfortunately the day didn't get off to a much better start as in the first session of Super Street Car Rich Gilbertson had a nasty incident when the Ford Pop turned very hard right just after launching and flipped up onto its side, sliding across the track just past the 60 foot beams and coming to rest against the opposite barrier. The safety crews were immediately on the scene and Rich was rapidly out of the car under his own steam and after a quick check out by the paramedics he was taken back to caravan so he could "have a much needed cigarette".

Unfortunately Rich wasn't the only one to turn turtle today. In the second session of Custom Car Sue Jackson was in the right hand lane and drifted out of the groove towards the armco and as she corrected it the car moved hard to the left, crossing the centre line just before the 330 foot mark. Sue again tried to straighten the Corvette up but as she steered to the right the car got up on 2 wheels before flipping over onto its roof and slipping a long way down the track upside down and coming to rest at about 3/4 track. Again the crews were quickly on the scene to help Sue exit the car and after a quick trip to the medical centre for a check up she was allowed to return to her pit, basically unhurt.

On two wheels we have had some good and some bad news. The bad news is that Len Paget, who we mentioned in the morning write up, has suffered another engine destruction, the hayabusa motor letting go in a big way just as Len crossed the finish line. The oil ignited and the flames were visible underneath the bike as Len fought to get it stopped safely. As he got it stopped the crew extinguished the fire and Len was ok, if a little warm, but the same cannot be said for the motor.

Better news now in the form of two new records. Job Heezen has reset the track speed record for Top Gas bikes with a stunning 166mph shot. We are not sure how that compares to the European Record, we hope to bring you some clarification on this tomorrow. This coming on Job's second run after he got badly out of shape just off the line on his first shot. It looks like there could be more to come from the bike as well, it will be interesting to see how it runs tomorrow.

Finally, a huge congratulations go to Jerry Collier who has reset his own world record riding his normally aspirated, slick and wheelie barred Yamaha RD 400 to a time of 9.612 and backing it up with a 9.63. Both runs looked effortless and it looks to this reporter that the 9.50's could well be in the teams sights for tomorrow.

09:00

Good morning and welcome from Shakespeare County Raceway on a nice morning. The track looks fantastic, Bruno and the team having been working on it all week, with over 8 hours spent with te sled just putting rubber down! On top of that the track has been fully prep'ed with grip juice so hopefully we are in for a good weekends racing.

For one racer they are just thankful to be here and ready to race. Mark Pointer has been forced to strip both his main and his spare engine from his Super Street Bike in the two weeks since the last meeting, in the end the spare motor was put back together and installed on Wednesday. then his starter packed up so he had to borrow fellow SSB racer Graham Dance's starter just to check the motor would actually start. Then on the journey down to the track a Jerry can of Petrol in the back of his lorry leaked and was ignited by a spark causing a nasty fireball! Thankfully he had already stopped to investigate the smell petrol and some quick work with a fire extinguisher saw the blaze swiftly put out before any damage beyond a little scorched paint could take place. Lets hope that Marks luck changes for the better once racing starts.

Another man hoping for a change of fortune this weekend is Paul Marston. As you may remember from our coverage of Super Series 1 the last time Paul and the awesome PT Bruiser took to the track the run ended with the car getting out of shape and spinning through the finish line. Since then the car has made an already scheduled trip into Hausers workshops and whilst there was checked over following the top end incident. Paul stated in a news item on Eurodrgater at the beginning of the week that they weren't sure whether they would be attending the test session at Santa Pod or racing here at Super Series 2. Luckly for all the fans of the car the work was finished in time for Paul and the crew to make the journey up to Shakey. Paul takes up the story: "I want to race and my crew wants to race so it wasn't a difficult decision to come here. We are still learning with the car but we can learn while we are qualifying." After the frightening top end incident Paul has been talking to some people from the USA to get some advice and as a result will be experimenting this weekend with bringing the throttle stop on a lot earlier and thus having it come off earlier in the run.

Also coming off a bad Super Series 1 is Pro Stock Bike rider Chris Hope. Chris revealed that his startline problems at Super Series 1 were quite simple "the bike kept breaking the chain" he said. "I went through 3 chains and several sprockets, which is about £1000 worth. Since then I've stripped the bike right down, every last nut and bolt, which revealed one or two minor things. I only finished putting it together at 12:30 Friday morning.

A welcome returnee to Pro Stock Bike is Len Paget. Len, like Paul Marston, was hoping to be here, depending on how work on the race vehicle went. Len has managed to get the work done in time and is back with a new Hayabusa engine in his Pro Stocker (after his previous one expired in a big way at the Easter Thunderball. Len is optimistic that the problems he suffered have been cured as he has made the move to fuel injection on the bike. Len believes that "Its probably the first Pro Stock bike in Europe with fuel injection and one of the first in the world."

We are also joined this weekend by our friends from the European Top Gas series who are running the first round of their championship here at Shakespeare County. Last year saw Job Heezen setting new records here and we have 11 bikes entered this year all looking for those quick times and speeds. Job Heezen is back as well and will doubtless be looking to break his own record

As Eurodragster are doing double duty this weekend there will not be any reports through out the day from Super Series 2 , but my good budddy and partner in crime Tog is going to be bringing you regular updates from the Pro Test session at Santa Pod. So be sure to check those regularly and come back here at the end of the day for a brief summary of the days events, the top qualifiers in each class and of course some photo's of the days action.