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06/06/2002 TWO MORE EUROPEAN RECORDS AND STILL TWO ENGINES After our previous appearance at the second round of the British championship where we seriously damaged two engines, everyone at American Car Imports Racing worked extremely hard to prepare for our next race. We built the first of our two new engines "live" for a demonstration at our sponsors race; the Classic American Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway. Once it was complete we fired it up in front of the crowd there and the highly professional film crew from Granada Men and Motors. Back at the workshop we put a second new engine together in readiness for this weekend. The remainder of the car was then thoroughly checked, serviced and loaded before we were "good to go" and headed to the drag strip. Arriving at Santa Pod on a fantastically sunny Friday afternoon everyone was in high spirits as we set up the pit, prepared the car for the first qualifying session the next morning and caught up with our European chums who we hadn't seen since the last FIA race the previous September. We were joined in our pit by George Greves in the American Imports Racing Ford Lightning (as featured on the side of the dragster) which he is campaigning very successfully in the Sportsman ET class. Our pit was also adorned with our lovely new sponsors display board which was devised by the folks at Total Design and made by the people at Custom Graphics. Saturday was another beautiful day and we headed out on to the track for a deliberately conservative check out pass on our spare engine. Despite shutting off at the 1000ft mark, making early gear changes to keep the engine rpm down and only using 90% throttle, driver Dave Wilson still recorded a 5.997 at 196.41 mph to take the provisional number one spot. Servicing the car back in the pits showed that we hadn't damaged the motor at all and the whole team were buoyed by both the clear performance potential of that run and the fact that the gremlins had stayed away. We then took the spare engine out of the chassis complete with the spare clutch, stored it safely in the back of the truck and put our shiny new number one engine in the car. With a fresh set of spark plugs (kindly supplied by Old Car World) installed and a sump full of oil provided by US Automotive we were ready to continue qualifying on Sunday.  A very similar check out pass on a similarly sunny day netted the Air Sea Logistics / HGC Scaffolding backed machine a very similar 6.005 at 190.77 mph and, similarly, no damage was inflicted on the fresh engine. The weekend was going exactly according to plan and now it was time to go for a full pass, unleash the car's full potential and also to try out our stunning new Weld bead lock rear wheels. Whilst we prepared the car for this run the crowd passed their time checking out our PlayStation road show and witnessing the first 300 mph Top Fuel dragster runs in Europe, as posted side-by-side by England's very own Barry Sheavills and Andy Carter. Nice one guys - no one will forget that in a hurry! Congratulations also to our good buddies on the Wildside Inc. Top Fuel Dragster, driven by previous Top Methanol dragster pilot Darryl Bradford, for their strong performances over the weekend. The plan went slightly awry on our next run as tyre shake and a pretty wild ride had Dave heading towards the wall, shutting the car off and getting it back under control to avoid scratching Master Repairs superb paint job on the concrete guard wall. In this session, Germany's Peter Schofer ran a very solid 5.68 to take the number one spot. For the final session we modified our tune up and came back out to record a stout 5.656 at 252.58 mph to snatch the number one spot back for our team and for England, much to the delight of the Santa Pod fans. Four runs, no damage, the number one spot and the first half of new European elapsed time and speed records had the crew, our sponsors and our fans in high spirits so we cranked up our new sound system, let the good times roll and prepared for Monday's eliminations where we would have a bye run in the first round for qualifying number one. Monday would also be Dave and his wife Linda's 35th wedding anniversary so it was already destined to be a memorable day. Although Monday was much more overcast, eliminations were completed with minimal rain delays which is a credit to the track crew. Now we felt confident that our equipment was in top form there was no question that we would make a full pass on our opening round bye run and sure enough the car ran a quickest ever 5.565 at 252.84 mph - giving us both the European elapsed time and speed records. The run of 5.56 puts us just three tenths of a second behind the best time ever recorded for a blown methanol dragster anywhere in the world by NHRA points leader Duane Shields.  For our semi-final match up we were paired against arch rival Rob Turner who had run a 5.77 in the previous round. Unfortunately the tyre shake demon reared its head again and sent Dave heading towards the centre line as well as Rob's Netcall machine. Wisely Dave lifted off and got the car under control before giving chase but it was just a little too late to catch Rob by the finish line. Congratulations to Peter Schofer who went on to win the race, but I'm pleased to say whilst we may not yet be the most consistent of all the PSI supercharger equipped Top Methanol dragsters in Europe, we are still the quickest and fastest! Many thanks to all of our great sponsors, and as always to Tony and Jon from American Car Imports for not only their invaluable support of our team, but also of the sport of drag racing as a whole. 76 Racing Fuels took the trouble to deliver a barrel of methanol direct to the track for us and our pit scooter (supplied by 1st Line Motorcycles) proved invaluable. Now we're all wondering how we ever went racing without one! Yet again our class representative Jon Cross did an excellent job of keeping the Top Methanol show running smoothly whilst our class press office Dave Alexander worked his usual magic in the tower providing colour commentary as he has done for the past 15 years. Thanks also to Lex Joon and crew from Holland for letting us borrow their wheel balancer, and to Tog and Sharkman from eurodragster.com who worked as hard as any race team during the event keeping drag racing fans world-wide informed about the weekend's racing.
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