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08/09/2003 TESTING TIMES FOR ACI RACING As noted by our good friends at eurodragster.com, there has been a pattern emerging here; me writing race reports from exotic locations around the world about how just won ourselves a drag race. Well it all stops here because I’m back at Santa Pod and we just lost… After round four of the FIA Top Methanol Dragster championship in Gardermoen, Norway we had the points lead back and were in good shape and high spirits. Whilst the rig returned to England briefly to empty the black water tank at Sellafield, Jennifer and I took the trusty van on a 3,500 mile jaunt through Europe, taking in lots of strange countries, trying lots of local “beer”, having some scrapes with the local traffic police and generally having a great time. Eventually we all met up again in Hockenheim, Germany for round five of the FIA tour in the grounds of the grand prix circuit. It has been a long time since the alky dragsters ran in competition in Hockenheim and it was great to be back. As always the facilities there were absolutely first class. I mean we even had a port-a-loo behind each rig that was emptied and cleaned every morning! The track was also in immaculate condition; not a trace of rubber to be seen anywhere. The second half of the drag strip there is part of the road course and the first half of the strip is the run off area for any errant motorists that miss the curve that leads into the notorious stadium section. This means that after the drag race (the only one held there each year) the whole track has to be totally cleaned off and returned to bare asphalt, which in turn means that the track crew start with a virgin surface every year to try to make a racetrack out of. It was obvious that we were in for an interesting weekend and that the track conditions would be challenging to say the least. With all the crew safely flown in and smuggled into the track, we were all ready to go for our first qualifier the following day. The team made the most of all being back together again and soon all kinds of tall stories were coming out about how people had passed the last couple of very hot summer weeks. It was still very hot and sunny as the meeting proper started but the humidity was thankfully low so at least it didn’t feel too uncomfortable. As expected the track was very slippery and when it came round to time for the first qualifying session for the FIA classes the pro stockers, methanol funny cars and top fuelers all decided not to run because they felt it was either unsafe or pointless. Of course being so closely tied for the championship and keen to gain as much advantage as possible we took our American Car Imports machine to the line, and championship rival and native German, Peter Schofer, was right there behind us. The pass was over at the hit of the throttle as the big Hoosiers went up in smoke immediately and the same thing happened to Peter. All the people who had chosen not to run sagely nodded and looked smug but we at least knew that what we thought was a conservative tune up was still way too much for this track. Dave coasted down track to an 8.714 at a huge 98.02 mph which at least meant I wouldn’t have to pack the ‘chutes when we got back to the pits. Although the engine revs shot up when the tyres blazed our trusty rev limiter saved the motor and we soon had the car ready and tune up in place for the second session. Amazingly, despite the vast majority of racers not actually running in the first session, the action managed to fall far enough behind schedule that the curfew passed and our second session was cancelled, leaving us two more passes on Saturday to try and figure out the racetrack before eliminations on Sunday. As I’m sure you can imagine there were quite a few disgruntled racers in the pits, and after a driver’s meeting that evening (where the promoter rather bravely told the racers to have as much free beer as they liked) a plan was put into action to make sure the track was worked on all night. On Saturday morning it looked like the track had come around a little bit but things were still going to be very tricky and we were more than a little wary heading out to the line for our second go. In the pair before us Rob Turner carded a 5.74 on his first shot at the track which we thought was a very impressive number so we were delighted when Dave wheeled the car to a 5.734 at 242.11 to take the number one spot ahead of Rob and also Schofer’s improved 5.81. Due to a spot of misapplication of fingers on switches by yours truly we had no computer data for that run and would have been more than happy if Teutonic efficiency had caused the final session to be cancelled as well and leave us in the number one spot. Well it was not to be and we went out on time for the final session and saw Schofer run a 5.64 and Rob a 5.65 right in front of us. Perhaps this got us just a little too pumped up for our run because we overcooked the slicks again. Once we saw smoke rising from the track we knew it was all over and sure enough a 5.810 at 244.62 was all she wrote and we had gone from first to last in the space of a few minutes… A couple of dodgy cylinder leak downs had been on our minds during qualifying so we pulled that head and checked everything over before putting the motor back together ready for race day and the big on-track warm up that was to be part of the legendary Hockenheim Saturday night show. Ourselves along with about 20 other pro racers lined up down the drag strip for a simultaneous warm up. It was all good fun and seeing as we misunderstood the German commentator telling everyone to fire up and started last, we felt it was only right to keep the motor running and make lots of noise when everyone was told to shut ‘em off. After lots of oohing at the fireworks we towed back to the pits and talked a lot about what on earth we were going to do in the morning where we would face Rob in a competition round that would do serious damage to our title hopes if we lost. On Sunday morning I was up before sunrise walking the track and after a lot of head scratching we settled on a tune up for the big race and turned our attention instead to making a boxing style poster for the bout between Dave “Wily Old Git” Wilson and Rob “The Terror” Turner, to be held over one round, to a knockout… Renowned US fuel racer Doug Herbert once said he’d “rather be lucky than good” and we definitely agreed with that after we scraped the win in ugly fashion over Rob. It looked like another classic match up between the PlayStation and Netcall machines as both cars left strongly, with the start line advantage going in our favour. Then about three hundred feet out Rob’s blower belt exited stage right and our rail surged ahead before emitting a huge cloud of death smoke and a very loud bang. The track crew did a great job of putting out the resultant fuel fire and had the sense to use just water rather than filling the motor up with gallons of extinguishing fluid (nice one Big Jim). It certainly wasn’t pretty but our 6.026 at 181.97 lit the win light on our side and meant that though we had a lot of work to do we were at least in the final against Peter. The cause of the problem was found to be a broken valve spring retainer which had let the intake valve drop into the number two chamber and generally make one hell of a mess. A motor change was essential but the super crew of the Wilson family, Ricki Packham, Mike Nicholls and Phil James soon had the number one motor out and number two on its way in. The two motors are identical so we had no need to make tune up changes for the different motor. We were ready in plenty of time for the final where we knew we would be up against it as Peter had run in the 5.6s again in the semi finals and our performance had been less than impressive. When the ambers flashed for the final our luck ran out; Peter left first and our 5.765 at 248.16 just wasn’t enough to catch his 5.648. The win meant Peter retook the championship lead from us by 21 points. Although we of course wanted to win the race, at least we had done enough to keep ourselves right in the championship hunt at the sixth and final round of the FIA series at Santa Pod two weeks later. If we can set low elapsed time and win the event at the Pod, we will be the FIA champions regardless of what happens to Peter. Whilst this is not the situation we had hoped to be in, the fact that we can still control our destiny is a big relief considering how things had gone for us in Germany. This fact combined with a very tasty dinner and lots more free beer courtesy of event promoter, Rico Anthes, soon put us back in the mood for a party. Then the guys from www.globalimports.ch were daft enough to let us loose on their awesome electric skateboard and an evening of silliness began. I’m pleased to say all the English racers collecting trophies at the ceremony got by far the biggest cheers and it was fantastic to see Urs Erbacher finally win the FIA funny car championship after so many years of trying. We just hope Dave will be joining you at the FIA prize giving Urs! By the time ourselves and the Turner Racing crowd headed back to the pits for a game of kuub (a strange, Swedish affair that involves throwing lumps of wood at other lumps of wood, the other players and any nearby cars or trailers) everyone was having a great time and Ricki’s fire extinguisher antics certainly added something to the evening. It really was a lot of fun, and it took us a while to get going on Monday morning and headed back for England. As I said if we perform well enough we can secure the championship at the last race, so we decided to head straight from Hockenheim back to the workshop to get the car and rig ready and then straight on to Santa Pod to get some test runs in ahead of the FIA Euro Finals. And here I am on Monday morning following a very interesting weekend’s testing where we made 5 passes and tried a lot of new ideas. The track was mainly being used by street cars and in need of some fresh rubber but Ian, Darren and the rest of the track crew went out of their way to help us by sledding and spraying the track before each of our runs. Thanks a lot guys, we really appreciated your help. Obviously we were trying things to make the car go faster as that is what’s going to be needed at the finals, so we hopped up the tune up quite a bit. On Saturday we progressed from smoking the tyres off the line to shaking the tyres 30 feet out and then to shaking them 100 feet out. Yesterday we really started to make some progress on the Run What Ya Brung track that was being tortured by an endless stream of testosterone fuelled Corsas and Sierras. Once we had a serious ICE system fitted to the dragster, an “On A Mission” sticker on the wing, the fluffy dice hanging from the roll cage, the big exhausts on and some strangely sweet smelling cigarettes on the go, we passed scrutineering and went out to record a 5.550 at 243.48 mph despite Dave shutting off 5.3 seconds into the run. There was still some tyre shake but it seemed we were really getting a handle on it. Then by watching the real experts we realized what we really needed to improve our performance and consistency was a bonnet on the dragster we can open whenever the car is stationary just like the Max Power boys do. That must be worth at least a tenth… After a little more tweaking we went out again and made a totally smoke and shake free pass, with the car pulling hard and strong all the way down track ‘til Dave clicked it after 5.1 seconds and notched up a 5.615 at a ‘chutes-out 239.62 mph, much to the amazement of the Essex crowd. Understandably, we were happy to lay down such a strong pass on a RWYB track and decided that was enough for the day. I’d like to thank chief starter Ian for letting me take control of the button and give our race car the green light. I must be easily pleased because just pressing a little button gave me a real buzz! As with the previous four runs, nothing worse than a broken inner valve spring (a common occurrence with titanium springs at 10,000 rpm) was found and soon the car was turned and ready to run once again. At the press day on Wednesday we are intending to put in a couple more passes and then qualifying begins for the big race on Friday. I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved with our team who made the European tour possible, particularly to the crew and to everyone at American Car Imports whose effort, involvement and support has gone way above and beyond the call of duty and has put us in our best championship position ever going in to the final race. I know a whole bunch of you will be coming out to the track this weekend so please cheer as loud as you can for us, come by and say hi and bring along plenty of jam doughnuts and performance enhancing fog lights for us. See you all then…
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