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30/05/2002 SQUEEZING FORTIES OUT OF CHICKENS…  photo courtesy of Ivan Sansom I don't think life can get much sweeter than this. I filed my previous report from Los Angeles after we won round two of the British championship and now here I am, back in Los Angeles writing a report about how we just won the opening round of the European championship too! In fact we didn't just win; we set a new elapsed time record of 5.461 seconds, were the first team to run in the 5.4s outside of America, generally kicked butt and took the early lead in the FIA European Championship chase as well. Before I go any further and you all start drifting off and doing something else instead I want to thank the whole of the American Car Imports Racing crew for doing such a great job this weekend. The crew of David, Linda, Ricki, Mike and Phil all did a superb job and each played key roles in the team's success. Dave did an excellent job behind the wheel on race day too, crossing the line first in a couple of real tough, high pressure races. Thank you very much indeed guys and thanks also to our good friend Brian "Harry" Palmer for all his help over the weekend and with getting the new trailer ready. The team managed to race hard, race smart, win the meeting and have a huge amount of fun along the way this weekend and that is a huge credit to them. And of course, many thanks to Anthony and Jon from American Car Imports for all their involvement, support, enthusiasm and commitment. Now on with the story… It was important to us to bring the new trailer along to the Main Event so that we would have better facilities for the crew and to host our guests. Also we wanted to try out all the services on board and make sure everything was working properly before the rig disappears into the wilds of Scandinavia for our European tour next month. So the whole team put in a huge effort to get the new rig ready in time and after a lot of work and a lot of late nights everything was finally ready to go at 3 am on the day we were due to go the races! In the back of the truck was the serviced dragster, with a new BAE forged short block between the rails. We had decided this race would be a good opportunity to try out the shiny new piece. As the short motor (block, crank, pistons, rods, timing gear, camshaft and oil pan) was completely new we knew plenty of extra work would be needed to take care of it at the track so we set off bright and early Friday morning for Santa Pod so we could arrive and be pitted by lunchtime.  photo courtesy of Ivan Sansom Then some unfortunate trucker crashed his petrol tanker on the M1 meaning almost all of the crew and the rig got held up in the ensuing, huge traffic jam and finally arrived at the track gates in the afternoon. Undeterred we got all the new kit and unreasonably large awning set up with the minimum of hassle, unloaded the car and got everything ready to race. Everyone had been working so hard we decided to save the warm up 'til the morning when we would be more awake and relaxed for a while instead. It was great to enjoy the fruits of our labours giving people tours of the new rig and pretending we made everything, including the generator, tail lift and pit flooring ourselves… The weather forecast was pretty iffy for the weekend but Saturday looked pretty reasonable when I woke in the greenhouse-like cab of our new tractor unit. With over 60 guests on Saturday, we were also joined by Eddy and the staff from the American Appliance Centre, and Clare from Total Design. First thing in the morning we fired up the new motor, pulled the pan and filter to check everything over and then went to the line to ensure we took part in the first qualifying session in case the rest were rained out. Now whilst we'll quite happily throw money away in the bar we decided not to take any big risks with our new motor and planned a very gentle, early shut off, check out run. Keeping the revs below 8,500 and lifting at around 600 ft Dave still carded a 7.142 at 108.67 mph to get us in the show and check out the motor. We had already planned to strip the whole motor and check it out so the super crew swung into action as soon as the car pulled back under the canopy. We pulled the blower, heads, pistons and rods and main caps and everything looked perfect. In fact the only broken part we found was my tooth after I dropped one of the main caps in my mouth pulling it out… The forecast rain did actually emerge and so there was no more qualifying from the methanol dragsters on Saturday. We just concentrated on putting everything back together and getting ready for a serious assault on the racetrack on Sunday. By now we were confident with the new engine and as our rivals had already run deep into the fives we knew it was time to go out there and get on with it the following morning. What remained of the evening was spent talking complete rubbish about Top Fuel racing and getting my ear bent by Kat from the Time Machine team for spelling her name wrong in my last report. And of course a few more tours of our new trailer were in order.  photo courtesy of Ivan Sansom Excellent weather conditions and an excellent track surface meant the records started to fall on Sunday, but unfortunately for us it was rain that was falling when Dave approached the staging beams for our first run on Sunday and he got shut down right on the line. When we came back to try again as soon as Dave got on the throttle for the burnout the motor just died and we towed back to the pits rather perplexed as to what was wrong. Eventually the fault was traced to a broken drive shaft in the supercharger when we realized the rotors weren't going round when the motor was being turned over! We had almost 100 guests on Sunday including James Goddard-Watts from Silverline Tools, John Pettifor from North Hants Tyres, Kevin Jowatt from Playstation, Steve Graham-Clare from 1st Line Motorcycles, Jake Ashfield from HGC Scaffolding, Kiki from Euro American, and Tony Jones and Gary Wiltshire from Custom Graphics. By the time they had all looked at the broken shaft and we had fitted a spare one it was time to have another go at it. A little tyre shake in first gear slowed the car some in the early stages of the run but the raw power of the motor eventually pulled it through to a 5.573 at 248.39, the quickest elapsed time ever for our new Brad Hadman built machine. This put us in second place but in the short, three car ladder but we wanted to be first so we went out for another try in the final session alongside Rob Turner in his Netcall machine. There was visibly less tyre shake on this pass and the car looked to be on a good number before the rev limiter kicked in at the top of second gear and Dave called it off, coasting to a 5.976 at 176.44 whilst Rob recorded a 5.56. This bumped our 5.57 down to last place in the qualifying order for what I'm sure will be quickest bump spot in Top Methanol Dragster for many years to come. So as I'm sure you've all realized things in qualifying hadn't really gone our way, but on the bright side the new motor was working perfectly, we were right on the other two's ETs and knew we could go quicker if we could just coax a good run from the car. Once the car was ready to race (which took a while because we pulled the blower once more so we could torque the heads down again on their new gaskets) we had another of Phil's excellent barbecues, another of his wife's excellent cakes and then got into the most ridiculous discussion about squeezing eggs out of chickens that are refusing to lay. Now this may not sound funny but to an exhausted crew who've had a beer or two it seemed highly amusing and soon had tears rolling down everyone's faces and people coming in to our awning to see what all the fuss was about. It was great for everyone to really kick back and have a good time after working so hard in the build up to this prestigious race, and trust me; no chickens were harmed during the discussion. After Ricki and country boy Mike went to bed though, who knows? For race day on Monday we were joined by our old friend Ray Maguire from PlayStation, Stuart Grey from Alternative Automotive Fuel Conversions, Gavin Evans from Expert IT, Lyn Stafford from US Automotive as well as lots of American Car Imports' customers. Again conditions were perfect and everyone on the crew was aware of what a tough day's racing was ahead of us. To win the event we would have to get past the 2001 and then the 2002 FIA champions and that added to the large number of guests watching us meant we could really feel the pressure to perform. Waiting 'til gone 3pm for the first round due to the short field and a vast number of oil downs didn't help the situation and the nerves but eventually we drew to the line against Rob Turner for what was set to be a classic drag race, as it always is when us and Turner Racing get together.  photo courtesy of Ivan Sansom I am delighted to say we came out on the winning end, using a 5.483 at 252.27 to beat Rob's strong 5.56. The crowd went wild as this was the quickest run ever outside of America, and the first run ever below 5.5 seconds. To say we were pleased would be an understatement and the whole team whooped it up on the start line and then carried huge smiles for the rest of the day. After the tech crew had checked the car was legal and the TV crew had filmed just about very bit of footage they could about the first 5.4 we got on with the turnaround for the big final round. The motor was again perfect and soon we were ready to meet Peter Schofer of Bavaria in the final. Peter beat us to the championship last year and we were keen not to let him get out in the lead on us again this season. The crowds were all on their feet, mostly rooting for the English team and once again we got the job done with a 5.461 at 244.44 mph. The whole place went nuts when the home team won and set a new elapsed time record in the process. Quite simply this was the greatest day I have ever had at the racetrack and something I will never forget. The cheers of the crowd and the applause of all the other racers as we towed back through the pits made the experience all the more special and memorable. So we took the event win, the record, the low elapsed time points and we will take the championship lead with us to Alastaro in Finland for the next round of the FIA points chase at the beginning of July. Awesome! As if that wasn't enough we also broke another record; for the first time over 100 doughnuts were donated to the team over the weekend! We really enjoyed that and (with the help of our guests) got them all polished off. Now drag racers are renowned for experimentation and trying new things so here goes; to really stand out from the doughnut bringing crowd you could bring us a bottle of red wine or some of Jack Daniel's finest instead if you felt like it. Hell I might even give you a free mouse mat in return…  photo courtesy of Ivan Sansom In closing I want to congratulate Kjell, Darren, Ian and the rest of the track crew for giving us the best track to race on I've seen outside of America and for dealing so efficiently with the many oil downs over the weekend. They did an outstanding job and played as big a role as the racers in getting so many records in the book and helped us all here at American Car Imports Racing have such a great time at the races. We can't wait to get back to the track and look forward to seeing you all there…
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