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02/10/2003 MSA BRITISH CHAMPIONS AT LAST! This is just way too cool; I get to sit here over a celebratory JD and Coke and tell you all about how we just won our second championship in three weeks, whilst our rig is currently sitting at the docks waiting to board a boat to Miami for our upcoming US tour! I really just don’t know how it can get any better than this… We didn’t have time to catch our breath from winning the FIA championship at Santa Pod before we were back on the road and headed for the cultural Mecca of Yeovil to put the car on show for our friends at Silverline Tools as they launched their fancy new mobile showroom. Much fun was had by all of us enjoying their wonderful hospitality and showing their guests our proudly displayed championship trophy. Just a few days after that our long time clutch and transmission man and all around team grafter David Wilson had a well deserved play in the car during a Webster Engineering test day at Santa Pod. He acquitted himself very well indeed, running a 6.54 at 173 mph on his fourth pass on the car. Then Dave told David if he wanted any more fun he’d better go buy his own car, so it was time to head back to the workshop and get all the maintenance and preparation work done ready for the Sportsman Finals at Santa Pod, the final round of the 2003 MSA British Top Methanol championship. Heading into the race we held a 10-point lead over Steph Milam in the She Devil funny car. Unfortunately, all the other teams that had contested MSA championship rounds earlier this year decided not to turn up for this last one so it was just us and Steph in a straight out battle for the championship. Our goal was to improve on the existing championship elapsed time record of 5.586 in qualifying, bag the 20 bonus points and seal the championship in time for a party in the pits on Saturday night. However, when we pulled into a very cold, wet and windy and Santa Pod on Friday night it was clear that setting the record in those conditions was going to be a very tall order and that a straight up, winner takes all final round on Sunday afternoon was more likely. The brilliant American Car Imports Racing crew made no bones about setting up in the distinctly autumnal conditions and before long we were ready to rock and roll, enjoying one of Linda’s most excellent casseroles and some extremely cheap but surprisingly palatable French beer. 17 pence a bottle and it even came with a twist off cap… Saturday morning dawned very cold but thankfully the forecast rain stayed away, and by lunchtime we were scrutineered, warmed up and ready to make our first qualifying pass. Now a couple of times this year Dave has had problems with his dashboard-mounted top gear button. So we moved things around to the more conventional two buttons on the steering wheel set up to see if we could eliminate those problems. After a raggedy, smoky and shaky start to the run we didn’t get a chance to see if the new system worked when the rev limiter kicked in early in second gear. As I’m sure you can imagine this puts a real strain on the blower belt because it is repeatedly trying to speed up and slow down the blower as the limiter messes with the ignition firing. This means that the side of the belt in tension constantly swaps from one side of the top pulley to the other and the belt itself is being submitted to the mother of all stress tests. Another factor to bear in mind is that the rev limiter taking out ignition pulses turns the shift light off because it counts the ignition pulses to determine engine rpm. Hence the motor is buzzing away on the rev limiter but the shift light is actually off so Dave has no signal to shift gear! Well after more than a second of this abuse our belt quit and headed for the small pasture in the sky (a Littlefield perhaps?) and the car coasted to a 5.791 at 201.94 mph. The exit of the belt cut through the drive cable for our mechanical tacho but we carry a spare one these days, so we soon had the car turned around and ready for Saturday’s other session. I hope I’m not giving away any team secrets here but pretty much the whole essence of tuning a methanol dragster is about getting it through first gear as quickly and smoothly as possible. Usually once the car is in second gear it will typically haul ass to the finish line without much trouble unless the track is in really bad shape or located in the Frankfurt area. So although our first run was a problematic one, we at least made the crucial part of the run with regards to the tune up and could make adjustments for our next trip down the track. Although far from perfect the next run did look somewhat better and the PlayStation Flyer seemed to be on it’s way to a good run, but then took a mysteriously long time to make it through the second half of the track despite lots of urging and “go on girl”s from the start line. I’m pleased to say that it wasn’t a tune up problem and I can still stand by what I was just saying about setting up the car. No, in fact we had a problem you couldn’t make up if you tried. Although we had re-plumbed the gearshift onto the steering wheel we had left the old, disconnected button on the dashboard and when the light came on Dave pressed the old button. Of course nothing happened and then when he realised what he’d done he got out of the throttle, back in it and then the throttle cable broke! Another coasting finish resulted in a 6.096 at 173.25 mph and left everyone in the pits wondering how on earth we’d managed to win the FIA championship when now we couldn’t even make it to the finish line under power… At least we were in the number one spot ahead of Steph’s 6.405, and the car looked just fine in the turn round. By the very reasonable hour of 7:30 we were all ready for the morning and had even test fired the car! Much fun was had by all during dinner and observing Ricki’s chocolate cake, pie tin and lager experiments. We then got into the serious business of celebrating our avid friend and fan Dennis having won his British weightlifting championship on his first attempt before we retired to bed ahead of race day at this two-day event. A highlight of the evening for me was the very generous gift—a presentation bottle of Jack Daniels from two more of our biggest supporters, Eddie and Matthew Fannon, and I would like to wish them a heartfelt thank you here. No one wanted to see it raining on Sunday morning but when it comes to the weather this country isn’t a democracy. Sure enough, it was raining when we woke up on Sunday. It continued to drizzle and rain throughout the morning until thankfully the clouds parted, the sun came out, the track crew got the track dry and racing started at 1:30 pm. The Santa Pod Racers Club staff had the situation under control though and still managed to get all the racing done and dusted by 6:30. Originally we had been scheduled to have another qualifying run at 11am because of the small car count. Race Director Darren Prentice very reasonably offered to still let us make this run at 2pm and have the final, which we chose to do because we wanted to get a full pass under our belts before the big match up. Despite some tyre shake and a very mild tune up for the very cold track we still managed to notch up a 5.617 at 250.58 mph, a stout run considering the conditions. This gave us a lot more confidence going into the final, and when no damage was found back in the pits we decided to leave the tune up exactly the same, try not to beat ourselves and hopefully pick up the win and the MSA championship, which we have been chasing for so many years. Our nerves had just about recovered from the pressure-filled eliminations at the European Finals and another critical race like this probably took years off all our lives. But, of course, we gave it our all and went to the line nervous but pumped up and ready to go. At the start line Dave put a 3-tenths advantage in the bank and never looked back on his way to a safe and steady 5.722/239.05 win over Steph’s troubled and unfortunately expensive-sounding 10.444. And there it was; a win light telling us we had finally won the MSA title and achieved the magical FIA/MSA double during what has undoubtedly been our most enjoyable season ever. With two championships in the bank and two pieces of history by being the first to 260 mph and the first in the 5.4s in one season, it seems hard to imagine how you could top all that. Of course the nutcases amongst you out there are all saying “ship your entire operation to the USA and run a bunch of NHRA races during the off season,” which is exactly what all the nutcases here at ACI Racing (i.e. all of us) said too, and so that’s what we are doing. Our hard working crew turned the car around straight after the final, ready to run in America, and our ever helpful friend Andy Robinson took our bell housing away that night to fit the clutch dust filter necessary for NHRA competition. With the horrors of the carnet paperwork squared away and with a huge amount of help and effort from Super Gas and Super Comp racer and long time team sponsor Malcolm Francis of Air Sea Logistics, our trusty rig went to Southampton Docks this morning on a 6,000-mile journey that, barring catastrophes, will take it to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in time for the last event on the Pacific Division calendar at the end of October. It will then roll on down to the legendary Pomona Fairplex for the NHRA Finals the following weekend before staying in a top secret location in California for a few weeks before we head back out there to take in as many races as the war chest will allow before the FIA season starts back here in Europe. We will be keeping the website up to date as much as we can whilst we are out there so please stay tuned folks to find out more about our transatlantic exploits...
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