Rain, rain, rain what do we have to do to get a dry drag race meeting?  Friday night for the Nationals at the Pod brought torrential rain and powerful gusting winds that did their best to try and rip our pit awning apart.  Every few minutes the truck would sway from side to side and each time the frame of the awning would lift, cry out in agony and then drop to the tarmac.  This was bad enough but there was also a flag flapping furiously in the wind that seemed so close and so noisy.  After lying in bed and cursing Santa Pod for hanging flags everywhere, it turns out our intrepid driver had decided to fly our own British flag on top of the truck just above our bunks!

Saturday morning was overcast and damp but better than Friday and racing was proceeding.  It proceeded until we had made a burnout and stood ready to stage when the startline crew indicated the throat-slashing action telling us to shutdown.  We carry everything in the tow car to prepare the car for a re-start so 15 minutes later we tried again.  The air quality was good so a good run was always on the cards but even we were pleasantly surprised to run a 5.45 at 255mph straight from the trailer and delighted when we checked the timing ticket and data logger to find that the performance was off in the second half of the track (excessive wheel spin) but the incremental times in the first half projected to a 5.404 (using our 5.386 run at Pomona as a baseline).  Readers may not be aware that many racers are monitoring the weather and making adjustments to their tune-ups as a result.  Air quality will affect the performance of an engine (the lower the corrected altitude the better the performance) and we are checking the weather parameters even in the fire-up road, It’s normal for us to make weather-related tuning changes just moments before making a run.  This is important at Santa Pod as its famous micro-climate can bowl a reverse swing at racers (well we did win the Ashes) at any time with wild changes in air pressure or humidity or temperature or sometimes all three. For this run we had a corrected altitude of 589 ft, really good air, but there was more to come.

No rain irritations for the 2nd qualifier as we pulled to the line with good air and high expectations (corrected altitude was now 262 ft even better than earlier).
 A very rapid launch with little shake looked very promising but then a sudden slowing occurred around 900ft.  We were perplexed as we drove to the collection area to see Dave standing beside the car smiling with the blower belt held high for us to see (it broke 3.7 seconds into the run) and then to see the timing ticket with better increments then our previous best 5.386 in Pomona (the incremental times in the first half projected to a 5.369) the air quality had improved to 262 ft but there was still more to come.
 We remained no1 qualifier on the basis of our first run and looked forward to some good racing on Sunday.  2 runs completed so it would normally be time to change the heads but this evening we were spared the task and began bench-racing even earlier than normal.  So early in fact that Dave quickly finished his first beer and declared that “tonight is a 2-beer night as I have been talking b*ll*cks all day”.  Nobody disagreed!  Amazing that even though the evening dinner conversation opened with a discussion on tattoos and the ring-piercing of male and female genitalia, it still ended on drag racing.  Inevitable I suppose.

The data from the 2nd qualifier had told us we were right on the numbers when the belt let go so we were hopeful of making a quick run in the first round of eliminations.  Our opponent was John Parkinson, the Top Methanol rookie.  All of this assumed that we could actually start the car which regular readers will know can be a problem for us sometimes.  This proved to be the case on the Sunday morning warm-up when it didn’t so much burst into life as give up resisting. On the plus side the corrected altitude at the start line was a mind blowing -199 ft!!
Dave claimed that even with his advanced years he couldn’t remember an occasion when a good track had been combined with air quality that good. Our respective qualifying times suggested we should be able to beat John easily but Drag Racing can also bowl a googli or reverse swing or off-break and all 3 were bowled at us in the first round.  We launched strongly albeit with some shake but we were well ahead and John looked to have eased off.  Suddenly our car slowed dramatically and John accelerated to take the win.  This was not in the script as our lead in the British Championship was now under serious threat.  The blower was found to have lifted but no obvious cause was apparent.  The blower had also lifted at the Finals just 3 weeks earlier but that was caused by the clutch disintegrating and the resulting extreme vibration shaking it off. This time it was found that the studs fitted at the previous event were too short allowing the studs to strip their threads. New studs were fitted and the blower re-fitted and a subsequent warm-up was fine.

The race officials agreed that we could make a demo run as we wanted to see if there was a bigger problem lurking deep within our race car (or a better time as the air quality was still a stunning 64 ft) .  Steph Milam was to join us in her funny car as she too wanted run data.  Suffice to say the starting process did not run as normal and we did not record a time.  This was very frustrating as the run was undoubtedly strong.  Our run data showed that our performance was the best ever.  No fisherman story about the enormous one that got away, we didn’t record a time so that’s that.  Rob Turner took the event win and the MSA Championship and we congratulate him and the Turner Motorsport team.

Once the dust of the day had settled we relaxed and reflected on another successful season.  We also reflected on the truck that Harry drives for a living.  Parked in our pit area we could observe the cab and its curtains with gold tassles and the coloured lights looped around the inside of the cab. Once inside he appears to run a mobile tandoori restaurant.  Nothing wrong with that of course but you need a ladder to get into this one.  Harry departed for Glasgow presumably to sell Tikka Masala and Red Bull to the locals and we each left for our respective homes.

Further reflections on the drive home confirm that it remains a privilege to belong to this team and I feel confident in saying that each crew member feels the same way.  Three European Championships in a row against determined opposition is an achievement to be proud of.

  Of course it could not have been done without our sponsors and we thank them all, it may not be obvious outside our team but the active support and continual encouragement from all of them often makes us feel like the biggest team in the world!!. We also thank the track officials and crews throughout Europe for their commitment and professionalism, during this year of rain affected races its become almost normal to be woken at 4 o’clock in the morning by the track crew trying to prep the track, their persistence in the face off seemingly overwhelming odds has stunned us at times (it really does make you want to get out there and do your job the best you can in return).

 Most of all we thank our fans, your visits to our pits and messages of support help us to keep pressing on for new and better achievements.

Stay safe, be happy and see you next season.