Main Event

[nitromaniac]

I haven't been to The Pod since 2004 & I was very impressed with the new developments for the spectators and in the pits. Concrete walkway up to the banking, new grandstand, the pits completely tarmaced, pits laid out with classes in groups, people employed picking up litter & the food is much better

Andy Carter ran a pedalling 314 mph @ 4.88, god knows what it would have been if he got it hooked up, the Starkotter F/C hit the waII, the rest of the action was the best I've ever seen at the Pod

I was talking with Bob Jarrett & congratulated him & Spuff on their 300 mph run at the Thunderball, Knut was very busy so I only managed to say hello, Glenn Mikres was helping Urs Urbacher to tune his T/Fer.

On my website http://community.webshots.com/user/nitromaniac the Merc is a ProMod not a custom.

I'II definitely be going to the Eurofinals.

Congrats to Keith Bartlett and crew for making The Pod probably the bestdrag strip outside America

[Flying Toilet]

Thomas Nataas ran 4.88.

Andy Carter ran 5.06 at 314mph.

Did Helander actually hit the wall?

The Merc has a pro mod motor but ran in Super Pro.

One thing your are right is the improvements.

Edited by Flying Toilet on Thursday 31st May 15:54

Edited by Flying Toilet on Thursday 31st May 16:46

[Furyous]

Leif scraped his headers I think.

Nitromaniac - "Not been to the pod since 2004 "

Not that bothered then ?

[MotorPsycho]

nitromaniac said:

On my website http://community.webshots.com/user/nitromaniac the Merc is a ProMod not a custom.

Dan's right, it was listed as a 706ci motor in the entry list however their website says its 598inches

and the car is 7.50 legal not pro mod spec at all

[Eurodragster.com]

Leif Helander didn't tag the wall, it was Kjell Sjoblom. Well, according to Eurodragster.com anyway but who knows whether we can trust them any further than we can throw them except when there's something we need to plagiarise

[nitromaniac]

Furyous said:

Leif scraped his headers I think.

Nitromaniac - "Not been to the pod since 2004 "

Not that bothered then ?

Because l went to NHRA events in the States in 2001, 2003, 2004 & 2005.

This year l can't afford to go the States so l went to The Pod

[Miss Corrado]

Not forgetting sportsman classes... The Artful Dodger (Mick Payne) in S/Pro hit the wall too...

But nobody is interested in the smaller poxy poky sportsman classes are they? Mick was fine however... and the Dodger is looking a lot better too.

[veryoldfart]

Eurodragster.com said:

Leif Helander didn't tag the wall, it was Kjell Sjoblom. Well, according to Eurodragster.com anyway but who knows whether we can trust them any further than we can throw them except when there's something we need to plagiarise

i never plagiarise, sometimes i copy and paste tho

[Jon C]

veryoldfart said:

Eurodragster.com said:

Leif Helander didn't tag the wall, it was Kjell Sjoblom. Well, according to Eurodragster.com anyway but who knows whether we can trust them any further than we can throw them except when there's something we need to plagiarise

i never plagiarise, sometimes i copy and paste tho

Copy and paste is Plagiarism. Cut and paste is theft!

[pad116]

I'm interested in the Sportsman classes.

[john 215]

I went up Friday esp to watch the sportsman classes,was,nt far from Mick Paynes car when he 'rubbed the wall' that car is gorgeous!!Something that looks that right cant be wrong!!
Cheers John.

[Dnac]

Miss Corrado said:

Not forgetting sportsman classes... The Artful Dodger (Mick Payne) in S/Pro hit the wall too...

But nobody is interested in the smaller poxy poky sportsman classes are they? Mick was fine however... and the Dodger is looking a lot better too.

LOL, do you mean it looks better now after it hit the wall?

And sportman is the way forward, who want to see the top oilers? oops meant top fuelers!

[Eurodragster.com]

john 215 said:

Something that looks that right cant be wrong!

That's the best description of Mick Payne's car I've ever seen, nicely put John.

I trust that those who were there noticed that Roger stood his ground as Mick doinked the guardrail right next to him. It was at that moment that I knew we'd done the right thing asking him to join the staff

[Flying Toilet]

Eurodragster.com said:

john 215 said:

Something that looks that right cant be wrong!

That's the best description of Mick Payne's car I've ever seen, nicely put John.

I trust that those who were there noticed that Roger stood his ground as Mick doinked the guardrail right next to him. It was at that moment that I knew we'd done the right thing asking him to join the staff

I watched the run in the Barn (no comment!!) and saw Mick go off to the right wheels hanging in the sky. As i saw one Richard Stirling running for his life along with others the dust settled and there was Roger left stood there checking the shot on the viewfinder.

Balls of steel i tell you!

Edited by Flying Toilet on Friday 1st June 09:49

[Furyous]

That was a great pic !

[Bowler]

Flying Toilet said:

As i saw one Richard Stirling running for his life along with others the dust settled and there was Roger left stood there checking the shot on the viewfinder.

Balls of steel i tell you!

Topnitro didn't do bad himself Dan, but I think even he'll agree that Roger got the best shot(s)

[Flying Toilet]

Bowler said:

Flying Toilet said:

As i saw one Richard Stirling running for his life along with others the dust settled and there was Roger left stood there checking the shot on the viewfinder.

Balls of steel i tell you!

Topnitro didn't do bad himself Dan, but I think even he'll agree that Roger got the best shot(s)

I did enjoy Richards sequence too! He stood there longer than i would!

Is this a new 'Lets get Tog club' style award?

[Eurodragster.com]

Getting slightly off-topic but when I was in Bahrain last year there was another UK journalist there whose first ever experience of drag racing was that event, and furthermore whose first ever experience of drag racing was going to be standing trackside for the first session of Top Fuel. Because the guy had never been drag racing before he hung around with me and I told him all about drag racing and showed him the ropes and so on. I told him that Top Fuel tended to impose sensory overload so that he was well-prepared.

So out came the first pair of TFs. We were standing at about sixty feet, me perched on a chair with my camera (no ladders available) and he with his notebook. The TFs launched and I got the picture and turned round and looked down from my lofty viewpoint and the guy had vanished. He had run for it when the TFs came blasting past and was now cowering in front of the grandstand several yards back from the guardrail

I introduced the guy's predecessor to drag racing by standing with her in the between-lanes refuge on the start line at Santa Pod whilst Fireforce 3 strutted its stuff. She took that quite well especially when her Editor called her mobile half way through the show

Edited by Eurodragster.com on Friday 1st June 11:51

[Tet]

Bringing it back on topic, how did everyone do in what little running we got at the Main Event? I took a shot at both the perfect light and perfect ET awards in Super Pro, but missed both (by 0.004s and 0.001s respectively, albeit the wrong side of the line on both occasions). I was happy with the car, though, and qualified mid pack. Super Comp wasn't quite so rosy, taking a while to get the throttle stop set up properly. I was hopeful that I'd got it sorted, though, and was planning to use my last qualifying run to get the car set up for eliminations when the rain came down, and that was the end of that. Amazingly, even being 0.4s off the index, I still didn't qualify last (Dan -- what happened?)

I saw Hodgy pull a decent run out on the Saturday morning, having struggled on the Friday, and although I didn't see it myself, I heard about Frosty's rather impressive run. Anyone else?

Edited by Tet on Friday 1st June 15:46

[Time Machine]

We had cylinder head sealing problems caused by stripped threads in the block, with them repaired and the heads torqued down again we were eventually ready to run but had missed all of Friday. We got 2 runs in on Saturday but were having problems with the mag walking and retarding itself so are looking at new mag clamps:

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/1696,750_Magneto-C... or http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/923,585_Billet-Mag...

We got the car tuned up nicely on Saturday evening with the clamp done up even tighter ready to get some serious runs in, but the weather was not kind to us. We ended up having a full roast beef dinner on Sunday and going home Monday morning. We think we are headed the right direction and are just going to freshen the heads, rings and rear axle based on data gained from the Main Event and should be out at the Nostalgia Nationals.

There are videos of the two runs on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35y4YxKM8V0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtna2lEkbP0

As you can see number 1 is a little smokey on the hit (hence the freshen-up) and the car was pulling through the brakes on run two - we have since changed the fluid and bled them.