So I met up with my brother in Luton we made our way over to Bedford to where the truck and car are and we spent a while tying everything down with bungees and straps to stop anything from moving, then set off to get the truck welded, we left the truck over night for Steve to work his magic I dropped Dave back home and I made my way back to sunny Kent.
I took the small on board battery back with me to ensure it was charged in time for the next day, it wouldn't charge on my trickle charge so I put my car charger on it and again it was too flat to start charging so I took my motorbike battery out and paralleled it off with the dragster battery and let the charger do its thing for a couple of hours then left it to charge over night on the trickle charger....
It still was not fully charged by the morning....
Up a 4am back in my over loaded car and back to Luton pick Dave up again then over to the truck check everything is still battened down and off to Santa Pod Raceway, we arrived at around 9am and set up camp and waited for Ian Tuberville to arrive.
We got the dragster out of the truck for the first time in 6 months
We have had a few problems with the car we have had to have the front timing cover welded and machined and we have a damaged rocker arm Steve had to replace the rocker arm and set the gap wrong due to wrong information being given to him, when we fired the car up for the first time it sounded terrible..popping and backfiring,a wise and clever man came over and said "in my humble opinion you have a problem with an inlet valve hanging open for the engine to pop and bang like that" so! off came the rocker cover again and after a phone call and the correct tappet gap being found out they were all re-set then the car was fired up again....
Now it sounded really crisp and very angry it was now a drag racing engine, so time to do the one thing I had been dreaming of for around 40 years....take a car up the track....
I donned the fire suit trousers and jacket put the fire boots on and went over tot he car. now there is na have to climb up on to the slick over the top of the cockpit and place both feet on the axle then at the same time bend your back let your feet slip forward and if you can get your leg between the brake lever and the steering wheel you are in place, and its a tight place to be in, now put the straps one over each shoulder one from each side and one up from the floor in the middle the on go the arm restraints the the gloves, neck brace and lastly the helmet, if I said this is extremely claustrophobic that would be an understatement I so very nearly gave it all up and got out, but Turbo said it does take some getting used to but it will get easier..."Just breathe and relax" which I did so I stayed, I swear that both Steve and Dave thought is was getting frightened about driving the dragster but that was not the case I was just having a lot of trouble being in that confined space..I didn't call the car "Tight Fit" for nothing.
We hooked the car up to the tow line and took it down to the start line, we got to the fromt of the line got the signal to fire up which we did..
As soon as the starter battery was removed form the dragster the engine died. remember that battery problem I mentioned at the beginning...well looks like that battery died on us, so it was back to the pits clean up and pack up ready to fight another day...
