Our first RWYB was a bit of a disaster as the on-board battery failed so we didn't get to run, the next RWB I managed an 18 sec run followed by 14 then an 11 then a 10.9 and I was doing burnouts of sorts,,I am now addicted roll on Dragstalgia but! the gearbox destroyed itself and then the truck gave up the ghost so my very understanding wife gave up the hope of a new kitchen and bathroom and we went racing!!!.
The drive to the Pod early Friday morning was awful, the rain was so bad I had to slow right down to see where I was going, this was not a good start, I met up with the super crew in Bedford loaded the truck up and got to the Pod around 8am and set up camp and parked in a puddle..
But the sun came out the incredible track crew dried the place out and we were on with racing,so over the three days I was sent back once for not having my arm restraint done up properly..I have no problem with that, safety must come first at all times, we missed one run as we were having trouble with the timing on the car, I would like to say a big thanks to Mo Blackburn who helped us out over the weekend ....
I managed to get one good run in on Saturday against the one of our overseas visitors and ran a 9.27 at 136mph I was well chuffed
The rain came back with a vengeance Saturday night Sunday morning and I learned a very important lesson...always shut the roof vents when going to bed as a soggy sleeping bag is not a comfortable place to be.
While we were at the event Pete "Eddie" Yates turned up with a set of car name stickers for us, so a big thanks to him for that, so we stripped the last stickers that placed the car in the previous owners name and suddenly we had our own car.
We managed to card a 10.8 and a 10.0 on Sunday which was a long way off from the 9.2 which we had set as our dial in, we managed to get another run in at the end of the meeting but when I went to tell the crew I found Steve with the rocker boxes off as we had a couple of tight valves and we had managed to split the rocker box gasket on the previous run and no more spares, so I ran round the pits very quickly and managed to get a second hand gasket...well it had been used on one run so a big thank you to Mark Coulsell and the Ball Breaker team for helping us out in out hour of need. We pulled the car round while Steve was still putting the rocker boxes on, so no warm up we got past a couple of Outlaw Anglia's and made it in line in time and we then went on to run another PB 9.203 at nearly 145mph..brilliant.
So what a belter of a weekend the weather was on our side for a change. well most of the time, we managed 4 PB's learnt a lot about the car made some great new friends including the now adopted Ove Kroeger and family.
Here is a video clip of me against one of our German visitors thanks to Nick Pettitt I managed a PB of 9.27 on this run I was a bit more than happy. little did I know I would run even quicker a day later.
We got help and advice from so many people I can't even begin to thank you all, Sarah was brilliant as usual and nearly as excited as me to run 9's
Claire never stopped going back and forth keeping everyone updated I would also like to thank the start line crew and marshals for putting up with the car stalling on nearly every burnout, we are looking into this problem and hope to cure it soon, we started packing away a bit late and by the time we were ready to winch the car up the ramps nearly every team that was leaving that night had gone then disaster I had forgotten to turn the battery isolator off, the batteries were dead flat.ooops!
So had the race car half in the truck and no power, thankfully Alan and Margaret Smith were staying another night and he had a 24v starter pack, there is a god after all, so many thanks Alan you are a gentleman and a rock star, and on top of everything else I won a trophy for being closest to a Dial in,
a perfect end to a perfect meeting. and what can I say about my crew. they have learned so much so fast, Steve you a diamond, Dave kept our spirits up when things were looking a lot less bright.so once again thank you everyone who made this possible it was a true high- light in my life...awesome weekend
I must also thank John O'Sullivan, Ian "Turbo" Turberville and Laura for all their help and encouragement over the last few months and especially my incredible wife Lorni for putting up with all this and never complaining, Thanks!
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