105. End of the season and end of an era????

As previous stated we missed most of this season due to breakages,the team decided that it might be a good idea to find someone who knows these engines inside out to have a look at it and see if they can find out what the problems are that keep us from getting through a whole meeting without doing damage. through a  friend of a friend we found our guru Simon who doesn't live too far away from where our car is stored.

The engine was left with him and it wasn't too long when he got back in touch with Steve to give a list of the problems he found. It was a long list!!!! first of all the valves were too big for the valve seats so once the new valves turned up the chambers were opened up and the seats re-cut to suit the valves, we asked him to port the heads properly for us this is when he found the heads were mis-matched, they were the same numbers but there was probably a length of time between them as the internal castings were different, this probably explains the temperature difference between the two, so after a lot of machining we had matching heads again, The main bearings were too wide and had been catching on the crank, there was no end plate and shims or bearing on the end of the cam shaft to stop it "Walking" the timing marks were way out and the top of the bores had been chamfered to aid piston fitting the problem being that this left very little meat for the head gasket to seal on so the block was decked to rid us of the chamfer and a thicker head gasket ordered. We also needed stud girdles on the heads to stop the studs being pulled out under stress...phew! So a lot of parts were needed and a lot of machining to get the engine to a usable state, this is why it has taken so long to get the engine back.

A couple of weeks back we got a message and picture to let us know the work was done, shame it couldn't have been a couple of weeks earlier and we could have run at Shaky one more time before it shuts for good. More on that later.

Simon must have been bored as he also cleaned the motor up and painted it for us. Anyway after a lot of phone calls and txts we managed to arrange to pick the engine up a few days later and it was put away in the trailer to be fitted in the car later..or when the weather gets a little better.

We have our fingers crossed that the car will go a lot better and be one hell of a lot more reliable for the future. The plan for this season was to try and run a 7 second blast and then at the end of the season to let other members of the team have a go in the car to get used to it as next year I will be leaving the Country,As I am no longer the owner of the team just the team Capitan it is my job to get Steven comfortable in the car so he can take over the driving for msa events by the end of next season and maybe Dave for the RWYB type events, we will see.

Having read recently all the info on what is happening at Long Marston Airfield (Shaky) it would appear that the deal is done and racing has finished now it is a great shame in fact it is a tragedy but there is not much anyone can do about it.

Last weekend was the annual Wild Bunch end of season Christmas "Do", which as always was a great event and very well organised I didn't expect to win anything as we hadn't run much but there were other prizes that I thought we might be in with a shout with like the persistence award as we had blown the motor up three times but not given up and rebuilt it every time on top of which we had  also turned up at some events without the car to support the Wild Bunch, and there was the "Big Bang" award and seeing that we had blown our motor up three times I thought we were in with a shout for that as well but sadly no we came away empty handed. But we did have a good time.

So still lots to do for the team, the engine has to go back in ad the car needs to be checked over ready for running on the brand new super smooth and very fast new concrete track at the Pod,

Above photos courtesy of Santa Pod Raceway

Safety gear has to be checked and I think it's about time we got the tag put on our car, so one way or another next season is going to be interesting and exciting...bring it on!!!!!!

104. I suppose we ad best do something about it then....

It's been over a month since Dragstalgia and what with one thing and another,,,,family funeral a wedding crap weather etc, it's been difficult to get the team together to sort out anything but! this past weekend somehow time allowed for Steve, Dave and myself time to get over to the car and start the arduous job of removing the engine. I have already documented on here the problem we had so I wont go over it again but I have got to admit that a month without racing is very boring indeed especially when it seems that some of our Wild Bunch members have taken great strides forward. Anyway first things first even though I am no longer primarily responsible for thee team anyone I am still the driver...till next year and chief towing driver, So we all met up at the usual place had a cuppa then on to the storage unit where I had to hook up the trailer to pull it out far enough to get the car out of the back so we could use the engine hoist.

As you can see it was a nice day for it but where we now store the trailer isn't exactly on the best base for using a steel rollered engine hoist that is designed for workshop floors and there is not a lot of room to do all this in. but the team got to it we emptied the trailer of all the bits and bobs first in order to free up enough room to release the dragster, boy do we carry some junk around with us but that's the problem when you don't have a workshop or a garage of your own.

With everything out of the way and the trailer jacked up we got the car out, the heads and the injection system had already been removed.

So it was a case of remove the body work and undo the engine to gearbox nuts and bolts and remove the front engine plate bolts.

Then pull the motor out of the dragster and replace the body panels so they don't receive anymore damage.

After this the motor-less dragster was pushed back in the trailer and the trailer put back in it's rightful place and locked and chocked, The engine was very carefully placed in the back of Steve's car where it will be taken away to be looked at hopefully the bottom end has received no damage, then we will appraise the damage and see what you can do about it...(Afford) if anything! at best that's us for the rest of this season at worse that's us for good, we have only managed to get the car up the track five times in total this season so this is not going to be a vintage year for us but there's always next year...fingers crossed.

103. Dragstalgia 2017, not a vintage year!!!!!

The car is nearly back together, Mike Oates ordered some fittings earlier in the week and they turned up in time, the team could hardly contain their excitement, we had only made one meeting earlier in the year and this was going to be the big one we knew that if everything worked as it should have we could really run some numbers, remember we hadn't done any testing in fact the engine hadn't been run since May where we torched the heads again.

So Dave and I made our way over to pick the trailer up Thursday evening, we left a day earlier as this meeting had now got so big if we didn't get there early enough pit space became a problem..later that evening Steve and Justin turned up and set up their tent ready for th three day event

As you can see we still need to get all the trailer wheels blasted and coated, one just looks silly and I still haven't found an American style anti sway bar that will keep the truck and trailer level on top of this the new trailer plugs I fitted didn't cure the lack of trailer brakes so I had to take it easy. We set up camp, had a couple of drinks and went for a wander round to see who was there already...mainly a large contingent of Scandinavians who had made the trip over just for this  one meeting.

Up early Friday morning, things still needed to be done to the car, first all the batteries needed charging, Steve needed to set the backlash on the car fit the headers and the new diaper, then Mike Oates turned up with more fuel and  the fittings we needed to finish off installing the High Speed Lean off Valve.

When all this was finished the car was fired up and everything looked OK Steve backed off the timing a bit to take out some power as this was our first run on the rebuilt engine. So after putting a heat cycle through the motor and checking out everything we towed down to the start line Friday afternoon.

We ran a solo the motor fired up OK I made my way round to the start line where Dave got me to spin up the slicks in the water trough the burn out was good I left the line pretty sharpish, well it was sharpish for me in fact it was the best reaction time I had ever made. The 60ft time was crap we had taken a lot of power out of the motor but we also know that we have a slow trans brake solenoid, something else to look at soon, the run felt pretty good.......

I hadn't driven the car for a wee while so one peddle and through and not giving it too much just to re-acclimatise myself to the cockpit, I pulled the chute, I didn't need to but I thought it best to make sure it still worked like it is supposed to and as I shut the motor down I heard a"pop!" I got off at the first exit and was picked up by the team where I was told I had just run a 9.5 at 144mph, that will do for a shake down now to put the power back in, but alas after trying to fire the car back up in the pits we immediately knew something was wrong, the heads were taken off along with the injection system and then the fuel pump and the front timing cover.

We found the timing  chain pulley had come off the cam shaft the resulting damage meant we were out of the meeting and possible the rest of the year. I could have cried, in fact I did, it was just about all the money that we had put tin to the car it was all the time effort and hard work to get her to Dragstalgia. The car had worked fin the fuelling had been nigh on spot on Thanks Mike, we were looking forward to running numbers as quick if not quicker than Mark Cousell was running, the car was set up to run at least 8.4's.

The Culprit

We have a few of these bent push rods

We have a few of these smashed lifters too

Spud drive is worn

We also managed to bend the shaft on the fuel pump and we know we have some bent valves wont know how many till we take the head apart, I found this on Facebook recently and I think it sums up everything.

So on Saturday Steve took the heads back with him Dave, Lorni and I packed all the other bits away, we stayed for the whole meeting and watched some incredible racing well done to all the Wild Bunchers for putting on an incredible show and all those PB's..brilliant, We had a party in the pits with live music which was great, But after watching the finals in Sunday we had to put the rest of the bits and pieces away and hitch up the trailer and go home.

I would like to thank everyone that helped us and came round to give the team some advice we are going to take a breather now before we do anything else and take stock of what we have and what we need then make a decision on what and when we are going to do if anything.

Until we are back on the track to all Wild Bunchers run fast run safe and hopefully we will see you all in the not too distant future.

102. Dragstalgia 2017 getting close

I can't believe how fast this year has flown by, nearly time for the the best meeting of the year, Dragstalgia, if I didn't have any involvement in a team at all I would still attend just to watch and it looks like every year the event just keeps getting bigger and bigger which is good for our sport. It's always difficult doing any work on the dragster as it is located in a secure parking establishment but we only have one entry key fob to get into the place so organising anything is a nightmare and that's discounts the distance everyone has to travel.

So that parts that were ordered gaskets and nozzles finally turned up the nozzles took nearly 3 weeks to get here,

New larger nozzles = more fuel

 the new Diaper only took 3 days??? 

There was a time when the injection system was in London the heads in Swindon, the headers in Sutton Coldfield and the car was in Bedford and I was beginning to wonder if all these parts would ever see each other again. The heads and rocker boxes were finished last Friday so Steve arranged to come up to the car and fit as much as possible in one day with help from Brother Dave and Steve's friend and now part time crew member Justin who took most of the photo's on this page.

It's not easy working in a confined space and the trailer is a smaller than the old truck so a lot of the loaded gear had to be placed outside, first job then was to replace the heads, these had been welded up and had new valve seats cut by Mr John O'Sullivan,

Again not an easy job when you haven't got much room to play with, god how I envy those lucky racers with a garage big enough for their cars or a workshop, Once both heads were back on and the in let manifold dry fitted to check the part alignment it was time to bolt everything together and this time we used the correct size inlet manifold gasket, this time they might actually hold and save us from more engine damage!

Obviously there is a lot more going on here push rods valve train and everything else has to be fitted as well and checked, and on top of this Steve had to change the sump gasket which is even more of a pain because of the lack of room, but after a long day everything that was planned to be done was completed.

Even the new rocker boxes as the old ones had one side chamfered to fit the old inlet manifold and the were starting to crack, so the car is just about together again, jobs still to do include setting the back lash re-fitting the headers that are with Andy Stones waiting to be chromed up, we still have a high speed lean off valve to fit with help from Mike Oates of Fiddle Head slingshot fame, then we need to run a heat cycle through the engine if not two or three but that will have to wait till the Friday of Dragstalgia so we are cutting things a bit fine but! as long as everything works on that Friday it will all be worth it. The Tow truck, Dodge Ram was MOT'd last week I still have to sort out the levelling on the trailer but that can wait till after Dragstalgia.

As always it's been a bit of a rush but we are nearly there so now looking forward to Dragstalgia 2017 bring it on!!!!!!

101. More of the same

I was reading one of Andy Fadsters posts regarding safety and Paul Satchels concerns a couple of days back and then yesterday I received a mail  from Claire our wonderful Wild Bunch boss, forwarding the same concerns from SCR and Paul. I am surprised this hasn't been bought up a lot earlier, like years ago. RWYB was initially for guys who could bring their slightly hotted up street cars onto the strip and see what they could do, Today however we have out and out race cars running in this category capable of running very fast times and speeds.

My take on safety has always been.."what about the guy running next to me or the spectators or even the marshals?" I am not the worlds greatest advocate of the SFI system as all I see is it's a way for a lot of manufacturer's to make money out of us and god knows most of us don't have enough of that! In the States they run every weekend for a lot of the year whereas over here for instance I only managed 4 meetings last year and probably will only get to five at the most this year so my safety stuff wont wear out at the same rate as our American cousins gear. I have metal shields on my gearbox how are they supposed to wear out??? they can't unless they get rusty and corrode yet I have to pay to have them re-certified every so many years, a ridicules situation which ever way you look at it  Every 5 years I have to throw out a perfectly good set of harness's ..pure stupidity But! that never stopped me from having safety equipment and to make sure it is kept in good nick, its just common sense folks, most of the cars running in The Wild Bunch and Supercharged Outlaws and even the Outlaw Anglia's are capable of tremendous speeds, remember motorists get killed in 50 mph shunts every other day???? Even though I do resent having to pay for SFI'd safety equipment I still do it and as such my car is up to date on SFI tags and the after having a new roll cage fitted I had my car re-tagged this was not just because I wanted to attend the odd msa event but I did it for my own peace of mind, as I sit here I am trying to locate a new diaper for my car as I ripped the original one open when the car bounced at Shaky the other week, I don't have to have one for my class of car but...its safety. So yes I agree there should be a minimum safety standard with regards restraints and shields and clothing even in RWYB classes. Right that's enough of that for now.

Back to our ill fated meeting at Shaky the spring shootout Our new friend and Steve's pal Justin took some photo's and a couple of videos for the team, I have just received the latest and this is the one where it really went wrong for us.

We couldn't run after the amazing burnout as I couldn't hold her on the brake we reset the tickover but..damage was done.

The team have been busy, Steve has had the heads welded and has ordered a couple of gaskets, but you learn as you go  along in the sport, first of all Steve has been told it would be a good idea to make sure the ports on the intake manifold match those on  the heads when the two are back together, there is a good chance they don't match and depending how far out they are this could cause fuelling issues, they may require a wee bit of machining the heads that is or maybe the inlet manifold.

The other thing Steve has to look at is the nozzle sizes Steve has spoken to another friend of ours Mike Oates who also runs a SBC injected slingshot who has calculated that we need bigger nozzles on our motor so something else to look into to try and stop the damage to the motor. We are taking our time and will try and make Dragstalgia if at all possible but nothing is going to rush us as we don't wont to have to go through this again.

Something I forgot to put on the last post, most of us know that Shaky's days are numbered so as a kind of memorial that we hope will be saved, the signing on office has become one big autograph book where all the teams are being asked to sign the walls.

So of course I obliged for the team, gonna miss this place when it's gone, anyway back tot he plot there are still lots of things to do before July if at all possible we want to try and make at least one RWYB to test before Dragstalgia.

100. Spring Shootout at Shaky

The team have been looking forward to this day for a long time we last raced July last year it's been a long 10 months. Dave and I picked up the trailer Friday afternoon and made our way to Shaky, The first problem we encountered was,once the trailer is hitched it is dragging the back of the truck down so I will have to go and look for some sort of spring assist system for it.We got to the track around 3.pm and set up camp.

This is the first time we had tried to use the pop up gazebo and it wasn't that difficult to get up and tight or should I say wind proof...ish. Then it was time for a quick bite to eat and over to Kenny's for a wee drink.

Up early in the morning waiting for number one son and crew chief to turn up, now what  most of you wont know is that Steve had been off work as he had torn his calf muscle, in fact two days previously we weren't sure if we were gong to make this meeting at all, without Steve I wont risk running. Steve had his friend Justin with him to help him drive the car over.

So a quick bit of fettling went on, fuel and oil went in and we fired her up and she sounded awesome as ever, once warm we took her off the stands and pulled her out for our first hit at the track. Now there has been some talk about the safety of the track following an accident there at the last meeting, I have to say there have been times where I would definitely say the track has been marginal for our car, not all cars but for some reason ours does seem to be affected quite a lot by the bumps and traction or lack of it at times, but you tune and drive the car accordingly which is why you qualify first, to dial in to the track so having said that, it had rained overnight and it was still a little cold on the first run so we took things a little easy....and what did we find? the track was bloody awesome the guys have been working on it for four days we hear, and what a job they have done,if the track is in that condition all year we will be having a blast.

We have a new start procedure now so what we do is get the slicks into the water box give the car a quick blip to spin the tyres up in t he water to clean them move forward and then hit it in first change to second, the result is better burnouts and cleaner slicks. As I said the track was brilliant, we used the trans brake the result? the fastest 60 foot to date and the quickest run we have ever recorded at Shaky, I am now wishing we had leant on it on that run as it was to be our only run of the weekend.

Now I said the track was brilliant but! the shutdown area is bumpy and can rattle your fillings out, but on this run something happened that was a first, the car bounced, and when I say bounced I mean all four wheel left the track on the second bounce and yes I was a little worried when she came down and bounced again I did think she was going over at one point. quite scary. 

The dragster came down so hard it ripped the diaper that hangs just under the sump luckily a check of the sump found no damage, we were lucky , then a strange thing happened on the tow back, Dave was sitting in the dragster when I noticed and aircraft approaching I did think at one point that it was either trying to race us or was going to land on top of us..

..thankfully it did veer off and land in the field next to us.

Back in the pits Steve said he wasn't happy with the way the car sounded so he took all the nozzles out and checked them and cleaned them, we found a couple  that were half way blocked , one by an insect, he also wanted more power seeing that the track was so good so we put more fuel in her, little did we know that the damage had already been done. So another warm up that I didn't see or hear as went to watch a few of the cars run, Steve reckoned the car sounded so much better far crisper and on top of this he wound the rev limit up a little bit on the trans brake, We were up against Bob in Time Traveller 2, gee thanks!  I pulled what must have been the longest burnout I had ever done I really wish someone had got that on video but no, when I stopped the revs came up I thought that maybe when Steve had changed the pill he hadn't re-set the tickover I put her in reverse and she shot back at 30mph I had the brake on as hard as I could I went to the line but couldn't hold her so I shut down, We got pushed back Steve checked everything over and we fired her up again quick burnout and up to the line, trans brake set and off..but she bogged and then wouldn't pick up I took my foot off the throttle but she kept going at a rate of knots so I shut her off and let her roll off the track. I waited for Steve and Dave to pick me up, Steve got out of the car and said, "Game over" We have torched the head again or something similar, That's why the revs went up it was leaning out!!!.

So back in the pits and Steve starts to take the engine down first thing he finds is the inlet manifold gasket has blown through, looks like we were sent the wrong size, well that will let air get drawn in and lean that cylinder out along with the earlier found blocked nozzles.

Low and behold there! it is a hole in the head in the same place as last time so after a complete rebuild over the Winter it looks like we will have to do it again, could have been a lot worse I suppose but that was it for us for the weekend and probably wont be out again till Dragstalgia which is a great shame after all the hard work that had already been done on the car.  It kind of knocks the enthusiasm out of you, so once again we have a car with half an engine in it, a trailer that wont sit level what more could go wrong..... Oh yea! the trailer brakes packed up altogether so I had to tow the 4 ton beast all the way back to Bedford with just the trucks brakes....wasn't easy.

So we will get the head's welded up, skimmed if needed, order the correct gaskets and find another engine diaper and we will try again, Steve thinks we should go up a size on the four middle nozzles to help cool off the problem with the exhaust valves being so close to each other on the middle cylinders.

Fuzzy video of the damage and Steve taking the motor apart

I just hope that I can afford to get the parts in time for Dragstalgia and that Steve can find the time to get all back together again, We will give it our best shot.

99. If at first you don't succeed then test and test and then test again..!

This Sunday just gone 30th April 2017 was the first time we could get the whole team together for weeks, The day before , Saturday, Steve and Dave had gone to the car to replace the valve stem oils seals on the right hand cylinder head and to  replace the sump bung and balancer bolt and to fit the fuel catch can so we can stop the track crew having to mop up after us every time the car runs. Sunday morning Lorni and I were up early around 5am after about two hours sleep, the idea is to get out and over the Dartford Crossing before they start charging which is 6am. Which we managed with a couple of minutes to spare.

We met up with Dave and Steve at the trailer which we hitched up  and towed out very quick, it didn't take long to get the car out and have the camp set up for the day,

The guys didn't take long to get the car ready and then I was on my way to sign on for the day, I asked at the office if Ian Marshal was back to work I was told no not yet why?I answered that I wanted to do observed runs so I can licence, the lovely Carol told me she can sort out that, just let her know when I am running so she can watch, I was then asked how long have I been running the car? well now this is our fourth year already.

We towed down for our first run, there were a lot of cars in the pairing lanes the bank holiday sun had bought them all out and quite a few bikes as well, we were told that all race cars were to run solo, We thought the track would be OK as there was some heat and it had been prepped well as some American guy was going to be licensing in a top fuel car, so we started her up made our way to the water and performed what was till then the best burnout I had ever done...All the video clips are a compilation of both Lorni's behind the car shots and Steve's video clips from his phone at the side of the track which is interesting as the side on clips make the car look as if it is going in a dead straight line whereas Lorni's videos shows what really happens.

But! the burnout was as far as it went as the car just suddenly stopped, died, nothing, I tried to restart her on the track but she wouldn't have it so I was pushed back to the barn where I told Steve I bet it's the coil lead again so off came the bodywork and there it was! not on the coil,so with some borrowed pliers and a screwdriver we were back ready again, second attempt at our first run.

This time it was a pathetic attempt at a burn out I only managed to just smoke one tyre, the actual run was a disaster as you can see, came off the line turned right and then went for a quarter mile wiggle with me peddling like hell, oh well at least we got up the track.

When we got the car back to the pits I found oil on my helmet visor, Steve found the culprit the rubber oil seal under the distributor was leaking, maybe some got on the slick, crap burnout, dodgy track who knows? we were ready to try again, another long wait in the pairing lanes and as we got nearer the front then we heard the announcement that came over the speaker system that there was  to be a lunchtime break for around half an hour, So out of the car, and I had a walk around and chat with some of the other drivers, then back in and get ready for run 2. We had also lowered the tyre pressure to try and get more traction.

This time the burnout was again brilliant for me, I tried to "back up" a lot quicker which is difficult as the spring pressure on the throttle is so high just touching it doesn't work, to overcome the spring pressure usually means the revs come up rather high which would mean shooting back at a rate of knots. This time we got off the line a lot better but! the run was still all over the place even though we hit a 9 second run it was still not where we really wanted to be.

Back in the pits I found oil again even though Steve had tightened the distributor down it was still weeping Steve also found the timing was now out so it looks like the dizzie moved when he tightened it up, so with the timing sorted and some gasket sealer around the dizzie and the pill size sorted we went for another run, ooh I almost forgot, after the second run I went to the office to get my timing slip and had a word with Carol and yaaaa my licence was signed off, nearly had a weepy moment myself.

Time to go down for our third and what would be our last run of the day, Steve told me to try out the trans brake and see if we can get our 60 foot times down, I got him to double check the wheelie bar first! he set the trans brake rev limit to 4900, We were called round and this time Steve and Dave wanted me to pull a little further forward on the track before I started my burnout so I could get some tyre rubber down past the start line, the track temperature was starting to drop. We had also lowered the tyre pressures in the rear slicks again to just over 5 psi.

I managed another great burnout even the commentator mentions it if you listen hard enough. Since we changed the axle gear ratios I now start the burnout in first then as soon as the slicks spin up I change into top and it seems to work, the run itself wasn't spectacular still a high 9 at over 144mph which was better I suppose, we didn't have the revs set high enough for the trans brake to be effective and the car is still wandering around, maybe the driver has just got to get used to it and hang on for grim death? again the dizzie seal was still weeping so that is something we are going to have to look at. I also pulled the chute on this run and it worked, dam my shoulders are sore this morning , why am I surprised well I tried to pull the chute on on both the previous runs and it didn't work !! LOL good job I wasn't running at 300 mph? The chute pin had got stuck.

We still seem to be chucking out blue smoke out of the right hand bank on the burnout it goes away quick so what we think is, when we got the block re-honed we were told the block was honed as far as possible without having to replace the pistons so it looks like that we will have to go down that route at the end of the year  we will put up with the puff of smoke for now as it is not damaging the motor.

Talking of  burnouts I have made a compilation of the burnouts we did on the test day from both cameras, yeah I know I have far too much time on my hands but it's fun....enjoy

So we packed up ready to make our way home Lorni and popped into Blackett Photography's place and saw a brilliant photo of the car so we bought three copies one for Dave and Steve and one for me...

I think I can see me using this photo for my profile picture very soon, So back home, we have a car that is producing power and is wandering around a bit more than usual, probably due to the aforementioned "More Power" we have a leaky distributor seal and still have one or two doubts about the axle ratio change we made, So on to Shaky in two weeks where we will put it all to the test and hopefully improve further. We should get our chassis tag put on the car at Shaky and of course the most important thing of all, I am now fully licensed. So thanks to everyone that has ever helped us or given us advice and a special thanks to my super crew of Steve and Dave, and the part timers of Al and Phill and Andy. and of course to the track crew at the Pod for giving us a track that we can use.

98. If you can't race then...watch!

It was our aim to test at Shaky last weekend 8th - 9th but Steve..number one son and crew chief couldn't get the Saturday off. In fact now that he is running the workshop..he is now the manager, it is likely he wont be getting to as many meetings as he once did, so plan B was we would go and set up camp on Saturday and just wait for Steve on Sunday but!!!! I wasn't sure if the bits I had ordered would get here in time and Steve needed some time at home so I called it off, not something I like to do but family must come first. So we went on Saturday to watch instead. I met Dave there as we both had to come from different destinations.

It was really good to get back to the track it seems like last year when we last went??? Apart from the usual carts and cars there were a couple of Wild Bunch cars testing.

There was Ratchet Strap with a new motor, which I believe came out of the teams hot rod, the Browns were testing with their updated engine, Chris and Tania with Victim god that machine puts out some horse power and does the most amazing burnouts but maybe a bit too much for the track at least this weekend. It was really good to see Mark and the team back out with Ball Breaker. sporting a new front end and a few upgrades on the engine. Things didn't go according to plan on Saturday but on Sunday Mark piloted the car to a very squirely 8.6 second pass, with lots more to come I would imagine.

With so many cars now in the 8 second zone or potentially 8 second cars then this season should see some good races I hope. he cars I am thinking of are of course Ball Breaker, Azbo, Mike Gleadows new machine is set to run 8's we know that both Daryl and Steve Fields cars can run 8's Gonzo is running low 8's and if we get back to where we were last year so will our car and of course we hope tp see Sag back out in Daddy Cool running 8's, and I think there are a couple of cars in build that will also be capable of running 8's this season could be very interesting indeed. I can#t wait.

Back to our car first thing Monday there was a knock at the door and...yep the parts I was waiting for arrived many thanks to Dave at Performance Unlimited...

Now everyone has to have goals and I have never mad any attempt to hide the fact that I want to run a 7 second pass, can the car do it, yes I think it can, and I know I'm now not the only one trying to reach that magic number, We never had the heads fully flowed and ported I always wanted something left in the tank so to speak, something we could turn to to improve times if we needed to and we have a relatively short duration cam which if needed we could also change for a longer duration cam and get more torque so we have that in the bag as well.

In a few weeks we will know if we have made the right changes or not, we can always go back to our original axle ratio, we kept the old gears, If we do improve our times then Happy Days we then aim for the 7's. My first target is to get my licence signed off then to run an 8 at shaky we have never done this, always had direction problems there, yet some teams don't have a problem I think we need to start asking some questions regarding tyre pressures etc. Maybe it's the driver.....NOT LOL.

Whatever happens its going to be a cracking year...bring it on!