Friday 20 September 2019

124. The Hot Rod Drags 2019

I did say that after the Mopars that would be it for Slimline Racing for this year but after such a successful meeting well...?? the decision to go to the HRD's was very late one as Steve didn't know if he could get the Friday and Saturday off of work till the Thursday before the meeting. So it was all hands to the the pumps or was it? It would appear that senior team member and now occasional driver Dave was already going to the meeting anyway so some phone calls were made and the team set off Friday for the Pod where some last minute adjustments were made and camp was set up everything was ready for the morning.

Saturday arrives and the weather is just awesome even Colin in the tower can't stop reminding everyone how good it is PB's after PB's were set in all classes. Steve managed the obligatory 3 runs with the Wild Bunch helped out this weekend by Dave's better half Jeni.


First run of the morning was against James Auld in his Little Faus dragster Steve managed 8.55 at 154.15 mph not exactly where we wanted to be but it's a start so some fettling with the fuel system was in order to try and regain the 8.3 performance of the Mopars, Next run was against a RWYB Barracuda this time he managed 8.46 at 154.8 mph so more fettling with the settings and then the last run of the day against Phil James in Rampage where Steve carded an even slower 8.63 at 152,12 mph. Again this was no-where near where we wanted to be but on the last run Steve managed his best ever 60 ft time of 1.18.


Some head scratching overnight lead to some more fiddling  with the settings. Sunday arrived with decent air but not as good as the previous day Steve's first run was against the Jag V12 powered slingshot The Boston Straggler this time on staggered (handicapped) lights.Steve managed to run 8.53 again! at 154.75 mph.


Video clip courtesy of Jeni

Next run was against Graham Rawlings in the insanely quick little air cooled VW powered slingshot Steve had spent the most part of Sunday trying out different settings for the fuel system to try and emulate the previous meetings performance and p to now this had still eluded him.

Video clip courtesy of Jeni

On this run  something went wrong Steve launched in second gear and only realised this when he went to shit into second this resulted in a 9.18 at 152.07 mph run never mind. Last run of the day was against Kieth Crampton in the gorgeous Soul City Shaker Steve ran another 8.54 at 154.72 mph all the runs on Sunday were against a dial in of 8.4 which we thought was a bit on the conservative side after what we ran wt the Mopars.

No matter what Steve did to the tune it looked like we had an 9.5 bracket car this weekend? why? we have no idea but we do know what we need to go forward. Next we have a few tings to sort out like the screen on the car and getting the fire suit re-tagged and we need to look into Hans devices for next year so even though this was definitely the last meeting of the year for the Tight Fit slingshot and Slimline racing we will back bigger and faster next year.........probably!!!