Thursday 31 December 2020

130. End of year report 2020

 2020.....

I don't suppose for one minute I'm alone in thinking "good riddance" to 2020, on all levels of life this year has been one to forget if that is possible. We did however manage to salvage one or two highlights in what has been a bleak racing year.

At the end of last year we had a tow truck that was just about falling to bits we had a trailer that was also just about falling to bits and a race car that was being held together with bodge tape and jubilee clips, so Steve made the call to sit out this year while repairs were applied and to get ready for a full on assault in 2021. We all know what happened, this dam virus hit and it looked like no-one was going to be racing in 2020 which in a way suited us as we were sitting out 2020 anyway. I believe in miracles and we got one...racing commenced thanks to Keith and Santa Pod Raceway. Suddenly Steve got an itchy right foot and decided to  run at the Nostalgia Drags, this is where we found out what the problem we were having was caused by? Our fuel pump had decided to go into retirement so Steve borrowed a smaller one from our friend Mr. Colliver. Steve didn't get the fuelling right but was convinced the car was pulling better than ever so made the decision to go to the next event The Hot Rod Drags.

With the ever present help of my brother Dave on the Friday at the HRD Steve ran faster and quicker than the car had ever been before grrr lucky sod.  But we had purchased a new pump which showed up on the Saturday so Steve sat out the first run and fitted the new larger pump which resulted in Steve hitting the magic 160mph mark, Not bad when we were supposed to be sitting the year out.



I was sat at home here in Spain watching the live feed from the Pod I nearly fell off my chair, yes there is some competitive feeling between us but I was so proud of my son. We had a very happy Steve.


Steve was convinced there was still a lot more in that set-up but that was it for the year so what for next year??? well new valve springs so that we can un-leash all of the 10,000 rpm horse power along with a revised and updated fuel system to go with the updated valve train. Ok so Steve has turned out to be an ok driver *&^*(!!  but the boss will be back for one last go in 2021 at Dragstalgia and yes I will be riding my Yamaha all the way from my place is Spain for one last time. I have already changed the name of the blog site from "Russ's Racing blog" to "Tight Fit Slingshot" next I suppose we need to get rid of the "DangerRuss" sticker on the cockpit and replace it with...."7.SecondSteve"???

Happy New year everyone from the team...Russ, Steve, Dave and Diana


I would like to thank everyone that has helped us this year including Mike Oates, John  "Mr Mopar" O'Sullivan and the Ball Breaker Team  I hope next year will be a fast and safe one for everyone.