115. Hot Rod Drags

I honestly didn't think I would still be in the Country at this time but house sales are intrinsically  fickle things so we are now on our second offer on our home, the upshot is I get to attend the 2018 offering of the NSRA's hot Rod Drags which is at Santa Pod raceway for the first time.  So once more I was up with the Larks on Friday morning (around 3:30am) and on the road around 5 am trying to get over the Dartford Crossing before they start charging at 6am

On arrival it was time to unload and sort out the trailer, the car needed a little fettling which was carried out by Steve, re-adjusting the back lash and checking the timing, the valve clearances were all over the place and the timing had slipped back to 30 degrees so after sorting that little problem out Steve and I went over to Family Camping to put up his tent which was to be his accommodation for the weekend, this was not easy as one might suspect due to rather windy day. but after just a little swearing and bending of tent pegs we got her up.

We took the car for a couple of runs but to be honest the track was far too cold and even though it had been glued it still wasn't at its best and on both runs Steve spun the tyres up when shifting gear, so apart from some  60 foot numbers it really wasn't worth persevering for the rest of the day so we packed up, tidied up had a few drinks and then went to the entertainment tent to watch a rather decent band, were we had a few more drinks I will admit to being a wee bit tipsy but not as "Broken" as a newest member of the team our wonderful back up girl Diana I don't think I can remember anyone dancing for so long without collapsing!

Saturday morning eventually arrived I was up early and managed to see the sunrise! not something I get to see very often.

After finding some much needed coffee and waiting for an appropriate time to turn on our very noisy generator we noticed that Steve  hadn't turned up for work so a walk round to the camping area and a few loud "Mornings" and we were back in business, even with some serious delays and a lot of waiting around in the paring lanes we managed to get 4 runs in which may be a record for us and on top of that Diana turned up on time with seemingly little or no after effects of the night before, a real pro that one. All runs were between 9.3 and 9.1 which isn't bad but nowhere near where we wanted to be so some serious head scratching was called for.

So after another night of merriment race day dawned, now this was to be a day of frustration and joy, first of all my video camera's memory card threw a wobbly so I only managed to save one video of the day and fortunately that was the one when Diana decided to wear a colour matching Basque, but not only that but we had problems before every run, first run the throttle stuck wide open while in the pairing lanes good job the engine wasn't running but what a sight to see Steve and Dave trying to fix the problem while being towed down to the start line, next run we found a dropped cylinder with 15 minutes to go before we were supposed to be towed down fortunately we found the problem and it wasn't as bad as it could have been it was a blocked injector.

During this time the team managed to set fire to a battery charger and get the brake cleaner and petrol muddled up so for the last two runs the car was started on brake cleaner, Second run was against Craig Larman in the Ferret, And as Colin on commentary said "both second generation racers"  he then mentioned myself and asked me to stand up and wave in the grandstand hmmm red face moment, Steve pulled to the line staged hit the trans brake and the car lurched forward crossed the beams before the tree ran down I knew instantly what had happened problems with the trans brake again, so no time or speed recorded but he floored it all the same Craig PB'd and Steve stormed after him the car pulled like a train, before that run Steve adjusted the main fuel pil by 0,5 and that made the difference. So now it was all hands to the decks,

We only had 30 mins to turn the car around and also try and sort out yet another trans brake switch as we had burnt out another one, that was three for the weekend. Lee Hartnel to the rescue with a high amp switch which was fitted in super quick time and tested seconds before we were called. This time no problems for Steve the car ran great, the time and speed came up on the boards he had done it..8.7 at 152 mph smiles all round.

Last run of the year and we had managed to achieve what we had set out to do, such a great feeling of achievement but with a lot of help from a lot of people including my Brother Dave, our friend Mike Oates our   great back up girl Diana and loads of others including most of The Wild Bunch, as I have already mentioned this was probably my last time at the Pod but what a way to go out thanks to everyone who made it possible it's been a  blast. I got home Sunday evening only to be told by Lorni that our second purchasers have now withdrawn their offer..oh well!