112. Cutting it fine yet again!!!!!

We have only got 10 days before we are supposed to go and set up ready for Dragstalgia so as per usual we are far from ready, just like the previous years running up to our favourite meeting of the year we still have issues to solve and bits to put back together, Also bear in mind this is supposed to be my final fling in the car as already stated I relinquished my responsibility for the car some time ago but continue driving till this Dragstalgia as Steve will take over the main driving duties from then on. he has already proved to be more than capable of handling the car.

First off all the race car, Steve has arranged for the head to go to an old friend of his to be welded up and machined, the damaged portion of the head will be cut back a bit and welded with the correct hardness rods, but on top of that it looks like there is a fuel delivery problem on that cylinder as it seems to be running lean  on the one cylinder so another good friend of the team has taken the whole system away to be cleaned and checked and it looks like we need to put larger diameter supply fuel pipes on up from 6 mm to 8 mm to increase the fuel volume flow. I hope this works.

That was one problem, the other is the truck which is now in the capable hands of my son, it was due its annual MOT the regulations of which have changed dramatically this year, after a quick look round Steve found that most of the front suspension bits and pieces needed replacing along with a few other bits!!

 Bottom Ball Joint-1

Bottom Ball Joint-2

Exhaust Hanger

Also drop links knackered and off side wheel bearing which is part of the hub assembly and loads of rubber bushes so Steve ordered the new parts only took two days to arrive and off he went and fitted them all, it will be like driving a new car.

 New Parts

More New Parts

So looking forward to Dragstalgia now it will be a great family gathering and there at the moment 37 Wild Bunch cars entered, fingers crossed ours will be one of them.

111.. Oh no here we go again!!!!

The whole team had been looking forward to the Retro Show, we had the new Dizzie cap and rotor arm fitted as the old ones were pretty much destroyed, and we knew there was a hell of lot more left in the cars performance. The first problem of the day was getting to the trailer park I left my home at around 12:40 it took me nearly 5 hours to do 100 miles that was how bad the M25 and M1 were on that Friday, utter bloody disgrace the new Dartford crossing system is now slower than the old barrier booth system and the "Smart" motorway system is just an excuse to slow everyone down usually for no good reason, put the bloody hard shoulder back then we wouldn't have to be told to slow down to 50mph 10 miles before a bloody indecent and even after months of TV adverts telling everyone not to travel in a lane with a red X in it no one bothered telling any of our overseas friends this..grrr rant over!.

After arriving at the Pod around 6 in the evening we set up camp and settled in for the night or rather I did as Steve wasn't coming up till the morning and Dave went  home to his comfortable bed...swine LOL.

The following two days were going to be exciting, or so we thought? First of all we were going to fire the car up and make sure she works, then if everything is OK Steve was going to get his first ride in the car followed by a couple of runs by me then if the car was still in one piece and we had time we were going to try and get Dave a fire suit that fits and let him have a go..happy days so after a few Jack Daniels courtesy of the Ratchet Strap team it was time for bed.

I was up early in the morning nursing a thick head, grab wash kit and run over to the toilet block it then starting to rain dam! but luckily it was just a very light shower that cleared up quickly, not long  later Dave turned up followed by Steve then Mike, We started work on the car, now Steve wasn't happy how the car turned over but after firing her up she seemed ok. So Steve was sent off to sign on for the days racing big grin on his face showing off his entry wrist band.

So the car came off the stands and was roped up to the tow car, Steve went into the trailer and changed into the fire suit, I don't think I have ever seen Steve with such a big grin on his face.

Steve was strapped in tot he car only a helmet and gloves left to put on and  the car was then towed down to the pairing lanes ready for the run.

It was a really weird feeling seeing someone else in the driving seat but this moment was supposed to have come last year so can't complain too much, Steve seemed unbelievably calm, I had gone through with him all the procedures and he knew most of them anyway, so the car was fired up I went round tot he side f the track and filmed him as best I could as I couldn't see anything on the screen of the cam corder as the sun was so bright.

So at half track after a decent launch ad run Steve hit the big "Off" button, we all heard it and I think we all knew what had happened? I went to pick Steve up from the first exit and he was already out of the car looking at the engine, he looked at me he didn't need to say anything, we towed back tot he pits where the plugs were pulled on the middle two cylinders of the right hand bank and there was the tell-tale signs of aluminium dust all over them, so the head was pulled and there was an old friend visiting us again!!!!

The head torched again, so after a lot of discussion we think we know what to do, first we have to get the head welded up again and machined flat this time with the correct hardness welding rods then we have to go through our fuel system and see if there is any blockages if not then we are going to put bigger nozzles on those two ports, so all the bits were put into the trailer and loaded up and went home, Now the team have their work cut out to try and get everything ready for Dragstalgia, a race we can't afford to lose.

110. Nostalgia Nationals 2018

This would be the first time the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals would be run at Santa Pod  after the now confirmed closure of Shakespeare County Raceway,, a pox on the money grabbing greedy bastard developers...The team decided that it would be prudent to set up camp Thursday evening so we would be ready for the test and tune on Friday. This was also probably going to be the last nationals that I would race at so I wanted it to be a good one, on top of that it was going to be a bit strange not having number 1 son and crew chief Steve around as he had other Family commitments for the weekend and couldn't make it so we had the company of Mike Oates tuning for us. As usual the motorways were awful so I arrived at the trailer storage park a bit late but it didn't take long to hitch up and get out.

Dave and I arrived early evening and got the car out set up camp ready for the morning. At around 8am the next morning Dave re-appeared and not long after Mike turned up a little bit of fettling on the car and we were ready to go.

We got three runs in on Friday getting quicker each time culminating in a 151.05mph a PB for us but at only 9.3 seconds oh well we wee going in the right direction we managed some serious burnouts that day but were still spinning up on the repair patches just off the 60ft mark.

We called it a day after the three runs. Next morning we went  out again this time we ran a 9.2 but a slight improvement on our speed this item we hit 151.59mph another PB. But that was the only run we made on Saturday as the weather Gods turned against as and it poured down so much I reckon I could have paddled over top the bar if I had a boat.

Sunday dawned and the sun came back out we were really looking forward to this day as we had made some changes to the fuel settings and we had hoped to get back deep into the 8 second range, However the car had other ideas and gradually got slower and slower resulting in a 10 second run at only 130 mph, The problem was diagnosed as a worn out distributor cap, 

Funny how even the smallest of things can ruin your day. But never mind we had fun we ran a couple of PB.s and on top of everything we were voted the best appearing slingshot  and we won a trophy.

So all in all not a bad weekend at all roll on the next round at the "Retro Show" next month.

109. All Torque Day

Today was a special day, not just as this would be the first time we had run the car for nearly 10 months but it was also my 60th birthday which didn't go unnoticed thanks to the crew and my wife.

We go to the track nice and early did a quick bit of fettling and warmed the car up everything seemed ok, we waited for some cars to get  up the track then we towed down for our first go at the new concrete track.

First thing I noticed was I couldn't get the tyres to spin up properly the car nearly died when I shifted into second but I had a go at the track anyway but she bogged off the line and when she did pick up she slid I did this a couple of times then just let her idle through. back in the pits Steve thought she was over fuelling so changed the pill size we armed her up and tried again.

Fired her up and made my way to the start went for the burn out but again it wasn't quite right I then couldn't get reverse I tried a couple of times then noticed and smelt smoke coming up from the cockpit so I shut her down and got pushed back behind the start line where we found one of the trans-brake wires had shorted out, we fixed this in place and Steve also took a smidge of timing out this however gave me another problem after the next burnout the revs shot up on tick-over to nearly 3000 rpm I could hardly hold her on the brake I took the lights and she nosed over stuttered and again I just let her idle through the top end. Back in the pits we realised we had gone the wrong with the pill sizes and had in fact put more fuel in instead of taking it out so a quick re-calculation another warm up and we were ready for another run this time we ran side by side with the Brown boys slingshot, the car sounded a lot better even managed to get some smoke form the burn out...

Still not right but a lot better, so back in the pits a quick turn round then we went for another warm up we were going to try and get another run in before the rain hit but we couldn't start the car a quick look around found a terminal had broken on the micro switch that acted as the inhibitor switch for the gear linkage, this was fixed in double quick time thanks to the super crew working flat out and we went down for our last run.

Again not perfect I peddled a couple of times when the crew came to pick me up Steve mentioned that he had not adjust the barrel valve so we can't complain we had got the car down the track four times and we took her  home in one piece. Back in the pits Steve found the fuel we had been using had been contaminated which may have accounted for some of our problems, we had a good day and we all went home happy...now that's a first, next stop the Nostalgia Nationals.

108. A surprising update!

I really didn't expect this, so after the complete and utter disappointment of Easter comes a ray of sunshine. Santa Pod have re-arranged some meetings due tot he ongoing problems caused by the weather which has allowed some of us to run on the 15th April...my birthday, free if we didn't get on the track at Easter.

I had to phone number 1 Son and crew chief first and see if he could clear it with his family, which he could then ring crew member and Brother and then ask my wonderful wife if she fancies coming along, they all say Yes!!!!

There are three things we want to achieve on this "All Torque" day 

1. Get the car down the track nice and easy check everything is working as it should.

2. Perform at least two launches ( full run if possible) one with Trans brake  one with Hand brake launch and see what the difference is?

3. Bring car home in one piece.

If we manage to achieve all three then I will g  home a happy 60 year old (did I just say that out loud?)

I also noticed that on the Santa Pod web site under the photo entry list the photo of my car is amazing, both wheels up, so I tracked down the photographer David Beitler and asked for permission to use them, not only did he agree he mailed me the high res versions, so thank you very much David.

Love the bottom photo I don't have many photo's if any of the car with both wheels up like that and  you can see all the fuel running out underneath out of the breather before we put the catch can on.

Right back on my head for today will update this blog after the weekend in the meantime I will be praying to the weather Gods.....again!!!

107. Festival of Power? should read Festival of Power of Mother Nature!!!

After a very long lay off we were ready to race again, the team had done a huge amount of work on the car and trailer to get everything ready for Easter, bear in mind we did keep an eye on the weather and we knew it wasn't going to be great but we had hoped we could get down the track a couple of times.

So very early Thursday morning I made my way to Bedford to "The Petrol; Station" where Dave and Steve would meet up with me a quick toilet break and cuppa then off we went to collect the trailer, The guys at the park told us they would open up at 7:30 am for us they were true to their word in fact they had the gates open even earlier. We hitched up the trailer and made our way the 7 miles up the road to the "Pod", We collected our tickets from the office and set up camp for the weekend.

I don't think any of us would have expected the weather to be so atrocious for three days, but it was it rained and rained and rained!!!!!

We did however get our car, along with a few others!! up to the scrutineering bay for the compulsory safety checks. Trust me this was the furthest our car went all weekend and probably the fastest too.

The car was scrutinised but they wouldn't give us our ticket till Mark Norton the tech guy stuck the chassis tag he had for our car on one of the chassis bars, for that we had to wait for the next day where mark duly cam down to see us and applied the stickers we had waited for two years to see on our car.

And that's all that happened Friday because of the weather, so we spent most of the day...again sitting in the trailer waiting for God to turn the sprinklers off. Although we do have some home comforts in the trailer.

Saturday night was not only very wet but very very cold as well, Dave and Steve went back to Luton I stayed with the trailer, turned out to be a bad decision, I thought we were going to lose our awning at one point, it was already battered and broken before we put it up, So we used some straps out of the trailer to give it some extra security we even strapped it down to the dragster Chassis.

Sunday dawned and instead of hearing the sweet sounds of birds chirping we got the even better noise from 6am of the  track crew prepping the track. Things were looking up, Racing did commence but we had two accidents during the racing and after the second one the decision was made to not let any cars making any real power on the rack, so that was us done 4 days of sitting around and hoping then...pack it all up.

We did achieve a couple of things we managed to get the chassis tag, we got through scutineering and we ran the motor up a few times which is a dam site more than some teams managed to accomplish over this rain and accident hit weekend, Oh well on to the next one then.

106. Back to work

Here we are in the middle of February and a lot of decisions have been made with regards to my life and where that life will be in the future, this year my wonderful wife Lorni and I will be re-locating to Spain but the race team will continue albeit with a different driver eventually. So how did we leave last year? well it was the worse year yet for the team we just about destroyed the motor on the Friday RWYB at Dragstalgia 2017 It denormalised both Steve and myself to the point where we both thought about giving drag racing altogether. That thought lasted around 20 seconds, we had a plan, in the meantime Dave and I continued to support The Wild Bunch in the only manner left open to us, and that was as spectators not what we wanted but better than nothing, I was really upset that we as a team couldn't race again at Shaky last year as we now know that opportunity is now lost to us.

We got our engine back just after the end of the 2017 season so we decided to just pop it in the trailer and wait for this year. A couple of weeks ago I got hold of Steve and arranged a date to meet up at the trailer with Dave and my other son Phil to get this job done. As this was arranged a while before the event I had at that time no idea what the weather was going to be like which is always a worry when working outside..

So last Sunday the 11th we all met up at the usual place that being the BP garage on the outskirts of Bedford, we then made our way to the trailer, the sun was shining but hell it was cold. We don't have a workshop or garage so everything is carried in the trailer, first job was to empty as much out of it as we could, then pull the trailer onto some flat ground so we could get the dragster out of the trailer along with the engine and engine hoist.

Next job was to get the dragster pushed round out of everyone's way where we could work on it and get the engine back where it belongs.

Then remove all the body panels and get to work, the boys did good and it didn't take anywhere near as long as I thought it would to get the motor back in and connected up, it wasn't long before we were ready to try and fire her up, timing was checked fuel pipes re-connected, battery connected, fuel in the tank and oil in the sump hmm! it was cold and the oil was thick and we couldn't get the oil pressure we needed before we hit the ignition so...  Steve had a bright idea of using the old dizzie shaft as an oil primer...worked a treat we were ready.

First hit of the ignition and we were rewarded by the biggest, loudest back fire I had ever heard I nearly lost my coffee, 180 degrees out.. so fix that check firing order one last times and.....

..she's alive!!!! OK so the timing isn't right yet but she ran for a wee while until the guys noticed a small fuel leak on the pipe that leads from the tank to the pump, so that was fixed and the timing fettled a wee bit time for a second try.

She fired up great but soon petered out, so it would help if the fuel was turned on guys, I shouldn't laugh as that is something I do on a regular basis...so lets try that again shall we...

..right so here's a handy tip for all you budding drag racers out there, even though the car is on stands and is in neutral it doesn't mean it is safe as the wheels will still turn! so don't lean on them while starting the car, secondly don't place the starter battery anywhere near the landing zone it could hurt. One last time then...

..result everything is fine timing is nigh on correct the fuelling isn't that far out if at all and we have amazing oil pressure, time to put it all together and packed away, it didn't take much time to get the body  panels back on and the tools cleared up. We couldn't run her up again as we had already pushed our luck a wee bit, behind the fence that is behind the yellow and red dumpster is a four star hotel so not wanting any uninvited intervention we called it a day.

It was at this point that the bad weather front we had heard of decided to turn up 40 minutes early, it came down quick and hard we had snow sleet and rain right at the point where we had everything out of the trailer and exposed, bloody typical and on top of that I had left the window down on the truck so I had a wet seat, never mind we have a race car again something I was beginning to doubt that would ever happen.

The A team worked hard and quick very proud of them, the engine is probably running properly for the first time since we had it built. We have a couple of small things to sort out, Steve is going to get his mate to make us a new set of header adapters up as there are some stripped threads on the old ones and somewhere in the trailer is the chromed thermostat cover that blanks off the hole on the inlet manifold and I have to sort out the cut wires on the trailer brakes and sort out a few jobs in the trailer but we are ready 2018 season so bring it on....!