33. Back to the grind

Well Dragstalgia is now a distant memory, a good one but distant, so what next? well first we all took a well earned rest we had all worked very hard to make it to Dragstalgia, the next thing was, I looked at all the data from the runs and the video clips and I noticed that the car is not launching as hard as it used to, Crew Chief Steve reckon sit is because we have a couple of tight valves which also explained the smoke through the breather on the last run...I hope So with a bit of tweaking we are still hopeful that we can run the big "8" at the next RWYB on the 9th August..fingers crossed.

So what else? well first I would like t thanks Julina Hunt for this brilliant photo he took of me and the car going through the lights with the laundry out, makes me look like a real drag racer.

While we were putting the car away after Dragstalgia we managed to rip off one of the brackets that held the wheelie bar up out of the way while manoeuvring the car so I took the truck and dragster to Luton to where my brother works to get the bracket welded back on,

While we were at it we welded up a side bracket and fixed the rear door latch, I have also received a new piece of lexan of the right grade to replace the windscreen which I broke while getting out of the car, also got a new remove before flight pennant for the chute,

I did notice however that there was a puddle of oil under the truck when I drive off so must have a look at it that before it gets too bad.

Also this week so the début of Blood Lines new car built by Ian Turberville..."Beach Bomb" as reported on Eurodragster.com

and very nice it is too, I wouldn't mind that engine myself, will have to make do with out Small block for now, and I say for now as we do have plans for the season after next...watch this space.

32. Dragstalgia 2014

When I was a young lad of 12 in 1971 my father took me to Santa Pod for the first time, my brother and I have been going back ever since come rain, snow, floods etc. we both love this sport and late last year I thought to myself " I can still go to the toilet unaided I can walk without a frame I can still hear and see..just!, so maybe it's about time I had a go at this before its' too late!" So I did a deal with Turbo to purchase Laura's rail from Bloodlines racing, I could just about fit in it hence the name "Tight Fit" The idea was to get the family involved have some fun and try and get everything together ready for Dragstalgia 2014.

Our first RWYB was a bit of a disaster as the on-board battery failed so we didn't get to run, the next RWB I managed an 18 sec run followed by 14 then an 11 then a 10.9 and I was doing burnouts of sorts,,I am now addicted roll on Dragstalgia but! the gearbox destroyed itself and then the truck gave up the ghost so my very understanding wife gave up the hope of a new kitchen and bathroom and we went racing!!!.

The drive to the Pod early Friday morning was awful, the rain was so bad I had to slow right down to see where I was going, this was not a good start, I met up with the super crew in Bedford loaded the truck up and got to the Pod around 8am and set up camp and parked in a puddle..

But the sun came out the incredible track crew dried the place out and we were on with racing,so over the three days I was sent back once for not having my arm restraint done up properly..I have no problem with that, safety must come first at all times, we missed one run as we were having trouble with the  timing on the car, I would like to say a big thanks to Mo Blackburn who helped us out over the weekend ....

I managed to get one good run in on Saturday against the one of our overseas visitors and ran a 9.27 at 136mph I was well chuffed 

The rain came back with a vengeance Saturday night Sunday morning and I learned a very important lesson...always shut the roof vents when going to bed as a soggy sleeping bag is not a comfortable place to be.

 While we were at the event Pete "Eddie" Yates turned up with a set of car name stickers for us, so a big thanks to him for that, so we stripped the last stickers that placed the car in the previous owners name and suddenly we had our own car.

We  managed to card a 10.8 and a 10.0 on Sunday which was a long way off from the 9.2 which we had set as our dial in, we managed to get another run in at the end of the meeting but when I went to tell the crew I found Steve with the rocker boxes off as we had a couple of tight valves and we had managed to split the rocker box gasket on the previous run and no more spares, so I ran round the pits very quickly and managed to get a second hand gasket...well it had been used on one run so a big thank you to Mark Coulsell and the Ball Breaker team for helping us out in out hour of need. We pulled the car round while Steve was still putting the rocker boxes on, so no warm up we got past a couple of Outlaw Anglia's and made it in line in time and we then went on to run another PB 9.203 at nearly 145mph..brilliant.

So what a belter of a weekend the weather was on our side for a change. well most of  the time,  we managed 4 PB's learnt a lot  about the car made some great new friends including the now adopted Ove Kroeger and family.

Here is a video clip of me against one of our German visitors thanks to Nick Pettitt I managed a PB of 9.27 on this run I was a bit more than happy. little did I know I would run even quicker a day later.

We got help and advice from so many people I can't even begin to thank you all, Sarah was brilliant as usual and nearly as excited as me to run 9's

Claire never stopped going back and forth keeping everyone updated I would also like to thank the start line crew and marshals for putting up with the car stalling on  nearly every burnout, we are looking into this problem and hope to cure it soon, we started packing away a bit late and by the time we were ready to winch the car up the ramps nearly every team that was leaving that night had gone then disaster I had forgotten to turn the battery isolator off, the batteries were dead flat.ooops!

So had the race car half in the truck and no power, thankfully Alan and Margaret Smith were staying another night and he had a 24v starter pack, there is a god after all, so many thanks Alan you are a gentleman and a rock star, and on top of everything else I won a trophy for being closest to a Dial in,

 a perfect end to a perfect meeting. and what can I say about my crew. they have learned so much so fast, Steve you a diamond, Dave kept our spirits up when things were looking a lot less bright.so once again thank you everyone who made this possible it was a true high- light in my life...awesome weekend

I must also thank John O'Sullivan, Ian "Turbo" Turberville and Laura for all their help and encouragement over the last few months and especially my incredible wife Lorni for putting up with all this and never complaining, Thanks!

31. Dragstalgia here we come!!!

So after all the setbacks it looks like we are now on track again, Steve and John have sorted out the problems with the gearbox and the car is now ready to race..

The only problem now is with the old truck bless her, the tail lift has stopped working which is a big problem,

the power steering pump is not working and not long after we got her we found a crack running all the way round the exhaust manifold which we tried to weld up but it is in a fiddly place and the welds have cracked again, there are teeth missing on the flywheel which means starting the dam thing is really hit or miss,mostly miss, and the box leaks like a sieve so everything was getting damp when it rained, and the cab leaked, we also found the whole rear end electrics are dodgy the lights keep going on and off all the time sooo I decided that we can wait for a new kitchen and bathroom and bought a newer truck

Say hello to Boris a converted extended ex council mobile library, converted at a cost of 30K a few years ago by well known drag racer Tim Adam, it is long enough maybe not as wide but I am hoping he will be so much more reliable, and no tail lift, so with a bit of luck I shall be sorting Boris out over the next couple of days ready for Friday when we will be heading for Dragstalgia, making sure the ramps are tracked for our slingshot etc.....Oh and my race/fire suit has arrived at last..

I so hate pictures of myself god I look old..anyway I have also sorted out some stickers for the cars,vinyl for the car name, numbers etc,

The orange will be gold when they are ready which I hope will be in time for next weekend. along with some polo shirts I can't afford proper team shirts but what I found on the net were some polo shirts that are in the team colours so we might look a little professional on the start line...

So now join with me in a prayer to the weather gods and BRING IT ON!!!!!!!

30. Best laid plans and all that!!!

Some times things just don't pan out the way you want them to, no matter how hard you try.We, when I say we I mean the team were hoping to have the gearbox back today ready for refitting, Steve and Dave had taken time off work and I had charged the batteries up and driven 200 miles to take them over to Dave's place so the dragster could be started up and the gearbox checked before putting it away ready for Dragstalgia. Then just when you think you have everything in hand...."Chaos Reigns" and it all falls apart.

First of all the gearbox it has taken John longer than expected to replace all the parts and set up correctly, he has worked hard to get it all done on time but! even with all his hard work..and we do appreciate it John.. time beat him, not to worry we still have a week and a half to try and sort something out, much rather this than rush a job and get it wrong, then......

While on the way to Luton with the batteries I get a txt from Steve to tell me that my other son Phil has been involved in a car accident.....

This is what happened to Phil's car at a roundabout when some d**k-head ran a red light, thankfully in the greater scheme of things Phil is ok nothing broken he will suffer from some bruises and aches and pains and probably nasty whip-lash as well. But what this prat doesn't know is ..he has ruined Phil's car, his pride and joy a car that over the last few months he has lavished much money and time on and none of this will he ever get back, on top of this it's his transport to and from work and even more importantly it's his transport to go visit and pick up his kids  every other weekend, this numpty has ruined more than just a four wheeled machine.

I'm not finished yet!!! oh no...as I pulled up at Dave's place..my brother.. he was under the bonnet of his Astra estate, his battery had gone flat, he knew that the alternator wasn't that old but the battery was, so she went and bought a new battery and as I got there smoke was billowing from under the car as the alternator slowly fried itself into oblivion. So even if the gearbox had been ready we would have still had a problem to deal with.

What with the damage to my bike, this week has so far been a bit of an anticlimax but I always try and remain optimistic, ..my son is still alive and kicking, my bike still works and the damage is fixable, Dave's car is now fixed and ready to rumble and the Gearbox will be fixed and ready in the near future so all in all I suppose things could have been a lot worse???

29. Help is always at hand...in the drag racing world

It's not often that I get surprised in this money obsessed world of ours, but every now and again something happens that restores my faith in the Human Race. Ok so I am looking at a dragster that without a gearbox is about as useful as motorbike with a missing wheel, suddenly my idea of doing a form of Motorsport that I have always loved and at the same time getting my family involved looks like it is dead before it has even started.

The gearbox internals are toast, destroyed. I looked at replacement gearboxes and even spare parts and to be honest not only were they very expensive but I don't have the know-how to replace them. Steve took the box down to John  O'Sullivan's engineering shop in Swindon...

Mow for those that don't know not only is John a really nice guy and a brilliant engineer but he is also a drag racer himself, even though he hasn't been on the track for a little while, this may well soon be rectified..shhh!. this is Johns last run in his awesome pop before he took a rest from the sport.

And as  you can see it takes some sort of driver to get behind the wheel of car like this...fearless.

Anyway with John's help it looks like we will be at the track for Dragstalgia after all, the guy has gone out of his way to help us get back on the track at about the point I was going to give up, I can't thank John enough. He has sourced some good second-hand parts from Andy Frost of Penn Auto's...owner of the worlds fastest street cart..yes it is a Vauxhall!!

.. and a rebuild kit and this time the parts will all be uprated modified parts so should last a lot longer and work better and he is going to put it all back together again for us, OK it's still not cheap, nothing is when you have no money LOL! but by God he has saved us a small fortune.


So we will have an engine that is running properly now and a gearbox that wont be slipping it looks like I will have no excuse now but hunt for the 8 second run, all this because of the unselfish help we have had....thank god it is drag racing that I entered and not another type of motor-sport as I doubt if you would get this type of help in other form of motor-sport.! God I love Drag racing. Roll on Dragstalgia...............

28. Oh boy! more money 11-06-2014

This is more of an update really,as I have mentioned previously the gearbox in the car.."powerglide", stopped working properly we only had 1st gear even though 2nd was selected, the gearbox was removed after much effort from my super crew and sent down to Mr. John O'Sullivan for a strip down and inspection.

Well, I have been told that what has happened has never been seen before apparently the casing holding the planetary gears has exploded and the aluminium pressure plate has disintegrated, there is no friction material left on the 2nd gear clutch plates and the clutch bands are damaged, sooo not only do I need a rebuild kit but I need replacement parts as well.

I have been told that it looks like the gearbox hasn't been touched for years and it has probably been slipping in 2nd gear for a while, which is good news for when we get it fixed as it means she should run even faster, I was also told that there are far too many standard parts in the gear box as opposed to uprated racing parts ie, springs etc, this will also be addressed so even though this is going to cost me an arm and leg I am saving another leg thanks to Andy Frost and John.

We should get the gearbox back in time for it to be fitted and checked just before Dragstalgia so the good news is we will still be there and with a bit of luck running faster than ever..only with a lot less money in the bank account...nothing new there then!!

27. It's a long long road 01/06/2014

We all met up in Bedford on Saturday, full of the joys of spring as they say, we picked the truck up and filled up the tank and made our way to the Pod, Saturday was a RWYB event but Sunday was Classic Ford Day so there were a lot of Fords around, some of them very noisy indeed.

Back to our little dragster, after the strip down last week all we had to do was adjust the throttle pedal and check the oil levels in the gearbox and engine, fill up with fuel and check everything out..which we did...

..everything checked out so we took her down for a run, today's agenda was tog et her down into the 9 second bracket and on the last run really go for it and try for an 8 second run..well that was the plan... we started up ran through the water I pulled the gear stick into second ready for the burnout. I got the go-ahead from Dave so I floored it, she got up on the tyres and there was smoke pouring off the tyres, but! something didn't sound right, I couldn't put my finger on it, while I was thinking of this the front wheels decided to defy gravity and up they went, this I was not expecting, well not on a burnout anyway, I headed towards the start line marshal who had a weird look on his face...yeah fear!, the car came down with a bump I put her in neutral but she conked out before i could blip the throttle so Dave came running after me with small fuel bottle in hand with which he primed the injections system with and I hit the starter and she fired up, I backed her up to the start line, waited for the lights and hit the throttle, maybe not as hard as I was planning as I still had this feeling that something wasn't right...the shift light came on I pulled into second gear but the shift light stayed on and I could not hear a change in engine note I double checked I was in second but nothing happened so I drover her off the end of the track.

What a first gear run looks like, shame Al missed the burnout!

After a little chat about what happened the gear linkage and oil were checked, we started her up on axle stands and checked the gears out but it looked like we still only had 1st gear ratio in both gears, we made a couple of phone calls and it looks like the muck we pulled out of the gearbox when we changed the oil a couple of weeks back was what was left of the clutch plates.

So my super crew stripped the car again and I mean stripped, to get the gearbox out you have to take all the body panels off, wheels off and then the rear axle has to be removed, all this was done within an hour and the gearbox put in Steve's car to be taken to Mr. O'Sullivan for a rebuild.

Good points for the one run, it was the fastest 60 foot and 330 foot time I had managed so far, looks like we were on for a 9 second run..oh well and the throttle pedal has now been sorted as my foot didn't slip off. roll on Dragstalgia..