Ultimate Power - Excitement Nationals 1st / 3rd May 2004 (Mon Report)
"FROM THE PITS"
by Richard I. Stirling
Copyright © 2004 http://topnitro.co.uk
There's nothing more demoralising when completing your journey to the drag strip than persistent rain falling around your ears, fogging up your glasses and generally being a hindrance to your enjoyment of your bank holiday. When I visited SCR on Saturday I was confronted with the wet stuff and consequently nothing took place except for the odd radio controlled bike and such like.
It was with a heavy heart that I witnessed thunderous skies and uncontrolled precipitation as I arrived at SCR Monday morning. So persistent was it that by lunchtime there was talk of giving up on the day and declaring another 'rain-off'. In fact as I wondered around all helpers were trying to get the track clear of water, yet fresh and copious quantities of rain were falling regardless of our obvious irritation at the situation. I wondered around the pits to find various people still hopeful of it clearing up as per Dave Baldwin and many others loading up their trailers and heading for home.
The rain was beginning to get me down and at around 1 O'clock, there seemed to be a concerted effort by people to pack up. The Crap conversions SuperMod Capri was already loaded and as I had a look around the lovely green Supercharged Outlaw (which I thought was quite arresting) the crew were shuffling around dismantling the awning and eying up the trailer. I was beginning to feel quite depressed. The last time I had more than one day's rain in a race weekend was the 02 World Finals at Pomona where it threw it down for three days... I was feeling pretty down then, too.
Moving on round the pits, I came across Paul Marstons' Grumpy's Dodge. Paul was beginning to tidy up, too and looked as if he would be leaving any time. I have always loved this purple Dodge Challenger (middle picture) which belongs to Dave "Tig" Napier. One of my favourite films was Vanishing Point where such a Challenger featured in a cross-(USA)country high speed chase. Getting off track, again. Suddenly, I heard a car start and I sped around to Ian Hook's pit (why do they call him Fatty? He's not fat at all!) where he was warming up his lovely Ford Coupe. I thought he was being a little enthusiastic with the rain still coming down, but as I left there with a cheery wave from Ian, I couldn't help noticing that there was a odd light blue patch in the far yonder sky. I removed my hat to check and, sure enough, my forehead wasn't being lashed with the old H2O anymore. A few minutes later and this strange blueness had spread a bit until..My God! Is that a yellow spot above?
And the first contender in this new found sunlight was none other than Tony Smith with his Cunning Plan car. It was loaded up and ready to go, but in an instant, off the trailer it was and ready again for action. I stepped over to the Shockwave pit as soon as I saw the tarpaulin removed from the funny car body. What a pleasant site it was too. Driver Gordon Smith and co-owner Dave Bryant had been working themselves to the bone since their run during Sunday, when the throttle linkage had come off and had blackened the crankshaft. Whilst a blackened crankshaft is not the end of the world, either repair or cost-wise it has to come out and that means its easier (at the track) to change motors. That's exactly what happened and feverish activities to this effect continued Monday. One or two tentative runs on Methanol went well and with the weather having decided to smile on us at last, a nitro warm-up was on the cards.
The car sounded great and, as you can see from the middle picture, there was plenty of the smelly stuff being blown about! If you look carefully at the rear of the picture, you will see members of the Showtime funny car team enjoying the warm-up too. It was a pity that the Showtime car was not running too, today, but perhaps they knew something because a little while after Shockwave's nitro warm-up was completed, and the racing schedule decided for the remaining time before curfew, the organisers decided that the Nitro Funny cars would not be running. Disappointing.
Further around in the pits, the Mailkey dragster enjoyed a good warm-up as did Ian Turburville and his Nitro guzzler. Ian was one of the first runners down the freshly dried track and he put in another strong run on his Harley Davidson.
Back in the pits, Rob Turner warmed up his Top Alcohol dragster and it sounded superb. He would be matched in the British Top Alcohol Championship against the Alcohol funny car of Doug Ripley in the ex-Mark & Jackie Hawkins Funny Car. It always looked good but now it looks fantastic in its new Top Alcohol trim and with that sensational toothed paint job. Marvellous.
Here you can really see the attention to details on the mechanicals with Doug's beautiful funny car. A very expensive Strange axle now sits under the rear of the car and not a lot remains of the old Nitro setup that this car once was. I couldn't help grabbing a shot of that lovely looking nose when it was in the lanes ready for a run. When they got down to action we nearly had an upset! Doug left on Rob and really made run of it and, as you can see in the picture above was pretty much ahead at half track. Rob came by before the finish line and took the win, but even though he was moving around quite a bit, Doug Ripley improved his personal best et marker by over two tenths of a second! Rob got the win with 5.864/235.79 over Doug's super 6.811secs at 164.90mph. Congratulations to Doug for the new personal e.t. record.
At last there was some track action to enjoy. As you can see, Ian Hook was well ahead of a sleepy Colin Lazenby and just as I was about to mark this one down to Ian, Colin woke up and ran him down well before the line - 9.4 secs versus (I guess) a shut-off 10.3 second run. Lindsay Deuchar came out to play in his Top Alcohol dragster and had a bye run after Doug Bond (loaded up under the dark clouds) didn't show. He gave it a 10.2 second squirt.
I just caught Andy Frost here on a run against Wayne Saunders and it was a really close one. Wayne got Andy with a 8.762/167.21 who was a whisker behind with an 8.786/160.66. I love that Wildcat Mercury Cougar and it seemed to storm down track at the end of the day (is that a haze of something I can see?) at over 160mph and seemed a little skittish past the finish line. Roger Goring made the last pass of the day in the Firestorm Jet Funny car that seemed to go a lot better than it has done with a 6.344 second pass at a new personal best terminal of 250.08mph. Well done Roger.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article and don't forget to come back soon. Many thanks to Tog, Sharkman and Eurodragster - as always, the fountain of European drag racing knowledge.