APIRA Test and Tune
Sunday

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23:00

All the pictures from the weekend have now been posted. You can get to them from the Event Update index. Apologies to those racers whose names we have not captioned: with no entry list possible at an event like this plus racers changing vehicles or paint in the off-season we haven't been able to identify everyone.

That is the end of our coverage of the APIRA Test and Tune, thanks for tuning in and thanks for your patience. For their help this weekend we would like to thank Ozzy Ewing, without whom there would have been no word at all from us; Simon Day; all the APIRA race officials; Bruno and the FAST team; Scott Talbot and the start line crew; Lee Child; Wendy Talbot; Jerry Cookson; Barry Bohannon; and Tracy in the media centre.

Eurodragster's next event coverage will be from the Webster Race Engineering Test Day at Santa Pod Raceway this Wednesday (16th April), our next event coverage from Shakespeare County Raceway will be the Excitement Nationals on 3rd-5th May.

This weekend's coverage was brought to you in association with American Car Imports.

15:00

Hello again from Shakespeare County Raceway. You've probably been wondering where we have been today, well we are all OK so stop worrying. It's still a nice spring day and the Test and Tune is going great guns. Right now we are on a hold for oil but it's nearly cleaned and we'll be off again very soon.

We have been down on the start line photographing today, but unfortunately the top end scoreboards have had to be switched off, so whilst outside it's not been easy getting results. What we have decided to do is to concentrate on pictures today and post a photo feature rather than only publish partial results.

We will update this page when the photo feature has been posted.

10:30

Good morning and welcome from Shakespeare County Raceway on another nice spring morning. The temperature is 61 F, the humidity is 67% and the air pressure 30.07 inches of mercury. It's shaping up into a great day and we are here to bring you the latest in association with our friends at American Car Imports.

Your reporter had the briefest of pit walks this morning after spending the last night this season in a hotel - it's the back of a Ford Fiesta from now until the UK National Finals. Here's what we found out.

Supercharged Outlaw racer Johnny Hall said that he actually backed off twice in his barnstorming run yesterday afternoon. "There were black lines from the start line to 330 feet and then from there to the armco", said Johnny. "It was a typical Johnny Mental pass!". Johnny said that on his first pass yesterday there was a loose wire - one small problem can be excused after Johnny and crew Dave 'Fuzzy' McKenzie and Mark Windridge spent the entire winter freshening and porting the engine. Johnny is also grateful for help from Eddie Frye and Nathan - who is drag racing for the first time this weekend and has been bowled over. "I'll be happy to run an eight of whatever description today", said Johnny. "I want to get the sixty foot times down to 1.2 or 1.1. I'll do a stonking burnout and then 5000 rpm off the line, that should do it!".

Wild Bunch racer Alec Coe ran his best time yesterday, a 10.556 in his "Shy Torque" slingshot. "We have a new engine, a race glide, it's a learning curve", he said. "Last year I only had first gear and that's because we built the gearbox ourselves! It would be nice to get into the nines but maybe we won't do it at this meeting". Alec was particularly pleased for crew member Kevin 'Closet' Mortimer who he said has done a lot of hard work on the car over the winter. Plans for the rest of the season include new bodywork and paint.

Alec's son Tom is after the record for a normally-aspirated Rover, which is in the 10.8s. "Right now he's giving the engine a good clean out because he's only running 11.7s where he normally runs 11.1s all day", said Alec.

Scottie Durant's "In the Dog House Again" Topolino altered was just about ready to be fired up this morning after the team fixed fuel system problems yesterday. There were some minor leaks and fuel was not getting to the top hat and, added one of the crew whose name we didn't get (sorry), "It's a nitro valve we're running on methanol". "We just want to go and do a 'rump!' off the start line and we will be happy!", said Scottie.

Supertwin Gas racer Nick 'Shaggy' Daniels was another of several racers who have run personal bests this weekend. "I took six hundredths off my best time on the first run", he said. "I have made some very minor changes to the aerodynamics but the major change is one of Dave Hirst's ignitions and it did the job. It certainly made up for getting up at five in the morning yesterday!".

Attracting a lot of admiring glances in the pits is Clive Bush and Andy Staton's 'Torque-E' Supercharged Outlaw dragster. This used to be the Shell Racing Top Methanol Dragster, and now features an Arias engine with a 14-71 blower. The car is set to run today without its rear wing which has not arrived, but the team were only planning to take it easy anyway. "It has a glide rather than a Lenco so we just want to see if it will take the power - it's got a huge throttle stop on it!", said Andy. The car looks very nice indeed, with paint by the team and fine detail by Clive himself. Andy said that the team are not tempted to run in Super Pro ET - "yet". Be sure to check out our photo update for pictures of this very fine car.

The track is now open so tune back soon and we'll let you know how things are going.