2003 Speedfreaks Ball
Saturday

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20:50

Today's pictures have now been posted, you can view them via the Event Index page.

Same plan for tomorrow, we will keep track of all of the highlights and post a report at the end of the day, although the Webster Race Engineering/Dragrace Drachten webcam will of course be running all day starting when the track opens at 10:00.

See you tomorrow!

20:00

It's been a fun day here at Santa Pod Raceway on day one of the Speedfreaks Ball. As you may have seen from the webcam we had a couple of rain delays but the track crew did a sterling job getting the surface dried and action got underway very quickly after the rain stopped. On the subject of the webcam, apologies for the brief interludes when the picture did not update. We stopped the cam when it rained, and the laptop also took it upon itself to hang up a couple of times. This will be sorted out in time for the Main Event as we will have one laptop doing nothing but the webcam all day.

Let's take you through today's action in association with American Car Imports.

Without doubt one of the highlights of the day and the biggest story of the year so far was Eric Teboul's 5.968 on his rocket bike this afternoon. Eric recorded 3.714/207.84 to the eighth; he told us that the fuel was exhausted at about 240 metres. From race control you could see Eric blasting dust off the track in a v-shaped wake and as soon as he was off the throttle he was leaning this way and that to keep it straight. "The bike goes straight as long as it is under power, but then the wind blows it off course", he said. A very happy Eric added that now that he knew the settings for a five-second pass he should be able to repeat the feat tomorrow, if not run quicker.

Roel Koedam put in the pass of the day of the Top Fuel Bikes with a superb 6.60/180.63 run straight off the trailer - Roel's first run of the year. You could see that the bike was on a mission and Roel was off the throttle just after half-track. On his subsequent pass Roel was on and off the throttle and clocked 7.23/194.61. Steve Woollatt is not far behind Roel with a fine 6.87/198.39 in the first session, another arrow-straight pass for Steve and the bike sounded very strong indeed. Steve's second pass was a 7.06/169.60 early shut off. Ian King broke a blower belt on a pass of 14.01/51.62, the bike was going great guns until the belt snapped at about 150 feet. Eric Teboul shattered a sprocket on his Top Fuel Bike and is out for the weekend although given his performance on the Rocket Bike we suspect that he isn't too despondent.

Of the Supertwin contingent Ton Pels is leading the way with passes of 7.39/197.07 and 7.23/194.61. Monique Pels (hello Monique) wrote to us from Holland to let us know that there are a lot of new parts on the bike and so we guess these are being bedded in. The bike sounded very strong indeed on both passes, the characteristic "lazy" sound very much in evidence. Ronny Aasen bent a valve first time out and was last seen trying to find an engineering company to straighten it out. Ian Turburville came out for his first pass in his beautiful new bike, after a strong burnout the engine stopped and Turbo went back to the pits.

Neil Midgley has been a fine representative for Funny Bike, putting in two 7.19s, one at 185.55 and the other at 186.85. Stu Chamberlain has made one run, 8.15/131.05. Dave Bailey put in two passes on his ex-Ken Cooper Funny Bike, a couple of very proficiently-handled low nines.

The naughty boys and girls of Super Street Bike have had three official qualifying sessions for their shootout tomorrow although a significant number of them have also run in amongst the Run What You Brungers, almost hot-lapping. Of note has been Matt Nixon who put in eight-second passes with a large backpack containing camera equipment and then took the #1 spot having divested himself of the backpack. At the end of today's qualifying, Super Street Bike stands as follows:

1. Matt Nixon 8.494/160.19
2. Graham Dance 8.642/166.47
3. Karl Larcombe 8.664/167.15
4. Pete Bellenie 8.733/164.74
5. Mark Fisher 8.818/129.69
6. Dave Smith 8.842/163.56
7. Jamie Sneddon 9.229/139.54
8. Rachel Pattison 9.363/148.41
9. Chris Reed 10.036/127.77
10. Steve Venables 10.134/158.54

Ricky Emms has been the model of consistency in his Junior Dragster running 8.14/73.36, 8.12/73.10 and 8.14/74.73 on demonstration passes.

Also on the exhibition front, event organiser Martin Hill clocked 6.41/251.07 in the Fireforce 2 Jet FC, and then the day was closed out by a race between Tony Baker in Fireforce 1 and Martin in Fireforce 2. After a superb flame and thunder show Martin cleaned Tony's clock with a 6.04 at a huge 271.79 to Tony's 7.21/189.95. Jerry Lackey has put in two passes in the Patriot Jet dragster, two half passes with the chute out by 1000 feet, the first 9.21/84.14 followed up by an 8.84/95.09 - on the second pass Jerry was clocked at 147 mph at the eighth.

We are now working on today's pictures, stay tuned and we'll let you know when those are ready.