2005 Speedfreaks Ball
Sunday

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18:00

Good evening and welcome from Santa Pod Raceway at the end of day two of the Speedfreaks Ball. We have had several heavy showers today, each one coming as soon as the track was dried and just about ready to go again. The stiff crosswind never went away either which has again caused racers to cross lanes. At one point we thought we were done for the weekend but we had not reckoned with Ian Marshall and his peerless track crew who just would not give up, and we got the event finished.

Let's take you through today's results:

Fuel v Supertwin Shootout

Session three:

Steve Carey 8.928/93.54
Steve Woollatt 7.167/157.25
Ton Pels 7.171/183.57
Ronny Aasen shut off on line
Ian King 6.470/176.46

Steve Woollatt needed no less than three attempts to get in his pass as it rained as he went to stage, and again as he started up. Ian King's pass was shut off well before the finish line so there is plenty more to come from the On Fire bike.

The final round would have been Steve Carey v Ton Pels, however with the crosswind no-one was going to risk running side-by-side. Steve Carey came out to put in a 10.475/72.45, backing off as the bike drifted towards the right-hand guardrail. Ronny Aasen rounded off the day with an 8.420/112.47.

Super Street Bike Shootout

Session four (in order of run):

Steve Venables 8.367/181.41
Brad O'Connor 8.733/175.08
Mark Fisher broke off line
SSB28 9.587/151.39

Again given the conditions the SSBs didn't run side-by-side so there were no eliminations as such. Brad O'Connor took Low ET with yesterday's 8.097 and Steve Venables high speed at 185.02.

We also had some SSB runs out of session (i.e. in Run What You Brung), these were Mark Fisher 8.355/166.67 and Rachel Pattison 10.256/138.55.

The Super Street Bike racers won the Third Annual Eurodragster.com v Super Street Bike Dodgems Challenge. We still don't quite know how he did it but TJ O'Brien managed to crash his dodgem through the barrier and out onto the tarmac. The problem being that TJ was driving for Eurodragster.com and so we were disqualified for a boundary violation. This makes it 2-1 to Eurodragster.com but congratulations to the SSB team on their win and on their relatively clean tactics this year.

On the demonstration front, Tony Baker put in a 7.247/194.89 in the Fireforce 1 Jet FC, given the crosswind Tony again backed off just past half track and you could see his 'chute hanging way out to the left of the car in the shutdown area.

Again your reporter was on the timing crew today, giving me not a lot of time between runs to scribble in my notebook but here are a few of today's RWYB notables.

First up was 9.50 Bike racer Ade Lockley who just kept going quicker and quicker today, culminating in an 8.978/161.24 from his Turbo Busa. Ade's partner told us that he is headed for Super Street Bike. A couple of black Busas clocked bests of 8.832/163.66 and 8.813/179.12. These were carrying numbers 621 and 677 in shoe white but we were not able to ascertain their identity in the rush.

Pro Stock Bike racer Len Paget clocked an 8.200/154.67, a fine run for the conditions, whilst 9.50 Bike racer Phil Pratt recorded a best today of 9.825/134.69. Unfortunately I don't have access to the run log from today but a hastily-scribbled note in my book ascribed a 9.668/147.58 to 9.50 Bike racer Steve Knapp whilst fellow 9.50 Bike racer Carl Atkinson was also running times in the 9.6s.

The weekend Photo Gallery has been posted, you can access it via the Event Index page.

That's the end of our Coverage Lite of the Speedfreaks Ball, thanks very much indeed for tuning in. Our next Event Coverage will be from the pre-FIA Main Event Test Weekend on 21st-22nd May which will start a week of build-up to the Main Event.

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