UK National Finals
Saturday (qualifying)

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14:30

Hello again from what is still a very wet Santa Pod Raceway. The rain has not eased up since our earlier posting and shows no signs of doing so either. In light of this the Race Director has taken the decision to cancel today's qualifying. The plan now is (weather permitting) to run 2 qualifying sessions tomorrow morning and then move into elimination's at around lunch time.

Before the decision to call off today's elimination's we managed to catch up with Ton Pels who confirmed that the reason for the Zodiac team's presence here this weekend was to continue the extensive testing the team have been carrying out on their unique engine set-up in the nitro burning Harley. As we mentioned in the European finals report Team Zodiac are the only people in Europe running this combination and so with no other teams to compare notes with they are having to do a lot of testing to find out the best set up for what is sure to be a very quick bike once it all comes together.

We also managed to speak to Chris Hall who told us that like Graham Dance in Superstreet Bike, Chris is here with the Funnybike championship in the bag and is hoping that the conditions will come good to give him a shot at Peter Bossert's ET record of 7.14 seconds. Having clocked 7.18 last time out the record certainly looks to be within his grasp. Moving onto four wheels, Roger Moore tells us that the mysterious misfire problem that blighted his attempts to take the Super Pro ET Triumph Herald into the 7 second zone may have been down to some dodgy fuel. Roger said "Normally we run Super unleaded with an octane booster in it, but those octane boosters can be a bit temperamental. When we got home from the meeting I put the left over fuel in my motorbike and that didn't run properly either." Roger was last seen having a discussion with Steve Green about what fuel Steve ran in the Super Pro Cortina and looking very thoughtful!

With everybody sheltering from the weather and nearly all the race machinery still in trailers it has been possible to get any pictures today, after all, you all know what puddles look like!

Join us again tomorrow (or better still come along and see the action for yourselves) when we will hopefully have a full days racing, including the return of George Chiarilla's Ford Coupe to Super Comp (The car sporting unpainted new fibreglass body panels after last years interface with the guardwall and most noticeably a new aerofoil style rear wing) and also the often delayed return of Spencer Tramm's Super Street Sierra with Chris Issacs at the wheel.

09:30

Good morning from what is unfortunately a very wet Santa Pod Raceway. It started raining about midnight and the wet stuff is still falling as I type. A quick check of the weather indicates that this rain should pass over with the rest of the days forecast not looking too bad. The track crew are ready to start drying just as soon as it stops so lets keep our fingers crossed.

There's not much news from the pits at the moment as many racers are still arriving and those that are already here are staying safely holed up in their motor homes. However a chat with Graham Dance yesterday evening reveals that when we get racing there could be even more fireworks than usual in Superstreet Bike as with the championship already secured Graham is here this weekend with his sights firmly set on the class records. Also in attendance this weekend is the awesome nitro burning Harley of the Godfather himself, Ton Pels. With a bit of luck we'll be able to catch up with Ton and have a chat, watch this space.