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18:00

Wilf Stacey (Real Steel Street Eliminator)said "We could see other class runners spinning their tyres so just launched and shut off. We have a new pair of BF Goodrich tyres to break in this weekend. We backed the car off but with the electronic shifter and transbrake launch; any tyre spin causes the gear shift to take place. This weekend we want to back up our 8.8 best ET that we ran last weekend which was without a big hit on the launch."

Colin Lazenby did not make the first qualifier because of problems with his jack. "The jack got stuck and we borrowed another jack and some axle stands from Jon Webster to remove it." Colin did not trailer back to Scotland as usual but left the car down south. "We have seen the 60 ft times posted by Super Mod cars compared to last weekend and will see what we can do in the light of this information." He later went to the top of the standings with an 8.23/179.

Rene Van Den Berg from Haarlem, Netherlands, is at SCR for the first time with two other members of the Shark Attack team, Jorgen Waalewijn (Funny Bike) and Rene's daughter Ivana Van Den Berg in a Junior Dragster. "This is a new bike which we tested at Luckau. It's self-built and has a Yamaha Puma engine and Autorotor supercharger", said Rene. "The Heads are new and the engine runs 85% nitro."

Ian Brown's Thatadoo '67 Camaro is triple entered this weekend. Ian is running in Pro ET and Super Street and son Harrison. "We took two years off because of family weddings and went to Real Steel to have the engine freshened. The folks there said we really needed another block so we bought one and had it freshened. The new block has been dyno'ed at 440 bhp which is stout for a 355 cu in small block." The engine runs on V-Power fuel of 99 Octane which then has an octane booster added. "With the extra power we are breaking out in Super Street as we have no electronics on the car.

Ian continued "We have two new sponsors this year. Sir William Bentley Billiards is sponsoring us. The company makes custom snooker and billiards tables for many celebrities. The owner (who is not called Sir William Bentley) owns a Bentley and is a petrolhead who used to circuit race and has racing in his blood. My son-in-law is involved there and my wife Ozzie works there (the website is class=nounderline href="http://www.billiards.co.uk">www.billiards.co.uk). The other sponsor is my brother Simon's company Carclean which is based in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, and specialises in detailing and valeting trade and private cars. At Easter we visited Australia and saw the 'Wicked Wednesday' evening bracket race at West Sydney International Dragway, which was well supported. Thanks also to Neil Melliard of Prosign for the graphocs and sign writing. We plan to race in Pro ET and Super Street in the whole championship with Harrison in Sportsman ET when time permits. We are also looking to sell the car to finance our next project."

Mike Lacey had made two near-identical runs of 9.88 and 9.87 before a 9.861 (+0.001) made him provisional no. 1 qualifier for the event. Mike said "Anna and I have worked on both cars and are looking to be a factor in the championships this year. Jon Webster has done the chassis on the Camaro and we have bought new tyres for both cars. We've also got a new trailer. As well as Alleyjax, Anna's firm Metamorphosis Finance supports the team; it is a loan and mortgage broking business which aims to cater for all. This summer we're planning on taking part in the Cannonball Run which is a road trip across eight countries and 3000 miles in five days, in which 75 cars will be participating; we hope to supply daily updates on our progress. We have also organised another first, a live band called The Hoggz which will be playing in the Pro ET pits at the Summer Nationals at SPR.

17:00

Derek Flynn of Eurodragster.com sponsor Gold RV had an improvement of over a second from his Easter run in the Top Methanol dragster. "The car launched hard with the wheels in the air and a 1.009 60ft time. But I'm disappointed with the numbers of 7.32 177.55." I was shown the graph from Derek's data analysis system. "It shows that I short shifted from first to second too early. The engine only was able to rev to 7,200rpm and this needs to be higher. The graph shows that the engine is running too cold and it could be leaner to put the cylinder temperature up from around 900 degrees to 1100 degrees." The solution for this is to put a different 'pill' or fuel system fitting, in depending on the weather station reading. A smaller 'pill' will have the effect of leaning out the fuel system, with more efficient burn, higher cylinder temperatures and increased rpm.

Joe Gallagher (Outlaw Flat Four) is racing his beautiful red metalflake Fiat 850 Spider for the first time. "I imported the car from the Pomona Swap Meet three years ago", said Joe. The car had been built by Competition Engineering and ran in the 1980s. John Rathbone put a new roll in which is the same style as the old one. Paintbox and Prosign did the paint and bodywork. There are only two other Series 1 Spiders in the country." The car has a drop tube front axle without front brakes and spindle rear wheels; the objective is to have the car as light as possible and it weighs in at 1300lb. The engine is a 2.5 litre type 4 VW unit, the same as came with the car when it was imported. It was refreshed by Paul Bate and Joe is looking to run low 11s with it. Thanks go to crewman Simon Cook and wife Jo.

Six members of the Outlaw Flat Four are under a fully framed canopy in the pit area. Joe said "Ten members run in the class. There is no overall head person and we all contribute. A key event is the European Bug-In from June 29 to July 1 at Chimay in Belgium where there will be 300 race cars and 400 show cars. The Outlaw Flat Four will be hiring a car transporter to take eight members' cars to this event. Other races are planned for Shakespeare County throughout the year and the Flame & Thunder show at SPR in November.

Steve 'Splinter' Nash said of his victory in Real Steel Street Eliminator at the Bug Jam, "We couldn't have asked for more last weekend. We took it home in one piece, ran our fastest ET and MPH and won the event. Chris Isaacs has worked his socks off on the chassis and the car handles well. Here, the challenge so far is to get down the track with the cool temperatures and we were spinning the tyres all the way down. We would like to get somewhere in the Championship, will keep doing what we're doing and will see how we get on."

Ray Tucker (Real Steel Street Eliminator) was pleased with the red Corvette's performance. "We were pleased with last weekend with a best of 9.05 although the engine got a little warm on the cruise. No work was needed between meetings apart from changing a couple of parts on the suspension. This weekend we plan to launch using the transbrake." Ray thanks AMS Oil, his primary sponsor and brother Bob Tucker, Lee Tucker who crew for the car. "We also thank Jon Webster for the front suspension and chassis work at the beginning of the year."

13:30

Chris Jones (9.50 Bike) said "The first run out was relaxed which was a contrast to last weekend. No-one's dropped out and in fact there are one or two more here than last weekend. Team Breakout flagship Geoff Conner's here for the first time this season thanks to sponsors Technics and hopes he has solved his clutch problems from the end of last season. Fast Harry had a scary moment off the start line this morning and had to do a speedway job. Meanwhile I had to drive through a wheelie which was interesting. The tail wind last week meant that there were many breakouts. The air's still this time and I don't think breakouts will be a big issue, but there are some that can now break out at will. We had some amazing feedback from the VW crowd last weekend and the racing was pretty amazing. We only had about five minutes to turn around between rounds."

Jason Macan (9.50 Bike) also had a wheelie moment. "I backed off it as the front wheel went up in the air so quickly. I had a great time last weekend and was so pleased to qualify on the pole in such a competitive field."

Clayton Round's report after his NFAA run was that after a stout launch, tyre shake set in rapidly and broke some lugs off the gearbox. The oil filter plate also came off leading to oil on the track. Clayton apologised for the car oiling the track and is now on the hunt for a replacement.

Mark Pointer (Outlaw Anglia) is delighted with his win at the Big Bang running a string of 7.4s and 7.5s. "Specialist In Design reworked the suspension, altering the instant centre (where the coils meet), and fitting new shocks, anti-roll bar and wheelie bars after the launch caused breakage at the Thunderball. "At the Big Bang I left exactly the same driving off the line with no launch controller," said Mark. "I want to replicate my times at the Big Bang and then step up further." Sadly, he was towed back before starting in the first round of OA qualifying.

Tim Blakemore (Funny Bike) broke a shaft on his qualifying run and a plea went out for the loan of a TIG welding machine so that Tim can get back on track this weekend.

Another request, for a hydraulic lifter for a small block Ford, went out as Lee Huxley suffered breakage in the Ford Mustang 'Team Can Do' Sportsman ET entry.

Most spectacular run of the day so far has been Bob Glassup's four-wheels-in-the-air effort which wins a ten for style. He said "The engine sounded wooly on the warm-up and we had adjusted the wheelie bars so that they were about a foot off the ground. The intention was to do a gentle launch but the motor sounded so good I put my foot down. The front came up in the air, the car banked over to the left and then nosed over to the right as it came down, then, boing boing, all four wheels were off the deck. The car's ok and we will come out later."

Special Birthday greetings go to Maggie, wife of Andy Williams (Super Comp) who turned fifty yesterday from Andy and the Eurodragster team. We hope you had a great day and enjoy the weekend too, Maggie.

11:30

Dan Page (Pro ET) was pleased not to have broken anything at the Easter Thunderball and go a round, running a PB of 11.44 at the event. "Jeff Bull rebuilt our motor over the winter", said Dan. "I would like to thank Gurney Benson for the use of a recovery truck to transport the car. We wouldn't have been ablle to get to the track without it and almost missed the Thunderball. Dan, who is in his twenties has been to the track for 22 years with his dad Dave and uncle Gary. In between rounds, Dan helps crew for stepfather Jon Morton.

Neil Hunter (Pro ET) is back after running a PB of 10.233 but breaking a gearbox on his first qualifying pass at the Thunderball, which took him out for the remainder of the event. "It was my first ten", said Neil.

Ray Comer (Street Eliminator) was out for most of 2006 after the engine broke in style at last year's Thunderball. "We've had minor niggly problems this season and put the car into the Webster Race Engineering workshop last week. So far we have run as quickly as we did at the end of 2005. We had to replace the whole of the engine from the heads down. Knight Racing Services did a great job on it, but we broke last weekend and needed to repair the intake manifold." Thanks go to crew member Ian Page and new sponsors Mortgages Unlimited.

Rob Loaring is helping out with Craig Gibbs (Super Modified) at this event. "We started the year with Tim Garlick who had bought a bunch of pistons - following some gasket problems at the Thunderball, won the Big Bang with very little damage and has his eyes on the Championship."

Rob Smallworth in contrast had a fraught Big Bang. He joked "It all went wrong since Tog's passenger ride; the extra weight caused chassis flex. Seriously, the car got jammed in reverse on Saturday and Steve Rawlings lent us his Lenco from which we used the reverser. Then we had a flash back in the carb which bent parts. Mick Coombes and Ian Marshall lent us their carbs, which we were thankful for, but they were not ideally suited and we went out in the first round with a 7.87. We worked until midnight during the week to rebuild manifold which split at the rear left hand corner and Jon Webster stepped in to weld it up. We've stripped the fuel system right down and want to go from the 7.8-8.0 area to a 7.6 which you now need to run consistently to have any success in this class."

The NFAA had a wild moment with Bob Glassup having four wheels off the ground after the wheelie bars were set too high and Clayton Round having a close inspection of the guardrail. Absentees this week include Frank Bennett who is unwell and we wish a speedy recovery, and Dave Grabham who broke heavily at the Thunderball. Lawrie Gatehouse said "Later in the season I expect the class will have 12-14 cars and we are planning to run a Cacklefest at an event."

Bill McDermid (Street Eliminator) is competing for the first time after a ten year layoff. "I planned a one-year sabbatical and it ended up being ten years. It's good to see old friends here again. We ran at Gary's Picnic and had an 8.9 on our second pass which was not a full one. This weekend I will be running Mickey Thompson Sportsman tyres and I expect it will be a different animal." The early Camaro with its distinctive yellow paint with black vinyl roof has a 454 big block motor with a Procharger and sheet metal intercooler. "I bought it from the U.S. two years ago and rebuilt the gearbox, otherwise it is running the same gear as it did in the U.S. It is a back halved car so the floor pan and front suspension are standard. It ran only a few times over there and went as quick as 8.7. The motor puts out about 1300bhp." Bill's thanks go to crew Terry, brother Scott and Big Al (who can't be here this weekend). Bill's previous racing ride for more recent readers was a '69 Super Gas Camaro. The Street Eliminator car is also a '69. We can see a trend developing here...

John Everitt (Super Pro) had a new head gasket, but is now keen to stop the car making moves to the right. "Otherwise we're good", he said. "My thanks go to my crew Chris 'The Bike' Coleman, Tom 'The Moan' DeCross and Tony 'Topo'. I couldn't do what I do without them. They don't get any wages, they just get shouted at."

Chris Jones, 9.50 Bike winner at the Big Bang will be providing periodic class updates on the class. More later.