Comp Bike racer Phil Crossley said "The weekend has gone well even if I did lose in the first round. I ran three personal bests and they now stand at 8.52/156. I bought the bike on the Eurodragster.com swap meet from a rwyb runner. The bike had previously been raced in Ultimate Street Bike by Peter Jones and ran 8.78. I built the engine with nitrous and air shifter and this is my second season." Phil is helped by team members Stuart and Sam.

Funny Bike racer Tim Blakemore ran a great 6.966/192.98 in the first round of eliminations. "We've found all the gremlins and are back to where we were at the National Finals. This will give us a baseline to tune up from for the Main Event; with the field of Top Fuel Bikes we hope we can gain an advantage at the start." Tim has a bye-run through to the final where he will meet Dave Bailey or Chris Hall.

Funny Bike racer Chris Hall ran a PB ET 6.898 in the first round of Funny Bike and also a mph best of 195. "I double shifted and went up to fourth too early", he remarked after the first round. "I have had two oil pump failures, yet not hurt any parts - that's lucky. Chris is helped this weekend by fellow Funny Bike racer Steve French, for whom Chris is building a frame. Chris's luck came to an end in the semi-final when he suffered an engine explosion at the finish line after winning against Dave Bailey. Chris was ok after the incident.

Super Twin Gas racer Les Harris has a new carbon fibre fairing from Mike Nelthorpe's HQ Fibre Products company. "The streamliner was an all or nothing thing. Mike copied the fairing from a TLR and designed and produced the new bottom piece himself. The fairing has allowed us to keep the carbon fibre airbox and piping and this now are heat proof and in reflective white colour. The bike feels brilliant on track and is four inches higher than the streamliner fairing." Les had a best of 1.3 to sixty feet and 9.6 ET at this event.

Super Twin ET racer Stephen Partridge has extended his Buell SL Lightning by eight inches with a new self-built swing arm. "The stock bike is short wheelbase so this really helps. We spent the qualifying days setting up the launch revs, reducing the tyre pressure to 10psi and hardening the shock setting which resulted in a PB of 10.77."

Sportsman ET racer Ian Jackson has acquired the new Sportsman ET cock mascot. "I won the cock of the year award in 2008 and am the current holder of the mascot. It will change hands after each meeting to the person that is judged to have made the greatest cock-up. After his red light in round one, Spencer Tramm will receive it for the next race."

Eurodragster.com sponsor and 9.50 bike racer Jon Webster won his race in the first round with a 9.57. "I'm enjoying racing 9.50 bike as the low maintenance allows me time to help customers out. The start of the year was fraught with niggly issues and I wasn't that confident in qualifying well. But in the first round the racer in me came out." Jon is entered in Top Fuel Dragster at the Main Event. "The car is very quick but quite difficult to set up. I want to break the 300mph barrier and many thanks to Lucas Oil and Persåker Speed Shop for their support."

Pro Stock Bike rider Ray Debben made a great come-back after his exit from a barrel rolling bike at speed on Sunday. "I wanted to get down the track to prove the bike was fine and it ran nice and straight", he said. "On yesterday's run the bike was drifting to the right, hit the timing block and then went hard right. I was left sliding down the shutdown area. I won the Easter Thunderball, set a new PB of 7.73/173 here and now this crash. I plan to be back for the Main Event and have already bought a new body kit and fairing. Thanks to my crewman John Davies and to Len Paget and Dave Beck for their help."

Super Pro ET racer and Eurodragster.com sponsor Peter Walters had suffered problems with the engine running cleanly which prevented a clean pass. So crew chief and dad Richard decided to put in the spare magneto. This proved to be the solution to their problems and the next run was a 8.20/156 which made him no.3 qualifier. "We had inklings this was the problem and decided to change it last night. We also needed to change a head gasket."

NFAA pilot of Chaos John Wright said "We got away with it this time. The tyres spun straight off the line and started to haze and I shifted into second which lit them up and had to recover from the car moving to the left and up on two wheels. Up to that run the car carried itself straight. The old chassis could not take the power but we now have a modern funny car front end. We still have to test the aerodynamics at the top end."

Pro Stock Bike rider Ray Debben's fairing looks finished with after the bike hit the reflector at the end of the track causing it to move right into the field and throw Ray off. Fortunately he was unhurt and able to walk to the ambulance.

Wild Bunch competitor Terry Clifford has been running the historic Ratcatcher Resurrection for four years and it looks every bit as immaculate as when we first saw it at Xtreme Wheels in 2006.

NFAA racer Bob Glassup found when stripping the engine after the armco banging incident that the crankshaft had broken into two parts. "The engine was still running at the end of the track even with the broken crank", he said. "There is damage on one side of a rod and a small amount of scoring on the block and camshaft. We will get the block machined and buy or borrow replacement parts for the rest."

Outlaw Anglia racer Cliff Griffin has carried out a comprehensive rebuild of his car and aims to get into the low eights. "We worked on the chassis at Frank's Autos and it is now tagged to 7.50. There is a new GM four bolt 468cu in engine with a new 8/71 blower and hat and Dedenbear Powerglide which I bought from tractor puller Dave Jones. The new blue flamed metalflake paint is by Paul Stevens and Steve Holder.

Outlaw Flat Four racer Dave Dinning bought his Beetle from a US racer in a "very run down state". "I took the cage out as it was not up to spec and got a new cage and back half and ladder bar from Jim Smith of Cotsweld. The engine is from Ian Clark of Wolfsburg Performance, the gearbox from Pete Englezos at Cogbox. This is a smaller engine than my main one which I ran 10.39 in (the quickest normally aspirated VW run in Europe) but had some lifters fail. With this smaller 2367cc engine the car still launches hard, is travelling at 98mph at the eighth, 123mph at the quarter to an 11.57 ET without second gear.

We reported that Outlaw Flat Four racer Richie Webb has moved to the US and we understand that he is competing at various VW events in the US at Sacramento, Vegas and this weekend at the Bug-In in Montana. At Sacramento there is a 'Pinks All Out' eliminator which is a 100 car shoot out with a fixed dial-in and selected pairings for a $10k prize in front of TV cameras from Speed TV.