2004 Excitement Nationals
Monday (eliminations)
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18:40
Today's pictures have now been posted, you can access them from the Event Index page.
That's the end of our coverage of the Excitement Nationals, a weekend which certainly had its irritations from the dreadful weather to recalcitrant laptops and dead web servers, but which also had some very good moments. For their help this weekend we would like to thank Lee Child; Ozzy Ewing; Simon Day and Wayne Schreier; Richard Warburton; track announcers John Price and Barry Bohannon; Simon Groves; Dave Alexander; APIRA and SCR press officers Jerry Cookson and Tracey Cowen, Scott Talbot and all the APIRA race officials; Darren Prentice; and Jon Cross. Thanks for hospitality this weekend to Emma Child, Steve Woollatt, Mark Pointer and Sharon; thanks to all of the racers for their quotes; and thanks to all of you for tuning in.
Eurodragster's next Event Coverage will be end-day reports and pictures from next weekend's Speedfreaks Ball at Santa Pod Raceway; our next Event Coverage from Shakespeare County Raceway will be the Power Nationals on 12th-13th June.
Your reporter and photographers this weekend were Tog and Sharkman of Eurodragster.com. This weekend's Event Coverage has been brought to you in association with American Car Imports.
17:00
We're done for the day here at Shakespeare County Raceway, having run the first rounds of most classes. Roger Goring closed off the day with a 6.344 at a personal best speed of 250.08 in the Firestorm Jet FC.
Custom Car Street Eliminator round 1
Wayne Saunders 8.762/167.21 def. Andy Frost 8.786/160.66
Colin Lazenby 9.406/177.03 def. Ian Hook 10.378/128.69
Steve Pateman 9.288/158.95 def. Al Simms 12.128/115.93
Steve Nash 9.600/169.33 def. Tony Hill 12.438/110.26
Ian Jackson 9.710/118.51 bye
Super Comp final: Paul Knight 8.717/157.67 bye
Junior Dragster round 1 winners: Tom Watts (10.93) 10.986/58.29, Collin Morrice (9.16) 9.234/66.27, Andrew Herron (15.20) 15.556/39.20 bye, Jay Hauser (10.25) 10.437/62.24, Charlotte Watts (17.50) 16.691/40.11, Scott Hauser (10.05) 10.202/62.76
Top Fuel Bike final: Steve Woollatt 9.731/100.46 bye
We are now working on today's pictures, stay tuned.
16:45
Top Methanol round 1
Rob Turner 5.864/235.79 def. Doug Ripley 6.811/164.90
Doug got a big jump on Rob off the line, the Funny Car started to drift left but Doug stayed with it but eventually
had to pedal to wrench the car to the right to stay in his lane, a new PB for Doug by quite a long way, congratulations
Doug! Rob ran straight and true, no hint of yesterday's shake, to overtake Doug and take the win.
Lindsay Deuchar 10.269/66.26 bye
Doug Bond broke so Lindsay took the bye for the first round win. Lindsay planned a half pass, the engine
had a cylinder out and sounded as if it was misfiring and Lindsay was off it as planned.
16:30
Comp Bike round 1 winners: Vaughan Foster 10.306/90.86 bye, TJ O'Brien 8.273/149.80 bye, Klaus Brinkmann staged, Phil Leamon 8.398/155.60
10.90 Bike round 1 winners: Dave Burfitt 11.504/100.12, Shaun Spiers 10.525/133.42 bye
Super Street round 1 winners: Mark Pointer 11.235/99.04, Cliff Puddle 110.939/94.94 bye, Dave Cherrett 10.937/94.69, Mark Watkins NTR bye, Leigh Morris 10.989/120.65 bye, Mike Bentley 10.955/126.99, Bob Lees NTR, Ian Brown 10.962/119.82 bye
Super Pro ET round 1 winners: Steve Pateman (8.70) 9.317/155.01 bye, Paul Harvey (8.98) 10.014/136.38 bye, Ian Tubb (7.78) 7.885/156.44, Barry Giles (7.60) 7.751/169.19 bye
Sportsman ET round 1 winners: Harrison Brown (18.20) bye, Linda Platt (12.79) 12.881/108.85 bye, Chris Emms (20.45) 20.721/64.39 bye, Nick Gay (15.60) 15.578/84.85
16:00
Pro Stock Bike round 1 winners: Richard Gipp 7.700/174.24, Tony Clark 8.035/163.53
Supertwin Gas round 1 winners: Les Harris 10.509/126.30 bye, Ric Naylor 10.766/105.44 bye, Don Irvine 12.542/106.55 bye
Supertwin Street round 1 winners: Mark Earrey 110.355/134.29, Pete Richardson 12.223/119.66 bye, Chris Mott 11.162/122.76 after re-run
15:50
Junior Drag Bike round 1 winners: Harry Steadman (9.90) 10.468/64.84 bye, Andrew Irvine (11.85) 12.450/48.39
Funny Bike round 1 winners: Neil Midgley staged, Paul Knapp staged, Dave Bailey 8.206/164 bye, Ronny Aasen 7.579/178.84 bye
Super Street Bike round 1 winners: Graham Dance 8.761/171.93 bye, Chris Reed 8.803/159.42, Carl Gray 13.231/55.55 bye, Grant Perrin 9.194/164 bye, Steve Venables 8.933/166.71
Supertwin Modified final: Simon Hodgson 10.215/139.41 bye
Supertwin Fuel final: Ian Turburville 10.587/128.45 bye
Pro ET round 2 winners: Dave Baldwin (11.56) 11.783/109.49, John Morris (11.15) 11.256/119.53 bye, Carla Pittau (10.33) 10.368/130.41, Aidan Kenny (11.58) 11.512/116.38 bye
9.90 Bike round 1 winners: Wayne Hobbs 10.141/135.36, Steve Coombs 10.624/117.79, Fred Furlong 10.255/119.36, Dave Warren 10.057/125.74, Richard Hann 10.866/132.68, Andy Burfitt 10.119/137.03 bye, Richard Sawatzki 10.061/115.23 bye
15:10
We're good to go! Stay tuned.
13:45
It's looking good for a start at about 2:30. Track drying started in earnest this morning after the rain stopped, only for the track crew's, marshals' and racers' hard work to be undone by another heavy shower. Shortly afterwards, though, the sun came out and everyone pitched in again. The track is now almost dry, it's still sunny, and we should be good to go in about three quarters of an hour.
10:00
Good morning and welcome again from Shakespeare County Raceway for our coverage of race day of the 2004 Excitement Nationals in association with American Car Imports.
The Webster Race Engineering/MPM Oile webcam is online and broadcasting a picture every two minutes, you can access the webcam via the event index page.
The traditional raceday Good Morning to our US correspondents Ed O'Connell and Kathy Hileman who are tuned in from New Hampshire. Good morning also to our good friend Gittli Koller of Peter Schöfer Racing who is tuned in to get the latest news on the opposition.
Right now that news is that everything is on hold because it has been raining since about 6:00 this morning. It's brightening up out back, though, so stay tuned and as soon as there is something to report you will be the first to know.
If you were tuned in to yesterday's coverage, you will have read that we didn't finish until gone ten o'clock last night; by the time we had had dinner and a break it was gone eleven and there weren't a lot of racers to be found. We did however receive some good news from Dave and Sarah Day, who are crewing with Super Modified racer Simon Farmer this weekend. Dave told us that he and Sarah are expecting their first child in October. "That's why we are not racing this year", said Dave. "We will probably not race next season either - or at least Sarah won't be racing!".
Whilst in the pits on a photo errand we met Super Modified racer Paul Brooks, who celebrated his new sponsorships from Rowe Hankins and The Look with almost a carbon copy of his 8.0-second pass at the Thunderball to take the number one spot. "My transmission held together this time", said Paul. We didn't have our notebook with us when we spoke to Paul but he mentioned that he had rebuilt his trans with parts bought from fellow Super Mod racer Steve Rawlings, and had also replaced the torque converter.
Supercharged Outlaw racer Roy Wilding popped in to see us whilst we were typing this update to tell us that he broke a rod in the engine of his Hemi Hunter slingshot in yesterday's second race against Mickey Moore. "It doesn't look too bad, I just have to ascertain that the block isn't damaged", said Roy. "I think the marshals will have an extra pair of hands at the next few races though."
Fuel Funny Car racer John Spuffard also stopped by Race Control to let us know that the Showtime team have fixed the high side fuel lever which broke yesterday. "We've fixed it, and we've also made a tool to fix it in the pairing lanes if it breaks again!", said Spuff.
Stay tuned and as soon as things get moving we will let you know.