2004 Excitement Nationals
Sunday (qualifying)
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22:10
Today's pictures are now posted, you can reach them from the Event Index page. As you can see it is pretty late and we have yet to have anything to eat, so tomorrow morning's pit notes may be abbreviated somewhat.
Have a good evening and we'll be back in the morning with all the action from eliminations.
20:45
Here are the top five qualifiers in each class:
Fuel Funny Car
19:15
Steve Woollatt and Steve Carey both contested the second round of Top Fuel Bike qualifying, neither improving on their earlier passes as Steve Woollatt got off and on the throttle, then back on again and off it early to clock 7.637/145.34, whilst Steve Carey sounded to have a misfire recording 8.243/157.62.
John Spuffard came down the pairing lanes to contest the second round of Fuel Funny Car qualifying, only to lose the chance to run when the high side fuel lever broke. There was some good news in the Showtime pit, though, as team member Chris Dossett and his wife Jo became parents again this morning with the birth of Benjamin William who was born at 4:00 this morning. Congratulations to Chris and Jo.
Lindsay Deuchar contested the second round of Top Methanol qualifying and clocked 6.975/197.26 for third place on his first pass after his season out.
Mickey Moore and Roy Wilding matched up again in their Fuel Altered and Supercharged Outlaw slingshot, Mickey pulled a red light on his 7.706/180.48, Roy taking the win 8.702/124.63.
The timing crew are still working on the qualifying standings, stay tuned.
16:40
Pro ET eliminations round one winners: Steve Richards (11.85) 12.657/105.14, Aidan Kenny (11.53) 11.552/116.90 bye, John Atkinson (9.40) 9.479, Wayne Hiscock (10.72), Kev Slyfield (11.58) 11.855/98.64, Ian Brown (10.85) 10.976/111.24, Carla Pitau (10.42) 10.350/131.90, John Morris (11.15) 11.164/120.52, Dave Baldwin (11.60) 11.538/115.67), Brian Huxley (10.80) 10.703/123.33
Stay tuned.
16:00
If you've been keeping up with the webcam you'll have seen that we got going at about 11:45, we have just this moment completed the first cycle of qualifying. Our plan was to take start line pictures during the first qualifying cycle, which we have done, and then to post more regular updates during the second cycle. However with only one hour left to finish a second cycle the decision has been made to stop Sportsman qualifying after cycle one. We will bring you the top five in each class as soon as we receive them but here are some of today's highlights.
Congratulations to Ian Brown who has won the Eurodragster.com/Curbishley Automotive Perfect ET Award with a 10.900 in Super Street qualifying.
Only Gordon Smith turned out for the first session of Fuel Funny Car qualifying. Gordon put in a nice burnout and then put in what looked like a planned sixty foot pass...and just as I type this in walks Gordon Smith who tells us that his throttle cable broke. Gordon clocked 0.95 to sixty feet, and 9.915/86.79, the car sounded very strongly and the nitro flames were clearly visible even in the strong sunlight.
Steve Woollatt leads Top Fuel Bike qualifying with a 7.090/156.83 on his first pass with the new clutch and management system. The bike shot off the line as if fired from a gun so we would guess that the new clutch system is working! Steve Carey is second at 7.667/174.81, a good baseline pass.
Rob Turner leads Top Methanol after the first qualifying session at 6.413/174.18. Rob hit back shake past the Tree but pedalled to get the car back and then backed off early. Second is Doug Bond at 6.528/184.48 with his first pass in a year, almost to the day. Doug Ripley is third at 7.807/166.36 in the CC Racing Funny Car. Trev Capewell made his first pass in the Southern Rebel TMFC, a great burnout and then Trev hit bad shake off the line, taking out the 330 feet and first eighth-mile reflectors. Johnny Helander and Matts De'hn of Leif Helander's team are here and both said "Now Trevor knows how tyre shake is!".
Roger Goring made his first full pass of the year with a 6.357/248.18 in the Firestorm Jet Funny Car, this was officially a checkout pass and we suspect that Roger stayed on it as long as he was happy - which was right to the finish line. Roger eschewed the afterburner slams before the pass and the engine sounded a little soft on launch - all part of the checkout we'd guess.
Mickey Moore in the Mob Fuel Altered lined up against Supercharged Outlaw racer Roy Wilding for a match race, a very entertaining affair it was too, Roy Wilding taking the win at 8.250/156.85 whilst Mickey went out of shape, straightened the altered out, hit the throttle again and crossed lanes as soon as he did so.
Whilst running around getting shots we managed to scribble down some of the leading qualifiers but as mentioned we will give you all the top fives later on.
Super Modified is led by Paul Brooks with an excellent 8.076/168.90, a very consistent run on his PB pass at the Easter Thunderball, nice one Paul. Custom Car Street Eliminator is led by Ian Jackson at 9.064, a lot of the CCSE contingent seemed to have trouble getting off the start line, notably Wayne Saunders who pulled a small wheelie in John Hales' '56 Chevy and then the rear tyres went up in smoke as soon as the front came down. Pulling a big wheelie was Wild Bunch racer Chris Hartnell who pulled a wonderful, prolonged and controlled wheelie in the Backdraft slingshot on his way to a PB of 9.177.
Chris Stebbings leads Supertwin Fuel with an early shut off 9.704/116.19, whilst Funny Bike is led by Neil Midgley with a 7.078/169.80. Midgo was up in Race Control a short while ago and said that the rear tyre was spinning at 200 mph. "The shift light came on in third so I knew I was smoking the tyre or the clutch had gone", he said. Of our overseas visitors, Ronny Aasen clocked a 7.670/171.04 on his first pass of the weekend, whilst Peter Bossert clocked 7.440/188.25.
Super Street Bike is led by Graham Dance at 8.547/172.10, and Comp Bike by Germany's Klaus Brinkmann at 7.868/164.31.
Stay tuned and we will bring you the first round of Pro ET and the top qualifiers as soon as we receive official word.
8:00
Good morning and welcome again from Shakespeare County Raceway for our coverage of day two of the 2004 Excitement Nationals in association with American Car Imports. Right now it's a misty morning, 12.0 C and 83% humidity on the start line, air pressure 29.85 inches. The weather people tell us that the mist will be burnt off within quite short order and then we will have a sunny and warm day.
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.
After we signed off last night we had dinner and then went for a turn around the pits. With the weather so unpleasant a lot of pits were understandably buttoned up against the elements or deserted but we found some racers to speak to. Here's what we found out.
Top Fuel Bike racer Steve Carey said that he and his team are pleased with their progress so far, most recently his victory at the Easter Thunderball. "People respect us for what we've done", he said. "It was a big step into the low sevens at the Thunderball, and the bike should run sixes as it is". Steve is set to appear at the Speedfreaks Ball next weekend, then the BMF show in Peterborough on behalf of Santa Pod, the Power Nationals back here at Shakespeare County, and then more shows. Steve told us that he had not made any changes to the bike since the Thunderball, but that he was considering removing the fairing on the front of the bike. "I think I could tuck further down without it", he said, "I think that maybe I am not sitting quite right because the fairing is there".
2003 ACU Top Fuel Bike Champion Steve Woollatt now has a new clutch and clutch management system on his 6.4-second bike. "It has a whole bank of electric bits and it makes a lot of nice noise when you trigger it!", he said. "I must say thanks to Wayne Schreier for his help, he was helping us with the wiring on Friday and yesterday. The new clutch works in the shop, so now it has to work on the track."
Super Street Bike racer Matt Nixon told us that he had a hairy moment at the Thunderball after his throttle stuck open. "Nothing I tried worked", he said. "I turned the nitrous off and it kept going, and it was going over 160 miles an hour before that. Eventually I hit front brake gently and the bike tried to slide over, I yanked it back upright and off it went again. Eventually I pulled the lanyard, which meant letting go of the handlebar, which you don't really want to do at that speed, and I came off the bike. The safety crew were right there but I was OK. It really wasn't a good weekend, I also had a huge wheelie, two fires, the exhaust came off at the finish line - with that sort of luck I was scared to drive home!"
A couple of pits along is Steve Venables with his new Super Street bike whose paint is now finished and which looks very nice indeed. Steve was happy with his first outing at last weekend's WRE Test Day although it had its moments. "Last week I ran with no boost", he said. "It started to produce real boost at the finish line and I wheelied past the fire crew! It did a Pro Stock start at 160 miles an hour!". Steve asked us to say thank you to Graham Balchin of Tracecraft. "I couldn't do this without Graham", he said. Steve also asked us to mention that his previous SSB is for sale, if you are interested then pay Steve a visit at the track.
Fellow Super Street Bike racer Graham Dance took a moment out from recounting Mark Pointer's Bacardi Evening with David Warren last weekend to tell us that he was a little frustrated after yesterday's rain. "The bike is sitting there ready to go, and I think if the track is there the bike will run a seven", he said. "We're just waiting for the track and the weather."
National Association of Supertwins Chair Don Irvine told us that his son Andrew needed a new bike this season because Andrew won't stop growing. The new bike looks very nice indeed in its black flamed paint. "I am very proud of Andrew because he disassembled about eighty per cent of the old bike, and assembled as much of the new bike", said Don. "He broke his personal bests at the Test and Tune recently so that was a good start!"
Custom Car Street Eliminator racer John Sleath's new 1990 Audi Coupe race car is almost ready to appear, he told us. "It's 'finished', I just have to put it back together", said John. "Basically it has the same running gear, I have changed the supercharger layout and I now have two radiators. It's really trick and if it works then it will run with anything in the class". John has just finished painting the car Audi Racing green, although he modestly insisted that he was not a painter. "The choice was to pay three grand or to buy three hundred pounds' worth of paint and do it myself", he said. "In the end, when you've hit the guardrail the paint isn't that important!"
When we met Super Modified racer Andy Hone, he was wondering aloud how he could record higher terminal speeds on fifty one less horsepower. "Steve Rawlings is deeply missed", Fred told us over very tasty lamb kebabs. "We're looking forward to seeing him with a Lenco changing lanes every gear shift! "As for us, we made the most of the bad weather sorting out a transmission issue, we had no reverse. It got too late in the day to fire it up and check it so we'll see how it goes in the morning". Crew Chief Mick Coombs added that the good thing is he and Fred found the problem and fixed it. "That's better than not knowing what it was!". Last time the Gleeson Wright-sponsored Scorpio was at Shakespeare County, Mick was driving and won his class. "I won backing off and now we want to speed it up again!", he said. "Can I say a big thank you to Dave Day for parts", said Fred - consider it done.
We are scheduled to start at 10:00 this morning, stay tuned and we'll bring you all the news.