More sevens.

We have just got back from yet another rain affected but otherwise great weekend of drag racing.

The weather was perfect on Saturday and we all ran the scheduled 3 qualifying passes.
Comp bike was joined this weekend by Lizz McCarthy who had been intending to run comp bike for a very long time indeed and finally made it! Plus 8.50 racer Jemma Venables made the swap to comp bike at the last minute too, which made it a nice 8 bike field.
The first qualifying run was a bit of a surprise for us as the bike spluttered and misfired just before mid track and took a moment to recover but the time came up and it was our second run into the sevens and a new personal best, a 7.92.  Here's a good slow motion video of that run, you can see just how the misfire upsets the chassis, at one point the back wheel leaves the floor completely:

The 2nd run started off really well, i was convinced it was going to be a fast one, but just after half track the front end started to feel loose and the bike began to drift left necessitating rolling the throttle. The timing data did indeed show the first half of our best run to date, with a 1.21 60ft and our first ever 4 second half track time. Oh what could have been!

Thanks to Warpspeed racing for having this trick new slider hat ready too!

The third pass was quite similar really, left well - another 4 sec 660ft but at about that point the bike lost a whole chunk of power and felt as though the nitrous has switched itself off. Back in the pits the data from the Racepak confirmed that the Nitrous had indeed switched off 4.5 seconds into the run. The cause could not be traced (just like old days i thought) so i resorted to changing the relay and the switch.

We were qualified 3rd, with Harold Wolfenden in second with a much more on form 7.8, and newcomer to the class Jemma Venables in First with a 7.7.
The pairings for the first round then were:
Jemma Venables vs Paul Wing, Jemma won with a 7.8 vs Pauls 9.5
Harold Wolfenden vs Nick Milburn, Harold won with a 7.7 PB vs Nicks 8.6
Tony Clark vs Phil Leamon, Tony took the win with an 8.0 vs Phils 8.2
We should have raced Lizz McCarthy but she had some small engine damage and so we had a bye run. We used it as a test to make sure the nitrous worked properly, but we made no other changes. It was a good straight run and our best so far, a great 7.878 @ 164.86mph. Plus there's room for improvement - i short shifted into 4th by mistake and the 60ft wasn't as good as some of the other runs.
That was all the racing we got however as it started to rain and once again the meeting was called off.
In the ACU championship the points have reached an interesting situation:
Harold Wolfenden now leads with 1140 points
Phil Leamon has dropped to 2nd place after going out in the first round and has 1120 points
And we are still in 3rd place but the gap has narrowed and we have 1050 points
This means that so long as the event happens without weather intervention, then anyone could win it.

The reward? Free entry to all next years events!

Thanks to Sam for taking all these shots and more - you can find many more pictures of Comp bike and other classes on her photobucket page HERE

The next race is the Extreme Bike weekend at Santa Pod in just 2 weeks time.

National Finals preview

So, whats been happening? I've not really touched the bike since the last race, i put it away and covered it up and thats about it. In fact i've not been to the cellar much as we've been rather busy trying to find a replacement van, after our transit (not the race van) was written off when we were involved a motorway pile up a few weeks ago.

Trying to find a decent van is a spirit crushing experience. 99% of all the vans for sale are being sold by dodgy back street, or no street dealers, who think it's ok to spray white paint over the rust and add a grand to the asking price. After numerous trips to look at vehicles and a mammoth trip on Saturday we came home empty handed. I switched my computer on, went on ebay, searched for newly listed vans and unbelievably, there's a transit van, just down the road, listed 15 mins ago, private seller low miles, full history, called him went and looked at it and bought it, 45 mins after it was listed. Phew. I can get back to obsessing about dragbikes once again.

This coming weekend is the 5th and penultimate race of the year - the National Finals at Santa Pod Raceway. Entries in comp bike are up slightly, but there's no entry from Alan Davies, which is a shame as he would have made it a complete 8 bike field, plus he looked to have cured earlier problems with his bike.
There are 7 entries then, and they are as follows:
                             
2      Harold Wolfenden     Suzuki Hayabusa        1299cc
3      Philip Leamon           Suzuki GXXR 750     1290cc
4      Phil Crossley             Suzuki GSX                1500cc
8      Nick Milburn             Suzuki GSXR             1400cc
9      Tony Clark                Suzuki GSXR 1100     1500cc
11    Paul Wing                 Suzuki EFE                 1327cc
22    Lizz McCarthy          Suzuki GSX                1428cc

This time the hardworking folks at eurodragster.com will be present, and both the Webcam and Nitro FM stream will be available. Plus of course the Pit notes, live reports and end of day galleries. Much better than our own - fairly minimal coverage provided at the last round!

All the links can be found here: http://www.eurodragster.com/santapod/live/2012vpracingfuelsnationalfinals/default.asp

We've had a slight technical hitch with Nitrous supply at the minute, we sent our big bottle to be filled, were charged £64 for the privilege and after collecting it, found the bottle to be completely empty! So an alternative refill station has been found on the way to the Pod and we will hopefully actually get some nitrous in it this time.